Intermittent motion blur

[keith_leitch]

I'd be curious to see what adventures might result from installing a new motherboard.

Tivo doesn't stream American, British and Canadian TV stations live over the net. That's the main reason I use GBPVR; I actually have a commercial PVR also. That's why I wish I'd just ignored the motion blur; I was being a perfectionist.

I've manually copied the original registry files into place. Windows has started into safe mode so that I can complete a manual registry restore from the ASR database. However, it is waiting for me to click "Yes" to confirm that I really want safe mode (because I am obviously an idiot for asking for it), and I cannot activate a mouse to do so. Perhaps I will dig out a PS2 ball mouse to see what happens, but if anyone has a way around this ridiculous problem, I'd welcome the solution. (Apparently I can't navigate that screen with a keyboard, either).

Also, I will get back to the point, eventually, that I am trying to reinstall the video card drivers. For when I get there, any ideas what caused the dead CCC or the black screen?

Finally, an old problem that had gone away has resurfaced. Every time I start up or restart, the O/S menu displays with one option (Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition). I'm sure I can figure out how to turn this off, but last time I had the problem turning it off would prevent my system from booting at all. This made it impossible to do automatic resarts, which HTPCs need in abundance. Then, one day, the problem just...went away.

I'm assming that Windows is misidentifying itself as the second operating system, with no "first" O/S available. Any idea how to correct this?

By the way, the PS2 mouse did the trick. I'm in safe mode and on my way to glory!

[hoborg]

@keith_leitch:

...Put installation CD in to trash, it is useless
All you need is download ATI drivers from ATI pages (including CCC). Only one exexutable, do not install any AVIVO and other crap, this will only mess you system.

What GPU do you have?

Correct way is - remove all ati stuff, restart, install ATI drivers - restart.

[keith_leitch]

Yup, did all that, from the 9-12 driver download. Did it three times. All I have to show for it is a corrupt registry. Even my many restore points have mysteriously vanished. This really sucks. Never install new hardware.

[JonnyCam]

Every time I start up or restart, the O/S menu displays with one option (Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition). I'm sure I can figure out how to turn this off, but last time I had the problem turning it off would prevent my system from booting at all.

Go into control panel, system, advanced, Startup & Recovery Settings.
Set the default operating system, and the amount of time the list displays for before going into default.
You can also edit the file from there, which allows you to see any mysterious "first" OS.

Tivo doesn't stream American, British and Canadian TV stations live over the net. That's the main reason I use GBPVR; I actually have a commercial PVR also. That's why I wish I'd just ignored the motion blur; I was being a perfectionist.

Maybe a PCH client would do what you wanted
I know, not more toys to buy, but the playback is pretty great, and it allows you to use web services to stream videos as well. (not sure for your particular stations, but I think you can build your own)

[BigMoose]

I think at this point I'd sod it and start again. Format, reinstall windows, with the new card in place (what is it out of interest? Assume it's PCIe and not AGP?), down load the 9.12 ATI software and once that's OK install GBPVR (perhaps wise to back up your gbpvr directory and any recordings/videos you care about if you have managed to get to safe mode. Actually, you said you had a separate disk for the OS? Then backup the gbpvr directory under program files and any EPG config you have on the OS disk and then format that disk and start again with windows.) I have never had such issues swapping cards, but once my system, drivers, codecs get in that state it always seems less painful to feck it and start again. This time after installing GBPVR and restoring your database and perhaps the config.xml just install the SAF pack without any other codecs and see how you get on.

[keith_leitch]

once my system, drivers, codecs get in that state it always seems less painful to feck it and start again.

I understand what you are saying, but I have worked for over a year to build a system that seamlessly streams live overseas commercial television from the Internet. You might wonder why I don't have a backup...I actually do (though I admit it is from October), but guess what device failed today three seconds after I plugged it in?

Another problem I've got is getting USB devices to wake up in Safe Mode...thus data backups are even more problematic.

I am trying very hard to get to a point where I can run the corrupt registry hive through regedit, in the hopes it does a repair. I was going to copy the hives from one of my many system restore points, but as part of the conspiracy, they are all gone, too.

The new card (a.k.a. the culprit) is a Radeon 4350...yes, PCIe.

I really appreciate you responding. It's nice just to have the "company"; my wife has holed up in the other room.

[BigMoose]

I undersdand your pain and your wife's "disapproval" only too well!! Although I have to say you seem to have been hit by far more nightmares than is fair in one go!

I dont know about using GBPVR for streaming TV off the net (although sounds interesting) but I've always found that once I've got it stable, keeping the entire directory means it's easy to dump it back again after reinstalling windows and everything else. Only problem is that there's always something I forget to backup (last time was XMLTVGUI and my EPG which was bloody annoying when I realised!) or something quirky that doesn't quite work as it used to and you cant remember for the life of you where you got the driver from... But still, I cant imagine fixing a b*ggered up windows install is much fun either and ultimately with windows, I'd prefer it clean and new as at least you know where you stand there!

The only reason I asked about the AGP/PCIe was I just built an old machine with an AGP HD2600XT with XP and it had the issue where CCC ran and died. Turned out the driver that came with the ATI download failed to install as it wasn't singed, but the wizard gave you no option to sort that out. You had to manually update the driver from the control panel, accept the fact that it wasn't signed, then CCC ran fine. But I assumed this was an AGP "hot fix" driver only issue as I've never had that with either my HD4600 PCIe or the on board HD3200.

[keith_leitch]

Does anyone know which Catalyst version is best for the 4000 series (4350, to be precise). I have tried it with whatever was on the CD, and also with 9-12 (the latest), and, as you have seen, they may have gotten me into a mess.

It looks like I am making some progress. I accessed the registry using the System Recovery console, and made copies of it out of WINDOWS/SYSTEM32/CONFIG. When I discovered that I couldn't rob from a system restore point because all of them were missing, I then copied the installation registry into place and rebooted into safe mode. There, I ran REGEDIT and loaded the copies of the corrupt registry hives into it using different key names. REGEDIT found a problem in the SYSTEM hive, and did something to repair it; the result was that there was no Current Control Set afterward. I then exported each of the hives to a new "recovered" folder, went back to the system recovery console, copied them into the WINDOWS/SYSTEM32/CONFIG folder and rebooted. As before, I couldn't see anything, but I heard the Windows music playing and all the telltale "pops" that I've come to love so well.

By the way, the key sequence to shut down an XP computer blind is WINDOWS-U-RIGHTARROW-ENTER. Wish I'd taken the trouble to figure that out earlier.

That allowed me to start back into safe mode and remove Catalyst and the ATI driver. I then restarted normally, and the system seems to know about my remote control, etc. Now I want to reinstall the video card, but I want to do it RIGHT.

I know you must all think I'm an idiot, but I'm telling you all this so that you know there are DIFFERENT KINDS of idiots; the kind who know too little, and the kind who know a little too much. Actually, I'd like to post these instructions for others somewhere, as I would have benefitted from finding them myself. Anyone suggest a forum?

[keith_leitch]

Go into control panel, system, advanced, Startup & Recovery Settings.
Set the default operating system, and the amount of time the list displays for before going into default.
You can also edit the file from there, which allows you to see any mysterious "first" OS.

Thanks, that seems to have worked. There was actually a blank line in place of the first o/s. I guess that file must have been corrupted and replaced by Windows last time around, when everything started working again.

Ah, I so fondly remember my TRS-80.

[keith_leitch]

I have clawed my way back to where I was eight hours ago; I install the Catalyst Control Centre software and the driver, but it won't run after a reboot. It sits in the task list for about 15 seconds, then unloads itself. I'm convinced that if I could solve that, I could configure the adapter.