Nova-T-500 blue screens

[Obsidian]

Hi

I'm posting this here, partly as a last hope that I might work out a solution to my problem, and partly as a warning about the stability of the Nova-T-500.

My card was working great, up until a couple of weeks ago. I upgraded my power supply to a Seasonic (for better effciency and a quieter fan), and at the same time I removed a CD drive from the machine which was no longer needed. How could this possibly be relevant to your TV card I hear you ask? Well, ever since I did this I have been getting regular BSODs while recording, with the error "Driver_IRQL_less_than_or_equal", and a reference to USBEHCI.SYS.

I have done my research on this problem. I have contacted Hauppauge, and I am still awaiting a response. There is a thread over on the hauppauge forums, which shows that this is a problem affecting a significant number of people, http://www.hauppauge.co.uk/board/showthread.php?t=9888. I can only assume that it is a problem with IRQ conflicts, although some people claim to have experienced this error even when there are no reported conflicts. Basically this card seems to have some serious stability issues on certain setups.

So, does anyone have anything they can suggest for me to try? This is one of the most frustrating problems I have come across in my time of working with computers!

[martint123]

Having had 30 odd years in the computer game, I'd have to add to what was suggested in the Hauppauge thread.

I've learnt, and been told, to ask "what's changed" before all else. I'd seriously try to get the old PSU back in and maybe the CD. Even though it sounds unlikely, the fact that you changed something and then it went wrong has to be a reason to try moving it back to how it was.

I've come across PSU's that were vastly over-rated and there was insufficient load on them to get the regulators running properly and this lets noise and ripple onto the outputs.

I think you have to start there I'm afraid.

Martin

[herbs]

I'm betting you have a via chipset? The nova-t 500 are basically usb devices on a pci board. I have a seasonic psu too (rather good in my view) and a usb2 nova-t that worked fine for some time then randomly BSOD. With the fact you have a seasonic it might be related, I had a different psu in the beginning which if memory serves correctly didn't BSOD but I also had a different mobo too (its been a few years since I got the nova-t usb2). The way I over came my random BSOD was to use a hub and I haven't had a crash or a bad recording since in the last two weeks. But obviously you cannot do this. Other than trying your old psu to see if it becomes stable again I don't know what to suggest.

[Obsidian]

Thanks for the replies guys. Herbs, you are correct in saying that I have a VIA chipset, although the problem has been reported on motherboards with other chipsets. Can I ask if the hub is powered? That might be another indicator that it is issues with power supplies which cause this fault.

A lot of things seem to be pointing to the PSU, so I will put my old one back in with at least some optimism that it might fix the problem. Martin, your post is the first plausible explanation I have heard for a PSU causing such a fault, which helps me to believe in fixing it this way!

[Obsidian]

Well, on your advice I replaced the PSU last night. It has now been recording constantly for over 12 hours without a BSOD, which is way longer than it had prevously been managing! Very odd indeed.

I'm going to try and get the Seasonic RMA'd, but I must admit I'm not optimistic that a replacement of the same model will be any better. I'm going to try and get hold of a Kill-a-watt, and work out what draw my system has, then I might get an appropriately rated (maybe fanless) PSU.

[stustunz]

one other thing to check is that all your connections are good
unplug everthing and plug it all back in sometimes that can cause random things to happen
you didnt change the slot you had the card plugged into did you ?
but like martin said look at what you have changed

[herbs]

Thanks for the replies guys. Herbs, you are correct in saying that I have a VIA chipset, although the problem has been reported on motherboards with other chipsets. Can I ask if the hub is powered? That might be another indicator that it is issues with power supplies which cause this fault.

A lot of things seem to be pointing to the PSU, so I will put my old one back in with at least some optimism that it might fix the problem. Martin, your post is the first plausible explanation I have heard for a PSU causing such a fault, which helps me to believe in fixing it this way!

Yep the hub is powered, I wouldn't dare try without as its a cheapo hub. It might seem to be an issue with certain psu's and via chipsets? Mind you i do remember reading other users with different chipsets are having issues. Does your older psu have aFC? and are you using a UPS or surge protector? (http://www.bleedinedge.com/guides/psu_se...t_03.html). I know the seasonics have aPF, just there seems to many variables involved.

[Obsidian]

Arrggghhh. Just got home from work, to find a blue screen. Very frustrating, so it turns out that it isn't the PSU after all.

About to put the CD-drive back in, at which point I'm back to my original configuration.

[Obsidian]

From the message I just posted on the Hauppauge boards:

Right, I've done some fairly extensive research now, and these are my (bizarre) findings.
When using my new PSU, I get very frequent blue screens. This seems to be regardless of the other hardware setup.

When using my old PSU, blue screens are very rare. In fact, having replaced the CD-Drive I took out, I am yet to experience a single blue screen (this includes 36 hours of constant recording on both tuners).

In other words, this problem does seem to be related to the PSU. However, the hardware seems to make a difference as well (i.e. with the CD-Drive in I don't seem to get blue screens, but without I still get them).

Can anyone make any sense of this?

[martint123]

Try a second hard drive instead of the CD - probably just the power lead.
I'm back to thinking of load on the PSU - possibly the 12v lines.
Have you got or got access to a scope to look at the power lines?

Martin