Sudden "video slowdown"

[keith_leitch]

I now have to enter standby DURING the boot-up. I have to time it so that I am hitting the power switch (BIOS defaults to standby) sometime very quickly after the splash screen, during the desktop load, then bring it back out of standby immediately. Wow. This is becoming a full-time job.

Anyway, I finally managed to try some video with the machine having been on only about 30 minutes. Interesting results. The menus seemed to behave more normally, without the "jerkiness", and the a/v synch was fine. However, the motion-blur and "interlace" lines were still a problem, and never have been before.

I then checked the decoders: "Intervideo" and "AC3 Filter". The only thing set to "System Default" was the audio renderer, which I changed to "HD Rear Audio Output". I tried a couple of others, also, with no effect.

I have now tried disabling a lot of things in the startup, and rebooted. If I can coax it to communicate with me again, I will see whether they are messing things up.

Disabling these items has created a faster boot-up, but had no effect on the video quality. Let's try this: If I were installing from scratch, what codec packs, decoders and renderers would I use to achieve quality playback from TS MUX?

[keith_leitch]

One last thing: I noticed that the poor A/V sync has returned, along with the jerky menus. I'm not sure whether this is due to a little more "heat", or the fact that I (purposely) entered and returned from standby.

Is there anything to be gained from reinstalling GB-PVR?

[rookie]

One last thing: I noticed that the poor A/V sync has returned, along with the jerky menus. I'm not sure whether this is due to a little more "heat", or the fact that I (purposely) entered and returned from standby.

Is there anything to be gained from reinstalling GB-PVR?

Have you tried monitoring the video card? GPU-Z has some monitoring or Nvidia has some tools too:

[INDENT]http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/[/INDENT]

You might check the latency of the system, but it kind of sounds like a heat problem or failing hardware:

[INDENT]http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml[/INDENT]

Do other video play back tools work like VLC or MPC-HC?

[gEd]

hoborg's SAF codec pack for gbpvr / mediaportal works very well for me and others as an a high quality all in one solution. (see his sig further up). there is a long post somewhere in the forum about this codec pack.

[hoborg]

Thanks, Rookie and gED. Yes, I have been meaning to try that codec pack, but got distracted by these two problems. Sadly, I am starting to resign myself to the fact that my video hardware is likely failing. I will try some of the monitoring tools you have suggested. Can anyone recommend a solid PCIe HDMI replacement card? A simultaneous S-Video or Composite output would also be well-received.

ATI HD4550 (fanless)

[Graham]

I found this to be helpful with heat and fans and all that ...

http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

[keith_leitch]

You guys aren't going to believe this: Whenever I load ATI's Catalyst Control Centre, the video problem occurs. Whenever I don't load it, it does not. This fits with the msconfig solution as well, because one of the problems loading automatically, which I nixed, was CCC module CLIStart.

However, once I load the software, that is it: bad video until the next restart. Even killing the process does nothing to restore a smooth PVRx2 interface.

(Here is another thing I don't know: Why did it suddenly start behaving this way after all this time?)

This presents a new kind of problem for me, as CCC is pretty much the only means by which I can recover from the "blank screen" syndrome. I am using a composite video output to monitor the "blanked" workstation, and using CCC from there to restore the HD monitor. Once I do that, though, that's it for smooth video.

[keith_leitch]

You could have a look in device manager to see if you have any HD audio drivers installed (ATI/Microsoft/other) If so try disabling them and see if it helps.

Hmmm...sorry if this is a dumb question, but wouldn't that prevent me from listening to HD audio? I will try it tonight, at least as an experiment.

[gEd]

It sounds like you might have progressed past this but in case it helps, there was a microsoft update two or three days ago that caused problems with blank screens, affecting XP and windows 7. I had a problem myself and had to use a windows restore point. I'm sure you can google the details if you think it is warranted. There was a piece about it on BBC news online if that is not against your religion, down under :p

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8388253.stm
The firm said that the behaviour was associated with malware, such as Daonol, and that this was probably the root cause.

Keith: can you describe you problem again from a cold boot as after all the posts on overheating, new power supplies, motherboard lights, I can;t visualise the precise problem (or 2) that you are having.

Have you thought about doing a clean install of windows and gbpvr?

[keith_leitch]

Keith: can you describe you problem again from a cold boot as after all the posts on overheating, new power supplies, motherboard lights, I can;t visualise the precise problem (or 2) that you are having.

Have you thought about doing a clean install of windows and gbpvr?

I have thought about reinstalling. Always preferable to avoid it, particularly with the many procedures I've written to stream through Graphrecorder. I did a reinstall only about a month ago, and it's taken me almost until now to set the details right again.

Good point about all the red herrings in my posts. I will go through and delete or edit those once I have posted this. Here is a synopsis of the problem as it stands right now:

- When I reboot with all drivers and startup files loading, ATI's CLIStart.exe (a component of the Catalyst Control Centre) runs. This causes my video to slow down, jerk and display unacceptable artefacts, as well as causing the A/V sync to go way off.

- When I use MSConfig to remove all traces of Catalyst Control Centre from the startup, this problem goes away.

- If I run any component of CCC, the problem returns to PVRx2.

- I cannot eliminate the problem by stopping the CCC process. Once I have run it, the problem is there until I restart.


This may sound like a virus or malware, and it may be, but scans on those directories by AVG and Spybot do not produce any critical problems. Having said that, I have been using CCC all along, and this problem only began on Monday.

The reason I cannot abandon CCC is because of the problem described in detail here: http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?t=44721. Essentially:

- Whenever I change to a ProScan resolution, my screen blanks.

- This includes a change of resolution from "BIOS standard" (800x600) to 1080p; in other words, it happens every time I start or restart.

- Entering and exiting standby sometimes fixes this.

- When it does not, I must use a composite output (which I set up for this purpose) to run CCC and add an HDTV monitor.