Sluggish Channel Change

[LitlJay]

I am a brand new convert from MediaPortal. I've done little more than tinker so far, but I am very impressed. System basics are: Athlon XP 3000+, 1 GB RAM, nForce3 mobo, Ralink 802.11G WiFi, Radeon HD 3450 AGP/HDMI, WD 300 GB SATA HDD, Hauppauge HVR-1600 (using clear QAM), and XP SP3.

Everything seems to be working perfectly, but every time I start live TV or try to change channels, it takes anywhere from 30 seconds to 4 minutes to do! Once the playback finally starts it is perfect and watchable. Just the changes are absurdly sluggish.

Is there anything I can do to improve this?

TIA,

J

[Reddwarf]

More RAM! 1Gb is barely enough for windows itself and leaves nothing for applications and result is a lot of paging to the swapfile. You should have at least 2Gb.

[Jaggy]

Think back to XP days.... I used to see systems with only 128Mb, OK that wasn't enough for anything but 256Mb worked fine for a lot of things so 1Gb RAM is heaps for XP.... I don't suspect that has anything at all to do with slow channel changing.

I do seem to remember a thread not all that long ago discussing this but I can't remember the outcome but I do remember sub posting some times he gets for channel changes...., so it might be worth trying a search.

[Reddwarf]

Think back to XP days.... I used to see systems with only 128Mb, OK that wasn't enough for anything but 256Mb worked fine for a lot of things so 1Gb RAM is heaps for XP.... I don't suspect that has anything at all to do with slow channel changing.

I do seem to remember a thread not all that long ago discussing this but I can't remember the outcome but I do remember sub posting some times he gets for channel changes...., so it might be worth trying a search.

I'm not all sure you'r correct, my wife's computer runs XP and was VERY slow with only 1Gb, things got a lot smoother when it got one more gig. However, thinking of it 4 minutes to change channel is probably not XP's fault. There was something about using Haupp. remote and slow channel changing in a thread some time ago?

[jki]

In my case, the reason was ffdshow decoder. With other decoder channel changed normally.

[LitlJay]

1G is easily more than enough for the OS. I even have a dedicated partition for the paging file and it is not being taxed very hard.

I am using ffdshow for everything EXCEPT TV, so I doubt the problem lies there, but I won't discount it entirely.

Any help finding that recent thread about problems with a Hauppauge tuner would be awesome.

Thanks, and keep the input coming.

J

[jcjefferies]

I am running the same AMD processor on my server and 1GB RAM is plenty to run a dedicated NPVR computer under XP. My server has 300MB free and my client has 460MB free during playback. Both originally had 2GB but I reduced it to 1GB as it was not being used. I did used a "Startup Manager" to remove some unnecessary junk which is loaded into memory at boot time which heps a little. Its only when you run multiple copies of a web browser or Office documents that the extra RAM is needed for general use.

All versions of Windows slow down with time and need a clean install after about a year. I remember around 10 years ago reinstalling NT4 at work for someone and he was convinced I had given him a new computer it was so much faster. Last year my sister in law was using a computer which took 20 to boot up and adding 1GB ram only helped a little. I dont think I have ever gome more than 9 months without reinstalling my general use computer.

[LitlJay]

The windows rot was so bad back in the days of 9x that I used to advise people to reinstall the OS monthly just to maintain stability! Nowadays I recommend a fresh reinstall every 6 months to a year to keep the windows rot in check. A few years ago I used an IBM Thinkpad 600E with a PII400 and 288 MB of PC100 to run XP Pro and AutoCAD while I sat in an IHOP for weeks on end and designed a house, all without a single issue. 1G of RAM is just fine.

Before my thread gets completely hijacked by a debate about system requirements, let me get it back on track with a new development: CHANNEL CHANGES TOTALLY HANG THE PROGRAM NOW. I can right click->exit, restart the interface, and tune the channel that I want via the guide, but then another attempt at changing the channel will hang indefinitely.

Any new ideas? I have made a cursory search and failed to find the old thread referenced above. Some clues from it or a link to it would be appreciated!

J

[Reddwarf]

I'v run the same installation of Windows for more than two years without trouble. BUT, you need to defragment the C-drive regularly, and preferably with a better tool than windows' own defragmenter (Defraggler works fairly good). And you'll also need to maintain registry integrity with some tool.

[LitlJay]

I'v run the same installation of Windows for more than two years without trouble. BUT, you need to defragment the C-drive regularly, and preferably with a better tool than windows' own defragmenter (Defraggler works fairly good). And you'll also need to maintain registry integrity with some tool.

I suspect that this is why you are under the impression that XP requires one to two gigs of RAM to run properly. While I do endorse daily use of Defraggler, I strongly recommend a reinstall and you will be amazed.

Now we can all speak with authority toward the lividity of the horse that is my HTPC's meeting XP's minimum specifications. Let's drop that subject before it further hijacks my thread.

This is also a fresh install of XP that was defraggled before and after NPVR was installed, so windows rot and file fragmentation can be confidently eliminated as causes.

Let's try to stay focused on my problem and other possible causes that I can test.

J