PVRX2 cooking multiple vid cards w/VMR9

[computerology]

*EDIT* Note in my latest post below that I realized it has nothing to do with VMR9... I switched to Overlay and had the same thing happen to a third card



Ok so I finally noticed that this probelm is since PVRX2. I had set up first PowerCinema originally, then GBPVR on my HTPC set up in my living room. I started with a ATI 9250XT 128M and the system worked great for 2 years straight.

This configuration had the SVIDEO out to the TV and the VGA plugged into an Epson PJ

Somewhere after PVRX2, my ATI card started acting funny and it seemed like a heating issue, as it would go away if the machine was off for a while, only to return in an hour or two. Eventuall, the 9250XT overcooked and had to be replaced.

Being an AGP bus I had an extra Nvidia Ti4200 VIVO, I swapped the cards and the system worked well. The Ti didn't do overlay on both monitors so I stopped using the TV and opted to only use the projector. After about four months, the Ti4200 cooked so bad it wouldn't display output video. When I took the card out the fan and heatshield were literally melted.

I found this odd, because the Ti4200 was a really reliable card. I pushed the hell out of that card when I used it in my main machine, and it took the heat fine (running 3d games at 92fps at 1280x1024).

So I had a problem. My HTPC, which only runs TV and is actually not in use most of the time, was blowing cards like it went out of style. Now this happened during a cold winter, and I dont keep the heat cranked. Actually the Ti4200 blew when for a spell I didnt have natural gas because it was disconnected (dont ask, some girls are just better left a mystery, lets put it that way) and the house was regularly at 6 degrees C.

Upon doing some thinking back I realize that I had upgraded everything to the VMR9 renderer along with the recent PVRX2 upgrade, I had a bit of a choppy video problem since I upgraded to the new one. Since then 2 vid cards.

I put in a third card, a ATI Radeon 9600SE, which is what is in there now. Because I'm only using the projector, and its bright sunshine outside, I was remotely installing the driver. Either due to a driver bug, or quirk with the card, I could now not see any PVRX2 output using LogMeIn. I could before. But I noticed that the CPU load was at 100%. Thinking it was a glitch with PVRX2 after swapping vid cards, I killed it and tried Overlay. This, when idle, had the CPU at a much nicer 1% load including all background services.

This got me to thinking - was it my switch to VMR9, with the machine running 24/7 sitting on a VMR9 screen, even when idle, that was cooking my cards?

An expensive experiment might tell the tale. I am on my third vidcard in this box in the past 9 months now, so I'm not about to try it again to find out.

Anyone have any theories, ideas on this?

[pBS]

it's the remote control app + vmr9 that's working them so hard...
if there are any settings for logmein, set it to not use any acceleration..

but really i'd suggest another remote software as it isn't the best performing, and isn't rel secure either... try vnc...i use ultravnc...it's free and one of the oldest remote softwares around...[lots of folks around here use it also]

your card should handle any pressure put on it if it isn't overclocked..or the heatsink if inferior...the TI card does run pretty warm new, and even 30$ cards can beat it in games nowdays...tho agp is gettin harder to find...i'm running a agp ati hd3450.. really excellent for tv duties and fairly cool as most of them don't even have a fan..

[computerology]

the LogMeIn was rarely if ever running. Plus I could see LMI working the CPU to the max but not much on the vidcard side; LMI installs its own display driver to handle output compression. I only really used LMI to administer the box, or to tell it to play music when it was too bright outside to use the projector or when I didn't want to waste bulb time.

What blows me away is the cooking of two different cards. The 9250XT was heatsink only, no fan. It lasted almost two years, but died quickly after switching to VMR9 custom. The Ti4200 I couldn't beleive how hot it must have gotten, I've never seen a fan assembly totally warp like that, the thing must have been running super hot.

Anyone have any GPU load stats on VMR9 vs. overlay? I'm trying to look for it to no avail. I'm using an ATI Theatre 550 Pro card, I would have thought that at the very least, when watching live TV, ATI<>ATI WDM would be less resource intensive.

[computerology]

well its not VMR9...

Now the ATI Radeon 9600SE is cooked, showing artifacts in the video signal. I was using Overlay exclusively since installing the card because I *thought* I had it figured out.

I even popped one of the panels off the case (I have the minitower on it's side and I popped the top panel off to increase the airflow).

Three vidcards in four months? I've never seen anything like this before. Considering the machine is idle over 90% of the time too, I just like to turn on the projector and then watch for a few hours, then turn off the projector and I return PVRX2 to the main menu and it sits idle, other than recordings.

Anyone have any ideas? This is getting expensive.

[HtV]

Too high voltage from the mainboard? Maybe you can see that in the bios.

[sub]

I dont think this anything to do with PVRX2, otherwise we'd be having lot of people reporting the same problem. At the end of the day, PVRX2 is just an app that uses the Microsoft API, it can expect this stuff will not damage your PC. I'm guessing either your PC doesnt have enough cooling, or like HtV suggests, maybe some voltage issue.

I've used a few cards with GB-PVR over the six years (incl a 9250 like yours), but none of them have died an early death. They've eventually been replace with better cards.