HDPVR died - Has this happened to anyone else?

[ElihuRozen]

After a year and half of usage, my HDPVR seems to have died. Windows says something like unrecognized USB device. The Hauppauge device driver install says it can't find the correct device in the system. I tried different USB cables. I tried different USB ports including ones from the motherboard & one from a USB 5 port card. I instaled Windows 7 on a machine that had been XP. I tried on my laptop. Same problem.

Has anybody else seen this & been able to fix it? It seems like it happened during a recording.

[mvallevand]

Does it have power? SageTV users are reporting a problem with capacitors http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=57322 too common in the electronics industry.

Martin

[mikeh49]

Looks like the standard capacitor problem. For the h*** of it, I just replaced the bad caps on an old Geforce 6200 card with ones I removed from an even older MB. Wasn't too bad and I am far from an expert solderer and don't have a real soldering station. Works fine so far. See this for more:

http://www.badcaps.net/forum/index.php

[ElihuRozen]

Thanks fro the ideas.

When I get home tonight I will try to find a matching power supply. It does get some power, since the PC recognizes when I turn it on, but doesn't know what it is. I do have some old D-link equipment as mentioned in one those links.

I actually got a Ceton InfiniTV & when I get that working, I won't need the HDPVR any more. Unfortunately, the Verizon store that is less than a mile from work is out of Cable Cards & Verizon wants to charge me $9.99 to send it to me.

[pcostanza]

$9.99....is that for shipping or the monthly charge?
You can setup the InfiniTV without a cable card and you should get the QAM channels. I've not tried it but have been told by many people that without a cable card inserted, it will find QAM.

[ElihuRozen]

$9.99 is for shipping. I can go to a Verizon store, if it has them, and pick one up for free. Each month is $3.99.

I need to play with the Ceton more. The machine was XP & anything Cable Card needs Win 7. I couldn't upgrade directly from XP to Win 7. I figured I might as well start with a clean NPVR. So between the new Win 7 install, a new NPVR install, SageDCT & Network Recorder (neither of which I used before), I am still trying to get everything working. I had borrowed the Cable Card from the STB since I'd read that it might work with the way Verizon implemented things. I couldn't get that working, but I have some ideas of other things to try. At one point, Media Center refused to play anything since I don't have speakers on the system. (I use NMT's for everything in NPVR.) Also, the Ceton was an ebay purchase. It was listed as not working since the connector was broken off. I paid $91 for the card & $7 to ship it Ceton. They sent it back all fixed.

[mvallevand]

Actually SageDCT has been reported to work with the Ceton DVR on XP with copy freely streams. The .WTV format and DRM are the "features" requiring 7MC which is the real reason for stating Win7

If you need help with Network Recorder let me know.

Martin

[ElihuRozen]

Found an old power supply that was a close enough match & the HDPVR is back in business.

Martin - Thank you for the offer of help with Network Recorder. I may need to take you up on that. If I wanted to use the Ceton on XP , do know where I could get drivers? The drivers on Ceton's web site are strictly Win 7 from what I could tell. I might end up being really glad that when I installed Win 7, I did it on a new drive so I could swap the XP drive back in if I needed to and be right where I was.

[smajor]

It's funny, just today one of my HDPVRs was having problems. I remembered this post and, sure enough, a check with a voltmeter showed a bad power adapter. Popping it opens shows identical bad caps.

I found a 5V 3A adapter from a USB hub that fit perfectly. I'm back in business.

I'll order up something from the net so I can get my hub back as the local RadioShack wants $40 for something that should be $10 max.