Why does my tv cable playback freeze up on the computer screen

[Marie7]

Hello. Need help with perplexing issue: I have a HP Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit computer hooked up to a cable box so I can watch cable tv on my computer using an external WinTV-HVR-950Q tv tuner. Suddenly, the tv playback freezes after a few minutes. To make it go again, I have to press the box "stop playback" and then "tv" and it starts up again, but freezes after a few minutes. To attempt to fix it, I downloaded the latest 2013 drivers & software from the Hauppauge website. In the Hauppauge tv tool bar, I'm using the default settings for video renderer, which is "EVR" & I check the box that says "use hardware accelleration when possible." Hauppauge tech support had no other suggestions for why this is happening. Does anyone have any other ideas on how to fix this? I might have to go out and get another tv tuner and they are expensive. Could a Microsoft update have somehow screwed up the playback? My cable signals have been checked & are fine. Thanks for any suggestions.

 

[carwiz]

You might check to see if there's updates for your video drivers. Check the HP site under support. You will need the model number for your PC. Where is the tuner plugged in? Is this PC a desktop or laptop? If it's a desktop, don't use the front ports--Use one of the rear ports.

 

[Marie7]

freeze problem

The external tv tuner is plugged in at the rear of the tower. This is a desktop. I have downloaded all updated software & drivers for HP, Microsoft Windows & the graphics card, which is a ATI Radeon HD4200 series. Went to the ATI website & downloaded their suggested driver update. Talked to the Geek Squad, who went through the system & found no malware or virus, also got rid of all old files to clean everything up. I did get a new AT&T wireless router/modem recently, but I don't know if that would affect playback, as the signal for the tv comes from the cable box. At this point, I'm pretty much stumped. Someone on the internet suggested removing the program Roxio, but that program was on the computer when the playback was working fine. The only weird thing that happened recently is that I upgraded to Kaspersky 2013 Anti-Virus which was free, but it caused so much trouble, I removed it and the computer went back to normal.

 

[carwiz]

"... the computer went back to normal."
Does this mean you are no longer experiencing the "freeze up"?

If it happens again, follow the directions for the SF Diagnostic Tool, we can view what's running and various startup programs on your system as well as the state of the drivers. The tool was made to include kernel memory dumps (BSODs) but there won't be any unless there's old ones on your system. This doesn't matter but the other files will provide detailed information on your system. (No personal info is included.)

 

[Anak]

Some of kaspersky may not have been removed, try: Removal tool for Kaspersky Lab products (kavremover), and what are you using for security now Marie?

 

[Marie7]

Carwiz, no, it the playback still freezes every minute or two. The first thing I did was to follow the suggestion of the HP help video, to make sure all HP, Microsoft Windows & graphics card were all updated, which I did. Graphics card is ATI Radeon HD 4200 series, & I plugged that into the ATI website, & they suggested which driver to dowlown, which I did. I did upgrade to IE10 recently. I also uninstalled & reinstalled WinTVv7, using the reinstall disk. Looked through the control panel to see if I could find anything -- could RALink WLAN utility be causing trouble?
Anak: I am using the old version of Kaspersky, which worked well. 013 caused problems with the browser & I quickly removed it. Other people have had the same problem. I used the Kaspersky removal tool.
I also upgraded to the new Adobe flash player & have no problems using You Tube.

 

[Anak]

Carwiz, no, it the playback still freezes every minute or two. The first thing I did was to follow the suggestion of the HP help video, to make sure all HP, Microsoft Windows & graphics card were all updated, which I did. Graphics card is ATI Radeon HD 4200 series, & I plugged that into the ATI website, & they suggested which driver to dowlown, which I did. I did upgrade to IE10 recently. I also uninstalled & reinstalled WinTVv7, using the reinstall disk. Looked through the control panel to see if I could find anything -- could RALink WLAN utility be causing trouble?
Anak: I am using the old version of Kaspersky, which worked well. 013 caused problems with the browser & I quickly removed it. Other people have had the same problem. I used the Kaspersky removal tool.
I also upgraded to the new Adobe flash player & have no problems using You Tube.

• Did you have this problem when using IE9?
• Are you running the playback though/with IE10?
• While using IE10 to just be online and no TV; Do you notice any other visual/rendering problems while using IE10?

A lot of users are having problems when using IE10 on a windows 7 OS.

 

[Marie7]

Ok, I think I'll try removing IE10 to see is that helps. I didn't have this freeze issue with IE9.

 

[Anak]

Please let us know how you make out.

 

[Marie7]

Uninstalled IE10, no change. Still have freezing problem. I don't think it's the tv tuner overheating, because the freeze happens when I first turn the cable tv on.

 

[carwiz]

No system specs.
No idea what software you're using.
Can't see your system through the internet.

 

[Anak]

Have you seen this?

WinTV application locks or stops responding during analog scan under Windows 7

• In order to fix this issue, please check that your Power Options setting is not set to ‘Power Saver’. Please change it to ‘Balance’ or ‘High Performance’.
• To change these settings on Windows 7, please do the following.
• Click on Start and then Control Panel.
• If Control Panel is set to View by: Category then click on ‘System and Security’ and then ‘Power Options’.
• If Control Panel is set to View by: Large or Small icons then click on ‘Power Options’.
• If you do not see Balanced or High Performance please click on the option for ‘Show additional plans’.
• Once you make the change please restart your system. When the system restarts please rescan again for channels.

Source, next to last FAQ: Support for WinTV-HVR-950Q

It would help to know your machine/system specs, I wanted to see if your machine may be underpowered for this.

 

[Marie7]

Still freezing

Today, I tried pulling out everything from the back of the computer tower to try to "reset", but that doesn't work either.

 

[Anak]

Did you check your Power Settings as in my previous post?

 

[Marie7]

Continuing Problem

Anak: my setting was in balanced; changed it to high performance, but then was unable to get any picture from the tv tuner. Changed it back to balanced, & can get the picture but it still freezes. Spent several hours today with a Geek Squad agent who tried a whole slew of things, including down loading various drivers, reinstalling the Wintv7 software, trying to open the tv using Windows Media, but nothing worked. His research on this issue is that the tv tuner I'm using has a bug that makes it incompatible with Windows 7, & that Hauppauge has apparently fixed it on other tuners, but not on this one. He suggested taking the tuner back to the store to see if I can exchange it for another one, so I think I will try that next.
Here is the info I got from Performance & Tools:
System:
Windows Home Premium 7 Mfg. HP
AMD Athlon(tm) II X4 640 Processor
4.00GB
ATI Radeon HD 4200
1919 MB total available graphics memory
Primary Hard Disk: 816GB Free (919GB total)
Total system memory: 4.00GB RAM
64 bit operating system
4 processor cores
Storage:
931GB total size of hard disk
816 GB free (919 GB total) (C)
2GB Free (13GB total) (D)
Graphics:
ATI Radeon HD4200
Total available graphics memory 1919 MB
Dedicated graphics memory 256MB
Dedicated system memory 0MB
Shared system memory 1663MB
Display adapter driver version 8.862.3.0
Network:
Realtek PCIe FF Family Controller
802.11n Wireless LAN Card

 

[Anak]

Okay, we'll have to wait if you can get a newer/different one and see if it works.