What just happened here?

[jziggity]

So, everything was working just fine last night, live TV streaming to XBox extenders, no problems. Shut everything down, went to bed, wake up this morning and getting error messages on extenders and main HTPC that there is no TV signal. I checked the diagnostics program, and here's what I see: error message for the cablecard not receiving messages yet, error message for cablecard not receiving validation signal, and unable to test tune a channel because the InfiniTV PCI card (windows 7) is unable to get PCR lock. See the attachment for the screen shot.

I did absolutely NOTHING to any settings from the time I shut everything off last night to the time I woke up this morning. I call TWC, who tries to send through a couple of validation signals, which doesn't do anything. They schedule an appointment to have a tech come out on Wednesday morning. I then talk to Ceton's cablecard support line, they have me open a trouble ticket with a diagnostics support capture. Okay, no problem. In the mean time, I try resetting tuner settings via the diagnostics software, and just about anything else I can think of, to no avail.

Now this is where it gets weird. I then jump in the shower, and in the mean time the HTPC goes to sleep like it always does. I come back about 30 or so minutes later, and lo-and-behold, I am now getting green check marks for all of my cable card areas that were previously showing red error circles. What the....? I swear, I did nothing to the system. It went to sleep, I woke it back up, and now everything is coming through again. I did have to re-run the tuner setup via the diagnostics program, because when everything came back, only 1 of the 4 tuners was being recognized. Once I did that, all 4 tuners are up and running again.

Has this ever happened to anyone before? I obviously don't want a repeat of this, because during the downtime I was unable to record anything or view live TV.

[Crash2009]

Yeah, I've seen some of that CableCard crap before. Once this summer and once recently, just after installing a couple extenders. Like you I called the Cable company. In my case the cable company couldn't even see the card. My Line 5 was completely blank. No ID number=no help. I pulled the CableCard, rebooted the HTPC, then put the CableCard back in. Everything has been fine since. Try your question over in the Tuners section.

[lithium630]

Did you try rebooting when you had no signal? I've had a similar problem lately. A reboot would fix it for a day or two. I'm trying out beta firmware that will hopefully fix it.

[erkotz]

It looks to me like your CableCARD is malfunctioning (whether we have OOB lock or not is determined by it). I would power-cycle it.

[jziggity]

Yeah, reboots were not helping initially while the problem was there. Here's a follow-up question though - I thought selecting "Shut Down" was completely shutting off my machine. But even when I thought it was totally off, my extenders were still able to wake the machine up, so obviously there was/is power going to at least the network card and probably some other stuff. How can I find out what power state it is in when I select "Shut Down?" I'm guessing a reboot and even a "shut down" was not power cycling the cablecard, so that piece of hardware was not actually being rebooted. If this problem arises again in the future I'll try switching off the power strip - that should guarantee a full reboot.

That's my best guess as to what was going on at this point...

[erkotz]

If the LED on the back of the InfiniTV is off, it no longer has power.

[jziggity]

Sounds good. Unfortunately tonight, I had the exact same problem again. I was gone for about 36 hours, and when I got home and turned on the XBox, same problem: no TV signal. Check the Ceton Diagnostics on the main PC, same error messages as last time. A complete shutdown and restart solved it - everything came back up and was working, but I don't see constant restarts as a viable solution. I have requested an RMA of my InfiniTV4 PCI card through my original support ticket for this issue. From what I've read on this forum, that process has gone very smoothly for others, so I'm hoping my experience is the same. I don't believe the problem is with the cablecard, as it works just fine once the InfiniTV card itself comes back online. That, and when I wake up the PC after being asleep, only 1 tuner is showing up on the 192.168.200.1 page, and even that 1 tuner is not able to stream live TV. To me, that points to a faulty tuner card.

I know it's Christmas and all, so I'll probably just adjust power settings for now or keep rebooting, but I hope to get a new tuner card in hand shortly.

[ian3d]

I recently had a similar situation that would not get resolved by a reboot. I ended up pulling the CableCARD out and "re-seating" it back in the tuner card. I haven't had any problems since.

As for the power you can always just flip the switch on the PSU and let it sit for a few seconds until all lights are off on your motherboard.

[jziggity]

Well, since the 2nd instance of this problem it hasn't happened again, yet. I made some further adjustments to power settings at the suggestion of Ceton via the trouble ticket I submitted. My computer will no longer go to sleep, but should enter "Away" mode instead. I believe that should resolve this issue. Now I just need to tackle the occasional macroblocking I'm still seeing, despite the upgrade to the latest beta firmware for the tuner card.

[WhatHappend]

Away mode takes the same power on my HTPC as it just sitting idle. The only power saving is that it shuts off the video signal and any connected monitor will go to power saver mode (when you are using a HDTV that is not useful).

If you were using sleep for power savings, away mode doesn't provide the power savings you were looking for.

[jziggity]

Yep, I have pretty much accepted the fact that I'll have to leave my PC on 24/7. That certainly wasn't my ideal setup. Everything does work that way, but at literally what cost? I'm not sure. Since I got rid of my TWC boxes, I kind of wonder if the power "savings" was more of a lateral transfer type of thing. The friggin' TWC HD DVR ran non-stop. The HDD would spin down for about 1 minute tops, and then fire right back up again, all day long, every day. So I know that thing was sucking down the juice, even though it was "off." I guess I just traded boxes with no meaningful difference in power consumption. I don't have a watt-meter to actually measure any of this, so it is pure speculation on my part.

My only other thought was maybe there would be some sort of automatic script or task I could set the computer to run when it comes out of sleep mode? Something that would fully power-cycle the Ceton PCI card? I haven't researched much further into that yet though - still open to suggestions!

[foxwood]

The only power saving is that it shuts off the video signal and any connected monitor will go to power saver mode (when you are using a HDTV that is not useful).

Actually, that was one of the pleasant surprises I got when I upgraded to an LG HDTV last year. It turns itself off after a specified delay when it detects that the display isn't being used any more. So if I leave the HTPC on for some reason, the screen saver kicks on after a while, runs for about 10 or 15 minutes, then Windows turns off the display, and shortly afterwards the TV itself sleeps.