InfiniTV4 does not load channels

[Marebear]

Hey everyone,

I recently bought an InfiniTV PCIE (the internal one with four tuners) used on eBay after deciding to get cable after not having it for at least a year (my service is through Time Warner Cable). When the first technician arrived for our installation he had no idea that we wanted a cable card, and it’s been pretty much downhill since… Now, we’ve had a tech come out to boost our signal, swapped out cable cards, and spent at least 6 hours on the phone with TWC support.

We have an appointment tomorrow for another technician to come out and bring a new cable card / tuning adapter, boost our signal strength, and hopefully resolve things. However, based on my previous experience I thought I’d go ahead and see if you guys had any ideas on what could be causing the problems.

Right now, we’re getting a few channels, but not many. Everything is linked with Time Warner and authenticated, but most channels report that there is no signal or that we don’t have a subscription for the service. (The usual error is “Service Unavailable: There is currently no TV signal detected for this channel. The channel may be temporarily off the air. Try again later”). The issue happens on SDV and non-SDV channels. I’m running Windows 8 with Media Center. I have a tuning adapter from TWC that I am not using as an RF passthrough (the signal is split to go to the tuning adapter and the computer, with the adapter and computer linked just by the USB cable).

The Ceton device panel is able to tune specific channels successfully, but WMC will not load them. The technician checked our strength this morning and told us that the after the splitter the coax running into the computer reads -3.0 dbmv, but most channels get nothing near that. I ran the cetonsignals.hta script, and here's a link to a screenshot I uploaded to imgur with the channels and strengths highlighted so you can read the text in the black boxes: http://imgur.com/XXjfJda. In the device panel, the tuning adapter signal strengths are Tuner: -4 dBmV FDC: -1 dBmV, RDC: 35 dBmV. The cable card support desk at TWC thinks that my cable card might be bad, but this is the second one I’ve had, both with the same issue.

My question is-- how likely is it that the used InfiniTV I bought is bad? I know that there’s at least something wrong with it because it cannot write new firmware (Ceton sent me the new firmware, but it can’t write it even when uploading it manually). Could the other problems I’m experiencing be the result of a faulty Ceton device? Could it just be angry Windows 8? Could it really just be poor signal strength? I’m just surprised to see -4 dBmV on my tuner and -15/-16/-20 for some channels.

[Shackleford]

Those signals are very low, that's the first thing I would look into.

[erkotz]

Those signals are very low, that's the first thing I would look into.

Those signal levels are not low - they are very good. Most likely the TA is not provisioned properly. Either call the TWC CableCARD helpdesk, or swap the TA.

[Shackleford]

Those signals are very low, that's the first thing I would look into.

Those signal levels are not low - they are very good.

So -15 to -20 are acceptable? Just a question, I would go by erkotz suggestion as he deals with this stuff way more than me

[erkotz]

Those signals are very low, that's the first thing I would look into.

Those signal levels are not low - they are very good.

So -15 to -20 are acceptable? Just a question, I would go by erkotz suggestion as he deals with this stuff way more than me

My apologies - I saw the TA signals ,but not the InfiniTV signals. The InfiniTV signals are quite low - do you have additional splitters before the InfiniTV?

[Marebear]

Those signal levels are not low - they are very good.

So -15 to -20 are acceptable? Just a question, I would go by erkotz suggestion as he deals with this stuff way more than me

My apologies - I saw the TA signals ,but not the InfiniTV signals. The InfiniTV signals are quite low - do you have additional splitters before the InfiniTV?

There are no additional splitters before the InfiniTV-- just the splitter to split it to the tuning adapter then then InfiniTV. The signal past that splitter was measured at ~-3 dBmV by a technician that came out here yesterday.

[Marebear]

Update: Time Warner Cable tech just left, and he and the Time Warner Cable Cable Card Support people seem to be pretty sure that it's my InfiniTV4. The tech installed an amp which brought all my signal levels more into the right range (screenshot here: http://imgur.com/NvQzGEE ), but the card is still constantly losing its CP Auth. It also frequently hangs on being "busy with binding authentication process." Right now, if you log into the ceton device it has found an auth but it has no EMMs and no channels will load. I'm not sure if it's because I'm stuck on an old firmware or what, but I think my next step is to contact the person I got it from on eBay. If I'd known that saving $55 buying it used would create so many problems, I definitely would have just gotten a brand new one. Do you guys recommend just getting a new one and trying to get my money back out of the one I have? Or is it possible that Time Warner is just sick of dealing with me? Time Warner says that the tuning adapter and cable card are properly paired and that they can ping the tuning adapter, so it doesn't seem to be the tuning adapter.

Edit: now some channels are working, but not a lot of channels still. In addition, I checked the signal levels and in the tuning adapter it now has Tuner: 3, FDC: 9, RDC: 40, but the channel signal seems to be in the correct range.

Edit2: Just called the cable card support desk, and they sent some EMMs and now things are working a little. He told me that if it's authenticating but losing EMMs and never getting them back when the computer restarts, then it's my Ceton and a problem with an older firmware.