InfiniTV PCIe tuners not found all of a sudden!

[Brendon]

Greetings,

My Ceton card worked perfectly in my dedicated, locked down HTPC box for six months, then all of a sudden the tuners disappeared and won't come back no matter what I do. I use an Xbox as an extender - I don't even log into the HTPC box. I installed Windows 7, drivers, MSE and NOTHING else. I disabled automatic updates and the box never sleeps.

This is my second Ceton card and after MANY issues I've been VERY careful to get the system working, then not mess with it AT ALL. I don't have WAF but I do have MAF (Me Acceptance Factor) and it's at an all time low with this setup ha.

The card is being detected by Windows as a network card, but isn't getting its normal 192.168.200.1 IP. The bridge is failing according to Ceton support, and the issue is with my system, not the card according to them. They want me to send the card in and for $25 they'll reset it and send it back, but they say it still won't work because it's my system, not the card itself.

I'm open to this being a possibility, but I'm damn skeptical because NOTHING has changed on this box in months. It worked, then overnight it stopped working just like that. Here's a list of things I've tried:

-Resetting network settings in Ceton Diags
-Manually bridging adapters
-Uninstalling and reinstalling drivers
-Moving PCIe slots
-Deleting the bridge and setting a static IP on the Ceton - I can ping the static IP, but can't browse to the IP
-Clearing the networking configuration and bridging adapters again
-Installing hotfixes as requested by Ceton
-Probably a ton of other stuff I'm forgetting

They wanted me to try the card in another system, but frankly at this point I had to put my foot down. I don't have a system available to rip apart to do this and I'm sick of humoring support with these fool's errands. I'm about 85% sure that the card has malfunctioned at this point, but can't seem to convince them of this.

Anyone have any suggestions? I'm ready to just chuck the whole system out of the window and either get a Cisco box or cancel cable altogether at this point.

Brendon

[JohnW248]

I would first try resetting everything. Use the remove network from the diagnostic menu, then remove tuner information and then detect tuners.

DO NOT INSTALLL Network tuners, with the tuners re-discovered just run MC and set-up tuners on that ONE machine and see what happens. You don't talk about using the tuners on other machines and you are using or are tyring to use the basic 192.168.200.1 IP address. To do that DON'T network the tuner.

See if that gets the tuners back on your main machine and worry about bridging and all that stuff after you get the card back. Sounds like you might have experienced some network issue which could be related to third party AVS running on your network....it would take much more information to see what went wrong but see if you can get it back with the simple operation no bridging, etc.

[Brendon]

I would first try resetting everything. Use the remove network from the diagnostic menu, then remove tuner information and then detect tuners.

I've done this probably five times now. Just did it again. The card is getting an autoconfiguration address (169.xx). There was a thread in the past few months where someone was having this same issue, but there was no resolution to this.

I'm not sure where the Ceton pulls that 200.1 IP from, or what serves up those admin pages, but neither of that is working. Like I said before - I tried setting the IP statically and browsing to it, which didn't work. I tried browsing to the 169 IP - same result. I've double checked the Ceton services and they are running.

I tried using network tuners ONCE and that broke everything and I had to do a recovery. So no network tuners!

No third party AVS - I only ever use Security Essentials. Again, card worked perfectly for months, then just overnight it stopped working.

[Brendon]

This appears to be the same exact issue:

http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... =68&t=4617

The card just isn't discoverable whether bridged or not. It's getting an autoconfiguration address (169.254.x.x) and isn't being found by the diagnostic tool.

[Brendon]

I found a suggestion in another forum that seemed interesting: bridge the adapters and set the bridge IP to 192.168.200.2. Then, try browsing to http://192.168.200.1/.

This didn't work either. I couldn't ping 200.1 nor browse to it, naturally.

[Brendon]

I tried statically setting the Ceton to 192.168.200.1 and the network card to 192.168.200.2. I can ping 200.1 but can't browse to it.

Then it dawned on me - support has been fixated on setting up this bridge, but I never used network tuners and I don't recall there ever being a bridge. I'm wondering if the bridge only applies when using network tuners? Maybe someone here can comment on that.

I'm really thinking this card has malfunctioned at this point.

[JohnW248]

can you see the card if you open network and sharing and then on the left click on change adapter settings? Is the card there? If so, can you right click on it and see properties?

If so click on the IPV and click properties and see if it says automatically or not. If not change it to automatically. If yes then try and change that to 192.168.200.1 and subnet to 255.255.255.0

It could be the card has lost it's DHCP service which is on the board itself.

[Brendon]

Yep - that's exactly what I just did. I set the Ceton to 192.168.200.1. I could ping it but not browse to it.

[JohnW248]

Does it show up now in Network under media devices? It should. If not make sure the subnet is 255.255.255.0 (right click in net & sharing change adapters on the Ceton device and choose status and then details.) There should be no gateway just a dhcp entry, an ip and subnet. Looks like there is either a major conflict with something "new" or the card has some issue.

Does the diagnostic tool find the tuner? Can you open the web gui from the diagnostic if it finds it?

[makryger]

I'm not sure what's going on, but all I'll say is that you do not need network bridging to setup the tuner on just one computer. Previous drivers didn't even have network bridging. So I'm not sure why yours was set up like that.

But the tuner does appear as a Network device, even if there isn't any bridging.

[Brendon]

Does it show up now in Network under media devices? It should. If not make sure the subnet is 255.255.255.0 (right click in net & sharing change adapters on the Ceton device and choose status and then details.) There should be no gateway just a dhcp entry, an ip and subnet. Looks like there is either a major conflict with something "new" or the card has some issue.

Does the diagnostic tool find the tuner? Can you open the web gui from the diagnostic if it finds it?

No, it doesn't show up under media devices. Yes, the subnet is 255.255.255.0 on both adapters. I can ping 192.168.200.1 (network card) and 200.2 (Ceton).

The diagnostic tool doesn't see the card at all no matter what I do. I cannot browse to the web GUI. Windows sees the card, but the diagnostics do not. I think this is what's tripping up the support process - they think it's an issue with my system.

Nothing new in six months as I said. I've sunk so much time into various issues with this setup that once I got my new card after the last one failed, I did a fresh Windows 7 install with bare essentials, disabled automatic updates, and haven't even logged into it but maybe 2-3 times since. I use an Xbox as an extender. The system worked PERFECTLY until one day it just stopped working. There's no significant event to correlate this to.

[Brendon]

I'm not sure what's going on, but all I'll say is that you do not need network bridging to setup the tuner on just one computer. Previous drivers didn't even have network bridging. So I'm not sure why yours was set up like that.

But the tuner does appear as a Network device, even if there isn't any bridging.

It wasn't set up like that at all. Support has been making me manually bridge adapters and really focusing on that for some reason. Like I said before, this was a fresh install six months ago with a brand new Ceton card after RMA. I never did anything with network tuners - I didn't even install the wizard. I did once with the old card and had to do a Windows recovery because I don't think the system wouldn't even boot.

[JohnW248]

Nothing new in six months as I said. I've sunk so much time into various issues with this setup that once I got my new card after the last one failed, I did a fresh Windows 7 install with bare essentials, disabled automatic updates, and haven't even logged into it but maybe 2-3 times since. I use an Xbox as an extender. The system worked PERFECTLY until one day it just stopped working. There's no significant event to correlate this to.

Ok, you've got nothing to lose, TURN ON updates, run all the Windows Updates. There have been some issues that have been resolved and maybe, just maybe one of those updates will fix your problem. Remember they don't necessarily tell you everything an update will fix in the knowledgebase. All my machines have full updates to current on both Win7 Home Prem, Win7 Pro, Win8 Pro and all my tuners are working. This really sounds like it's something to do with a network issue or a network security issue or FW issue. You are running Security essentials (is that up to date, it normally gets two updates a day from Windows Update) and the Windows FW.

You could also run a Win7 system repair/restore back to when it was working and see what happens, but I would suggest you turn on windows updates and run all of them.

John

[Brendon]

Ok, you've got nothing to lose, TURN ON updates, run all the Windows Updates.

The system is fully up to date. I manually updated it.

I'll take a look at system repair but at this point it just seems like I'm wasting time.

[makryger]

Maybe try throwing the card into a different slot?

[Brendon]

Maybe try throwing the card into a different slot?

Tried that. The card is discovered and drivers are installed, but the diagnostic utility still can't find it.

[Brendon]

Looks like at this point I will be sending the card back to them to examine, paying a $25 fee in the process. If the card is deemed functional they'll reset it and send it back. If it's found to be defective like I think it is, then I'll get the fee refunded and presumably a new card sent out. While frustrating (I've had no cable since the 16th), I will be getting back a functional card either way.

[Motz]

To just throw something out there on the diagnostics tool did you do a reset network settings, clear tuner configuration, and discover tuners?

[Brendon]

To just throw something out there on the diagnostics tool did you do a reset network settings, clear tuner configuration, and discover tuners?

Yep - multiple times. It just won't come up with an IP, which is how I assume the diagnostic tool communicates with the card. If I set a static IP, I can ping it but still can't browse to the web GUI and the diagnostic tool still can't find it.

[sflier]

Brendon, the exact thing happened to me a couple of months ago. I tried all the steps you mentioned above. Ceton worked with me for a week until I finally just ordered a brand new one to try. The new one worked right out of the box with no other changes. Ceton agreed to RMA the old one but I never did hear what happened.