One invisible card and one card with no signal

[chaholl]

Over the past few days I've been trying to get 2x TBS 6980 cards working with ain Windows 7 x64 Media Center system with no success.

My first problem is that one of the cards isn't detected by the PC. It doesn't matter which slot I put it in, or whether it's the only card in the machine, it's never found. This did work previously.

My second problem, is that the card that is detected by the machine shows now signal, even though my signal monitor clearly identifies an Astra 2a,2b, 2d signal at 100%. Again this worked fine until yesterday.

I've noticed a few posts reporting similar problems but no definitive answers. Is this a hardware fault? Surely it's not likely that both of my cards are faulty?

Any help, greatly appreciated!

[cody]

do i understand correctly:

1. one of your two TBS 6980 cards is not visible in Device Manager as installed hardware, right? that really sounds like faulty card and more specifically burnt PCI-Express bridge chip on the card - very rare, but still completely possible fault

2. the other of your two TBS 6980 cards had signal on Astra 2a, 2b, 2d until few days ago and now without changing anything it doesn't show any signal?

[chaholl]

Yes. although I've kinda solved that problem.

I tried that cards in an old motherboard and all went well. So I ordered another motherboard to confirm that there was no problem there. Brand new motherboard, exactly the same problem!

It seems that he cards don't properly fit into the slot';s when screwed onto the case, if they're left loose, all works well. When i tested on teh old motherboard I didn't bother to screw the cards in.

So after a bit of fiddling around with the card bracket I can now see two cards again in Windows. Having said that one of them doesn't show a signal and the IR on both cards doesn't seem to work. I'm putting both of these problems down to a poor fit with the PCI-E slot, althoguh I'll mess around and confirm my findings.

[chaholl]

At what point do you decide that enough is enough?

Judging from the other posts on here, i'm not the only person experiencing random dropouts with these cards. After countless hours, trying every possible combination, I can only conclude that these cards are rubbish. Either the card isn't detected or it is detected and doesnt provide a signal.

On the rare occasions when it is detected and provides a signal, it randomly hangs my machine forcing a hard reset. Apaprently this is fixed with the latest drivers, unfortunatley the don't support Windows Media Center!

And just to top it all off, the IR control simply does not work no matter which driver I use.

I'll have my money back thank you very much and wait until Hauppage come up with a dual DVB-S2. I've been using their other cards for 5 years now without any problems. I've had 2 TBS cards for just over a month and have been unable to use them for an entire day without having to reboot my machine or make some other change.

[cody]

At what point do you decide that enough is enough?

i agree that every issue has to be resolved in reasonable amount of time, but why you didn't work with us on resolving the issues using our support e-mails?

Judging from the other posts on here, i'm not the only person experiencing random dropouts with these cards.

point me out to some other post reporting problem exactly like yours and further more that the problem wasn't resolved and the customer is not happy now - every single trouble case reported from a customer is solved by us.

also, there are two support e-mails addresses - i've checked and it seems to me you wrote to them 1 month ago, we replied to you immediately, but you haven't replied to us for 1 month until yesterday saying mainly the same as in your last post here. so, it doesn't seem you were interested in finding help, but anyway...

besides that people here in this forum are reporting mainly problems (because when users don't have troubles they are just enjoying using TBS 6980 and usually don't share their positive experience) and for thousands of TBS 6980 users how many reported problems and more important for how many of them the problems are not resolved? search the Internet and i'm sure you will find more happy TBS 6980 users than you're probably expecting from your bad experience.

After countless hours, trying every possible combination, I can only conclude that these cards are rubbish.

it's sad to hear, but that's your own opinion and you are free to have it.

we choose latest generation DVB-S2 chips from most famous NXP/Philips brand for TBS 6980 and in our opinion it's high-end DVB-S2 card and from customer feedback we believe that is the opinion in general and not only ours.

Either the card isn't detected or it is detected and doesnt provide a signal.

i believe there is explanation why you're having such troubles, but if you don't want to work with technical support on resolving them then there is no way to help you.

On the rare occasions when it is detected and provides a signal, it randomly hangs my machine forcing a hard reset.

that's not caused by the drivers - none other customer complained or reported such problem.

Apaprently this is fixed with the latest drivers, unfortunatley the don't support Windows Media Center

that's not correct:

- in some hardware setups (thus affecting small number of users) when you use both tuners simultaneously there could be a crash, that was fixed first in beta of driver version 2.x, but it's nothing close to your problem
- there is no version of TBS 6980 drivers that doesn't support Windows Media Center.

And just to top it all off, the IR control simply does not work no matter which driver I use.

that's not correct either:

- the only driver version without IR support is beta version of 2.x driver, which was provide just as test version and final version of 2.x driver with IR support is released

I'll have my money back thank you very much and wait until Hauppage come up with a dual DVB-S2. I've been using their other cards for 5 years now without any problems.I've had 2 TBS cards for just over a month and have been unable to use them for an entire day without having to reboot my machine or make some other change.

in my opinion it's not reasonable to blame TBS 6980 card when no one else has such troubles and as i mentioned there has to be explanation why you have such troubles in the first place.

for example one possible reason - Hauppage DVB-S2 card uses the ancient PCI interface, while TBS use modern PCI-Express interface - it could be something is wrong with PCI-Express interface of your motherboard - you mentioned in your earlier post there is difference when your tried different motherboards.

[chaholl]

Maybe it's been a misunderstanding on my part, but I was under the assumption that the purposes of the forum was to obtain technical support? Why else is it here?

Your 2.0 drivers do not support Windows Media Center (or at least the version that i've managed to find a link for does not), and all other versions of the driver cause system hangs. In what world is that not the fault of your product? I've tried two motherboards of exactly the same model and experienced the same problem when the cards are screwed into the case. I'd point out that the problem is specific to your cards, other PCIe cards work fine. Again, how is that not the fault of your product? The cards work when not screwed into the case but cause system hangs several times a day. Furthermore, i've been unable to get two cards working at the same time.

After two months of trying to get these cards to work using verious combinations of hardware and software, I beleive it's perfectly reasonable to blame the TBS card. You're suggestion that i'm not prepared to work with tech support is plainly nonsense given the fact that were having this discussions via your tech support forum!

With regards to your asssertion that system hangs are not caused by drivers, you'll be aware of the memory protection capabilities of both Windows 7 and the CPU, the only possible cause of a system hang is a driver since no other process has such priviledged access to memory. There are many posts about hangs and indeed, by your own admission, in certain circumstances it does happen. The bottom line is this - the chipset you've chosen may be great but your card doesn't fit properly into a PCIe slot and your drivers are substandard. I'd also question the validity of the various Windows certification logos that you've attached to your product since this is an area where I have some experience and i'm pretty confident that resource issues such as those which lead to system hangs would be detected by the Microsoft test suite.

If you're confident that my problems can be resolved than I'll gladly work with you to resolve them. However, if the problems cannot be resolved then I must insist on a full refund.

[chaholl]

Bearing in mind the comments about this being an isolated problem, I thought I'd give it another try just to be sure.

I've added bother cards to a new HP ProLiant ML115 machine andinstalled Win 7 x64. This time both cards were detected first time. However, when detecting the signal in Media Center, only two tuners (ie. one card) works. If I switch the cards round, the same problem persists. This confirms that both cards do work just not at the same time, in the same machine. I performed this test using the v1.0.13 driver, and after upgrading to the .15 beta driver, the second card won't start. When upgrading to the v2 driver, none of the tuners are supported in Windwos Media Center.

So to recap, I've performed the same test using 4 separate machines now. 2 with the same motherboard (an Asus P5Q Pro Turbo), 1 with my existing Vista Media Center PC and today with the HP ProLiant. On every occasion, I've been unable to get 4 tuners working even though both cards work and on each Windows 7 test, the v2 drivers will not work with Media Center. I can't be the only person who can't get these drivers to work, surely?

I don't see what else can be done to resolve this. Clearly these cards do not work properly? Has anybody else had a positive experience using the Asus board?

[cody]

Maybe it's been a misunderstanding on my part, but I was under the assumption that the purposes of the forum was to obtain technical support? Why else is it here?

it's forum for our users to share their problems and experience with resolving them - at least for the time being we don't provide dedicated technical support through the forum

Your 2.0 drivers do not support Windows Media Center (or at least the version that i've managed to find a link for does not), and all other versions of the driver cause system hangs. In what world is that not the fault of your product?

as i already told you - there is no drivers for TBS 6980 without Windows 7 Media Center and thus something in your installation of Windows 7 is wrong.

You're suggestion that i'm not prepared to work with tech support is plainly nonsense given the fact that were having this discussions via your tech support forum!

i explained for the forum in my first comment above, but you opened thread in the forum 22 days after we replied to your initial e-mail - why just didn't reply to our mail?

With regards to your asssertion that system hangs are not caused by drivers, you'll be aware of the memory protection capabilities of both Windows 7 and the CPU

no one is denying that it's bug in the driver version 1.x that on some systems it can cause crash in case both tuners are in use simultaneously, but we fixed the problem in several days time after it was reported to us. you can read here:

http://www.dvblogic.com/phpBB3/viewtopi ... 583#p23850
http://www.dvblogic.com/phpBB3/viewtopi ... 583#p24126

and that people use two TBS 6980 card in the same system without a problem. in fact we can customers that are using six TBS 6980 cards in a same system (but they use Linux and not Windows).

If you're confident that my problems can be resolved than I'll gladly work with you to resolve them. However, if the problems cannot be resolved then I must insist on a full refund.

and you contacted you about that saying that we will proceed as you wish and please read my comments about your next post, because actually they give some clue.

[cody]

performed this test using the v1.0.13 driver, and after upgrading to the .15 beta driver, the second card won't start.

that shows your second card is faulty/burnt - i even know which chip is burnt to cause such fault and that is easily and fast solved by replacement.

When upgrading to the v2 driver, none of the tuners are supported in Windwos Media Center.

that's just impossible, because Windows 7 Media Center support is there and the customer for which we initially made v2 is using exactly two TBS 6980 card inside Windows 7 Media Center. BTW, the latest v2 beta is here:

https://shop.tbsdtv.com/download2/TBS6980 ... .0.0.1.rar

and new (not beta) version with remote control support is also ready, but still not published on the websites.[/quote]

Has anybody else had a positive experience using the Asus board?

please, note there are no any hardware incompatibilities with certain type of motherboards - to be more precise only some old ASRock and MSI motherboards with nVidia chipset are not compatible but due to problem of their PCI-Express slots and not TBS hardware.

[sami8519]

With all due respect cody, I believe forums is the right place for technical support not emails. If answers are put in forums, then all people with similar problems will solve their problems in seconds! rather than sending an email and waiting for one day for an answer which might not completely solve the problem, then again you will have to wait another 24 hours to get a reply to your feedback.