TBS6220 PCIe TV Tuner disappearing act

Help with tuners from ATI, Hauppauge, AverMedia and more.
ggm

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TBS6220 PCIe TV Tuner disappearing act

#1

Post by ggm » Sat Jul 20, 2013 3:54 pm

I installed the latest Windows driver (1.0.1.0) for a TBS6220 PCIe TV Tuner Card in a PC running Windows 7. The driver appeared in the Device Manager under Sound, video and game controllers, and five *.sys files appeared in the system32\drivers folder. TV in Windows Media Center worked well, until I switched the Center off and on again.

Trying to access "live tv" then produced the message, "Viewing or Listening Conflict / No tuner available to satisfy the current request."

No other application was running, and the reason for the tuner not being available appeared to be because its driver was no longer listed in the Device Manager. The five *.sys files had also disappeared from the system32\drivers folder. To watch TV I have to re-install the driver and restart the PC.

richard1980

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#2

Post by richard1980 » Sat Jul 20, 2013 9:44 pm

Is the PC running software that freezes the state of the OS drive? At work we use a program called SteadyState on some of our XP computers that discards any changes every time the system is rebooted. It almost sounds like you're dealing with something similar.

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#3

Post by staknhalo » Sat Jul 20, 2013 9:53 pm

richard1980 wrote:Is the PC running software that freezes the state of the OS drive? At work we use a program called SteadyState on some of our XP computers that discards any changes every time the system is rebooted. It almost sounds like you're dealing with something similar.
We use a similar program to that at work for our kiosks as well - but why the hell would he have something like that on his home HTPC? I don't think it's something like that (watch, now it will turn out to be the case because I said that).

OP - you letting Windows detect/dl/install the drivers or are you installing them from the manufacturers given dl link??
Last edited by staknhalo on Sat Jul 20, 2013 9:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

richard1980

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#4

Post by richard1980 » Sat Jul 20, 2013 9:59 pm

I'm not sure this is the OP's HTPC....he said it's "a PC running Windows 7". Could be his HTPC, could be someone else's PC. Could even be his employer's PC for all I know. I don't know why anyone would set up their HTPC that way either, but stranger things have happened.

ggm

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#5

Post by ggm » Sun Jul 21, 2013 11:12 am

Thank you to those who tried to help. I had experienced the problem repeatedly for several days before posting. This morning I was initially unable to replicate the problem, whether just closing WMC, restarting Windows, or running VLC and WMP as well as WMC TV. The five system files stayed in place.

I then shut down the PC, which recreated the problem. I shut it down again, but did not recreate the problem this time. I'll try to post again if things become more predictable. The PC is a home-build, with a Haswell cpu and Samsung SSD.

Incidentally, WMC only reported finding a T1 tuner when I set it up, but does play all the HD channels nevertheless.

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#6

Post by ggm » Mon Jul 22, 2013 5:46 pm

22/07/2013 17.14 hrs - Opened WMC > TV failed > restarted Windows without closing WMC > opened WMC > TV available > closed and reopened WMC > TV available > closed and reopened WMC > TV available > restarted Windows without closing WMC > opened WMC > TV available > shut down Windows without closing down WMC > opened WMC > TV available > closed WMC and restarted Windows > opened WMC > TV available > closed WMC and shut down Windows > opened W7 and WMC > TV available > closed WMC and Windows > turned off PC.

Half an hour later, I turned on the PC and opened WMC twice. On both occasions, TV was available.

It looks as though the updated driver has improved matters considerably, perhaps altogether. Thanks to Coral Springs for prompting me to look again at its installation.

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#7

Post by staknhalo » Mon Jul 22, 2013 5:50 pm

ggm wrote:Thanks to Coral Springs
Lol, no problem :)

ggm

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#8

Post by ggm » Mon Jul 22, 2013 5:54 pm

P.S. The following info should precede my last message:

This morning, with the tuner unrecognised, I tried various things, but finally achieved recognition by leaving WMC open but shutting down and re-opening Windows.

I had failed to answer the question about the driver download because I did not remember the details clearly enough, so from www.tbsdtv.com/download/ I downloaded TBS6220 DVB-T2/T Windows Driver V1.0.1.2. The download folder now has two 2,432 KB files named tbs6220-windows-driver_v1.01.2.zip. As the Device Manager Driver tab says "Driver Version 1.0.1.0 (but does include TBS6220_64.sys - I am using 64-bit Windows 7 HP), I uninstalled it. From the second download I ignored devcon.exe in the tbs-6220_x64 subfolder and ran TBS_6220_driver_setup.exe.

Now Device Manager Driver tab reports Driver Version 1.0.1.2 ! After further testing I'll report back if the problem does not recur. It may be that my first installation of V1.0.1.2 had failed to replace the driver supplied with the hardware.

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#9

Post by CyberSimian » Mon Jul 22, 2013 9:38 pm

ggm wrote:It may be that my first installation of V1.0.1.2 had failed to replace the driver supplied with the hardware.
I had a similar problem with a TBS6284 card. I think that it was caused by the driver config file containing the wrong date, with the result that Windows selected the older driver. I posted about this on the TBS web site in this thread:

http://www.tbsdtv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=7700

The way to check is to go to "Device Manager" and look at the driver details for the card. Note down both the driver version number and the driver date before you install the new driver, and then repeat this after installing the driver. Then you can see whether Windows has actually picked the newer driver.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

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#10

Post by ggm » Mon Jul 22, 2013 9:59 pm

This is becoming annoying. After my last post, I put the PC to sleep, and woke it up at 10.50 pm. I then twice opened WMC and failed to have TV work. I checked Device Manager, and found that the driver had disappeared again from the Sound, video and game controllers list. I may take a rest before doing any further testing.

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#11

Post by ggm » Mon Jul 22, 2013 10:14 pm

Despite what I wrote a few minutes ago, I switched off the PC, switched it on again, and was able to see TV: the 6220 driver had reappeared in the Device Manager list. There must be a rational explanation for this.

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#12

Post by richard1980 » Tue Jul 23, 2013 12:57 am

When the device disappears from device manager, try the following:
  1. Close Device Manager.
  2. Open Command Prompt.
  3. Run the following command: set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1
  4. Re-open Device Manager.
  5. In Device Manager, click View, then enable Show hidden devices.
  6. Observe whether the tuner now appears in Device Manager.
If the tuner appears in Device Manager after doing the above, it means it is physically disconnected from the system, in which case you may want to try reseating the card or even try putting it in a different PCIe slot.

To set Device Manager back to not showing disconnected devices, just run set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=0

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CyberSimian

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#13

Post by CyberSimian » Tue Jul 23, 2013 7:05 am

ggm wrote:I put the PC to sleep. I then twice opened WMC and failed to have TV work. I checked Device Manager, and found that the driver had disappeared again from the Sound, video and game controllers list.
I have also had this problem with my TBS 6284 card, as have many others.

It is difficult to know precisely what the problem is. My suspicion is that there is some nuance in enabling sleep for one of the chips on the PCI-E card that the TBS driver-writers do not currently understand. But since neither do I, I have to accept their assurance that the driver is written correctly (until someone with far more knowledge than I recognises the problem and informs them of the solution).

Various possible work-arounds have been suggested in the past (you should review the several threads on the TBS forum concerning this issue):

(1) Move the card to a different PCI-E slot. My TBS 6284 sleeps correctly in my motherboard's 4x slot, but not in the 1x slot or the 16x slot. (I had to remove the graphics card to try the 16x slot; strangely, the graphics card does sleep correctly in that slot.)

(2) Enter your motherboard BIOS and see if there is a setting controlling the PCI-E bus. It seems that the TBS cards use PCI-E version 1.0a of the relevant standard (note the suffix "a"), and many motherboard manufacturers forgot to support 1.0a when they added support for PCI-E version 2.0 and version 3.0. Your BIOS may have a setting that causes the PCI-E bus to run at level 1.0/1.0a (it might be called something like "PCI-E compatibility mode" or "PCI-E Bus Speed" or ...).

(3) Use hibernation in place of sleep. I found that my TBS 6284 card would hibernate correctly in the 1x slot, even though it does not sleep correctly in that slot. The problem with hibernation is that power-up and power-down take longer (on my system: 45 seconds to wake; 90 seconds to hibernate), and (most impacting of all) you cannot use the remote control to wake the HTPC from hibernation -- you have to press the power button on the system unit.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

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#14

Post by ggm » Tue Jul 23, 2013 8:41 am

Two responses have given me renewed hope. I shall not be moving my graphics card, but am willing to try the other suggestions. I started by trying to follow the commendably clear routine suggested by richard1980, but when I opened WMC, TV was available, and the device manager included the device, so I shall be trying again later to lose it, and will report back.

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#15

Post by milli260876 » Tue Jul 23, 2013 9:56 am

Have u checked the aerial???
Lee

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CyberSimian

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#16

Post by CyberSimian » Tue Jul 23, 2013 11:14 am

milli260876 wrote:Have u checked the aerial???
I don't think that weak signal or no signal would cause the PCI-E card to disappear from "Device Manager" on wake from sleep. Weak signal or no signal would certainly result in Media Center being unable to tune any channels, but the PCI-E card would still be listed in "Device Manager".

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

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#17

Post by CyberSimian » Tue Jul 23, 2013 11:26 am

ggm wrote:I shall not be moving my graphics card
I tried this out of desperation, even going to the length of purchasing a PCI graphics card (not PCI-E) in order to free the 16x slot. (My motherboard does not have built-in graphics support, but does have 3 PCI slots in addition to the 3 PCI-E slots.)

The PCI card was a passively-cooled Nvidia 8400GS, and from the video perspective I had no complaints, but it is not without its own problems. Specifically, it neither sleeps nor hibernates correctly (!!!); it fails to respond to some request from Windows during transition to sleep/hibernation, with the result that Windows eventually times-out. So the HTPC does enter sleep/hibernates, but only after a further delay of around 60 seconds.

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#18

Post by milli260876 » Tue Jul 23, 2013 11:29 am

CyberSimian wrote:
milli260876 wrote:Have u checked the aerial???
I don't think that weak signal or no signal would cause the PCI-E card to disappear from "Device Manager" on wake from sleep. Weak signal or no signal would certainly result in Media Center being unable to tune any channels, but the PCI-E card would still be listed in "Device Manager".

-- from CyberSimian in the UK
perhaps there's a short from the sheilding...?
Lee

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#19

Post by ggm » Tue Jul 23, 2013 12:16 pm

On next opening WMC, I found TV unavailable and Device Manager lacking the driver, so ran the set devmgr command. The Manager showed some hidden devices, but not the driver.

I install cards carefully, but will try reinstalling the tuner. On the GA-H87-HD3 board I think I put the card in PCIEX1_1, with 1_2 and 4 still free for experiment.

Other factors: Aerial scores top marks for reception on all channels. In BIOS I found only "PCIE Slot Configuration", set to "Auto", the other settings being "PCIEX4 operates at x1 mode" and "PCIEX4 operates at x4 mode". The handbook spec pages refer only to the 3.0 and 2.0 standards. Hibernation: not currently on the Start menu, and I haven't sought to change it; and I do switch the PC off at night. Display is confined to the monitor. My Nvidia graphics card performs very well where it is, and is much more important to me than PC TV.

I'll report back after trying hardware reinstallations.

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#20

Post by ggm » Tue Jul 23, 2013 8:14 pm

Memory plays tricks. Looking at the manual, I had intended putting the tuner in slot X1_1. On opening the PC, I discovered that the slot was blocked by the graphics card fan, and that to maximise airflow I had skipped X1_2 and used X4. So I used the BIOS to switch X4 to X1. I restarted the PC, and opened WMC three times, with TV available each time. I put Windows to sleep: TV was no longer available. I shut down and restarted the PC: TV was not available, twice.

Somewhat irrationally, I switched the slot to X4, and opened WMC three times, with TV available each time. I put Windows to sleep: TV was not available. I shut down and restarted the PC: TV was available three times. I tried the sleep routine again, with TV not available. It looks as though x1 is not the answer, and that X4 might be better.

Put tuner in X2 > start Windows > WMC > TV > "No tuner available". No driver in Device Manager. Tuner driver still listed in Programs and Features. Sleep > awaken > WMC > TV > "No tuner available". Shut down and restarted PC > WMC > TV > "No tuner available". In BIOS, switched slot configuration to X1 > WMC > TV > "No tuner available". Sleep > WMC > TV > "No tuner available". Shut down > restarted > notification of driver installation appeared > WMC > TV > "No tuner available" [done 3 times] > Sleep > TV > "No tuner available".

I returned the hardware to slot X4 with the X4 option specified. After startup, "No tuner available". Shut down > restarted > WMC > TV > "No tuner available". Test 1: Shut down > restarted > WMC > TV available, even after shutting WMC several times. Test 2: Shut down > restarted > WMC > TV available > closed WMC > opened WMC > was told "Media Center Extensibility Host has stopped working" and that Windows was seeking a resolution to the "problem". A quick look in Event Viewer suggested that may concern ehExtHost.exe. I closed down and reopened Windows: TV was available, and after
the first session the Host message appeared when I closed WMC down instead of near the start. I then tried Sleep, which was followed as usual with "No tuner available". If sleep proves the only problem for the tuner, I can probably live with that, as the tuner, when available, performs well with WMC, including HD, even though WMC identified the 6220 as only a T1 standard tuner.

I'll investigate Windows' "problem" tomorrow.

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