PlayReady Updates

[Crash2009]

Thanks again for your help.

[Crash2009]

Had a couple bsod's while the tuner was playing a channel. Thought maybe I should dig a little deeper, if your up to it?

Does everything look OK in here?

[Crash2009]

I opened a ticket with Ceton. Tech support requested the dump files. They gave me some direction toward the problem. Memory Corruption caused by a software driver or bad ram. Overclocking Ram/Cpu can also reproduce these symptoms.

I guess I'll start with Memtest, then dig in to the BIOS.

[JohnW248]

I opened a ticket with Ceton. Tech support requested the dump files. They gave me some direction toward the problem. Memory Corruption caused by a software driver or bad ram. Overclocking Ram/Cpu can also reproduce these symptoms.

I guess I'll start with Memtest, then dig in to the BIOS.

You can start with the Windows MemTest which runs on reboot or if you have a test in Bios like HP and Dell you can run that. Communication between the Ceton and the computer through the chain is pretty touchy since the cable labs have imposed all those protection schemes so you can't open a program the MSO has marked as copy once on another machine.

Ceton has got some really sharp guys working there and they can spot stuff pretty fast. I know they've bailed me out on more than one occassion finding something I wouldn't have even considered.

Every thing in your screen shot looks normal as far as network operation of the card is concerned. Were you watching a protected (CCI 0x02) channel when it went bsod on you? If so that might help Ceton with looking at WMDRM or not if it happened on a copy freely channel.

John

[Crash2009]

I just finished running Memtest 4.20 from bootable USB. Results were no errors. So I guess I can eliminate bad ram.

I suspect the bios is not set up properly. As I remember, I had the board working with 1 pair of Corsair XMS2 2X2GB. When I added the second pair of same, it wouldn't boot. The Corsair website said to lower the speed and increase the Northbridge Voltage, so I did. I also bumped the cpu from 1.35 to 1.40 at around the same time. I'll have to check my notes and review the bios settings.

Thanks to Ceton, I didn't even know that I had 19 dump files since May. All random, no matching times.

I don't remember what channel was playing.

[JohnW248]

The Ceton card and its operations shouldn't really stress your machine much. What does hit it is if you have a lot of movies on a server and then several extenders. You should also check out the logs. (right click on computer and choose manage and left click, when the console opens expand Event Viewer and start checking the Windows Logs ALSO expant Applications and Services and find Media Center. You will likely find lots of things to check out but at first scroll in the windows logs under applications to about the time of your BSOD and see what was going on. The most common BSOD I've seen (and I'm running stock machines so I haven't changed any of the parameters you've been working with) are related to display drivers. I'm not really a fan of the ATI devices having purchased serval which now live in the boxes they came in due to issue with things like HBO. Currently I'm running Nvidia GT430s on both the Dell and HP machine because they handle video much better than ATI does.

But that's just one thing to look for. The HBO 29/59 issue occurs on both Cinemax and HBO. You can easily check it with HBO playing on your computer and opening the debug screen and going to the very last screen. If the frame rate is flickering between 29 and 59 the issue is present. Nvidia survives, ATI will crash and burn (at least for me). [I think the keyboard control to start the debug screen with video playing is control + D 411] I hope I remember the control correctly if not someone will surely correct it. With a remote its display 411 .

[Crash2009]

Found the BSOD section at sevenforums. Just ran SF Diag. Plan to upload after reviewing the data collected. It appears that they have a Crash Dump Analyst over there. Might as well get an opinion.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/92 ... oting.html

I see what you mean now, about a seemingly miniscule item messing up the PlayReady playground. It's a good thing you figured out my tuner was not set up right. I would rather find out these things sooner than later. Thanks again!

[JohnW248]

Just so you know, if you were watching HBO or Cinemax when you had the BSOD, chances are you are seeing the impact of the 29/59 bug crashing the display card and the system. You might want to just check by watching (or leaving the computer running watching) another channel such as Discovery or NatGeo and seeing if it crashes (you can leave it running). My money right now is on HBO/Cinemax since you showed that capture in one of your posts.

Another test is to record a movie on HBO which will work. It will play fine on extenders but will crash your Media Center computer to BSOD on playback there. That is the ultimate test for a problem graphic card. (I went through several ATI cards until I moved on to Nvidia).

John

[Crash2009]

That BSOD investigation is just too much work. I don't need to know that badly. If one of those anyalysts from sevenforums responds, I will look up that avenue. Thanks for suggesting to have a look in those event viewer log files. I did look up several events that co-incided with the time and date of the dump. I was just starting to notice some similar patterns, and a BSOD blew up in my face. The pattern that I was noticing was The User Profile Service starts and within a minute BSOD. Lots of other things are going on within that minute, and one of the other services could easily be the culprit or a combination of them all. WMI, PRTG, SNMP were all seen at the scene of the crime, at the right time. Maybe its not a good idea to have the HTPC assigned as a NMS (not sure if thats the correct name) SNMP network monitoring station.

Decided to try a slightly different configuration and we'll see how it goes. I tore the Ceton down again, and re-installed. This time Network Tuners is installed, no bridge and bridging is turned off. Everything paired up nicely all by itself, the speed is back. I am just going to leave it like this for a couple weeks with HBO or Cinemax playing 24/7.

[Crash2009]

Finally caught a break. Downloaded this utility called BlueScreenView. It scans your dump directory and lists the causes of all your crashes. Right click on a crash, and it sends you to google for an explaination. Now I see why Ceton insists the memory is bad. Could be the ram sticks or the memory controller on the AMD. I need to run Memtest for a minimum of 24 hours

What do you think about my PlayReady complaints just being a symptom of frequent crashes? For example, we know it has crashed 19 times. Every time it recovers I have to do the PlayReady update. I thought it was a problem with PlayReady, but it appears that something else is the cause and PlayReady is the result.

[JohnW248]

Depending on what was running when the BSOD hits, it could trigger the playready update. When I have seen this issue it rarely is a playready install issue but rather a rather quick install which I think just rewrites some registry entries. This does look like a memory issue.

Until you get the memory issue resolved, I wouldn't worry about Playready since I think that will go away once the memory is happy.

What is the "sign-in assistant" that you have running? I've seen problems with automatic sign-in programs. I'd try disabling that if that's what it does. They seem to get confused with multiple network adapters and the tcpip stack.

John

[Crash2009]

SignInAssistant, I don't know where that comes from. Google says, something to do with Windows Live.

Could that be Windows Live Mail, logging in to check my e-mail?

Edit,,,NOPE http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download ... n&id=15106 don't think I need that, I'll get rid of it.

[Crash2009]

Today it looks like a Ram Problem. Sticks 3,4 cause no boot in slot 3,4. Also sticks 3,4 no boot in slot 1,2. Still no comments from sevenforums. 26,000 posts in BSOD, only 13 humans. Here is an update http://www.sevenforums.com/crashes-debu ... 012-a.html

[JohnW248]

Do you have a local repair store that has a good ram tester? Also check and make sure that there isn't some requirement that needs to be met if this is build up instead of a Dell etc. I had some problems with trying to keep some existing RAM in an i7 and mixed speeds of 1200 and 1600 and there were weird little things like aero peak wouldn't draw preview pop-ups beyond 8 tabs, etc. When it was changed so it all matched at 1600 (although the MB only support 1200 and every thing in the previous mix was running at 1200) it cleared up.

You might want to review and replace the RAM as a first step but see what the MB supports and make sure the speed matches.

John