How many components can be changed without breaking DRM?

[lopezi]

My otherwise stable build since 2010 is starting to give me some fits. I do not know if it is hardware or OS yet but before I start doing a deep dive into it, how many components can I change out before my protected content will no longer play?

Current system:
Windows 7 x64 Ultimate
ASRock K10N78D AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA nForce 720D ATX AMD Motherboard
ECS Silent Series GeForce 210 512MB 64-Bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 Video Card
PNY XLR8 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel
AMD Athlon II X4 610e Propus Quad-Core 2.4 GHz Socket AM3
Ceton InfiniTV 4 PCIe
Thermaltake TR2 W0070 430W ATX
2 HDDs, one for OS, one for RecordTV, both check out fine, no errors.

Last Friday my HTPC just locked up somewhere in the middle of the day when I wasn't home (no one was watching or recording anything). I rebooted the machine later and it came back up with no problems. 20 mins to 30 mins later it locked up again (also, no one was watching or recording anything). Every reboot would be met with the same results...some point in time later the machine would just lock up, there was no ryhme or reason to when it would lock up. At one point over the weekend it would be fine for almost 4hrs and then it locked up.

I was going to try swapping memory, video and power supply. I know I can swap the power supply with no issues, but I wasn't sure about the memory or video card. Can these be swapped out without causing the protected wtv files from being rendered unplayable?

And, if worse case scenario, I had to swap out the motherboard, would that cause an issue with the protected wtv files?

The protected files are a bunch of shows that my son likes to watch and are hard to get back, so I'd like to keep them.

Thanks,
Ivan

[cwinfield]

Motherboard can't be replaced without triggering playready, unless it is the same exact or similar model with same ICH, memory should be ok but some people run into issues increasing the amount I haven't. not sure about cpu but seems likely. Power supply and video card shouldn't be a problem. As far as your lock up issues, I would look for anything in event viewer and turn on BSOD crash dump logging to see what is causing issues, could be a recent update or driver. BTW did you know that ceton infiniTV4 and nforce are supposedly incompatible http://cetoncorp.com/support/index.php? ... -in-one-pc. Your power supply is a good start for replacement and your symptoms are of that sort of problem where you start crashing or locking up without explanation caused by rails having poor or intermittent supply power.

[lopezi]

As far as your lock up issues, I would look for anything in event viewer and turn on BSOD crash dump logging to see what is causing issues, could be a recent update or driver. BTW did you know that ceton infiniTV4 and nforce are supposedly incompatible http://cetoncorp.com/support/index.php? ... -in-one-pc. Your power supply is a good start for replacement and your symptoms are of that sort of problem where you start crashing or locking up without explanation caused by rails having poor or intermittent supply power.

Yeah, I had come across that link before so I'm not sure what nForce chipset it was referring to. My system has been in place since 2010 and relatively 'stable' (outside of some glitches related to the Tuning Adapter and the Ceton card) so I'm going to say the nForce isn't to blame otherwise I'd have had system instability all along.

Nothing is logged to the event viewer and it doesn't blue screen, it just stops...(still powered on but not able to ping it, no keyboard/mouse usage, and the TV goes black). So, I'm leaning toward a hardware issue but identifying what component is going to be fun. I don't have another MB that's of the same 'family' so here's hoping that isn't the case. I'll try PS, memory and video.

[randman]

The lockups sound similar to what I had happen recently. The screen would go black and the PC would lockup randomly. I would reboot and it would usually run fine for hours or days. I noticed the lockups seemed to occur more frequently on hotter days. In my case, the fan on the video card was just barely spinning and essentially not cooling the card at all. I'm not sure if yours has a fan though. Maybe check the video card temperatures? I used the MSI Afterburner program to monitor the temperature. I ended setting a spare case fan next to the video card while I waited for a replacement. I did not have any issues while using this temporary setup.

[lopezi]

The lockups sound similar to what I had happen recently. The screen would go black and the PC would lockup randomly. I would reboot and it would usually run fine for hours or days. I noticed the lockups seemed to occur more frequently on hotter days. In my case, the fan on the video card was just barely spinning and essentially not cooling the card at all. I'm not sure if yours has a fan though. Maybe check the video card temperatures? I used the MSI Afterburner program to monitor the temperature. I ended setting a spare case fan next to the video card while I waited for a replacement. I did not have any issues while using this temporary setup.

My video card is the fanless model, with just a decent sized heatsink. I opted for that years ago because I know the fans eventually crap out and I was tired of hearing the noise when they did.
My case has two fans which work in a pull air in, pull air out fashion to keep an air flow going through the case.


However, you may be onto something with the video card, it may just get a little bit warmer than it likes and sends the system south. I may start with replacing that item.