WMC Starting Up at Wrong Part of Guide and Recording?

[AidenL]

Hi all,

New WMC user here, have just moved onto a HTPC before Christmas, and cutting the cord tomorrow.

I have been having a few small problems with WMC running on Windows 7 - first of all, when I start WMC, and open the Guide, its usually sitting up around Channel 1107 or so, when my main channels start at 101.

Is there any way to make the guide open up at 101?

Also, it seems to start recording the channel it opens up on, or rather time shifting, as thats the symbol that appears - can I prevent that from happening?

Also, have had some issues waking my PC up from sleep, not sure why that is.

Sorry for the random and varied questions, hope I have posted in the right place too.

Thanks in advance

[Mike88]

I have noticed the guide opens with the last channel watched as the one that displays at the top of the guide. Try tuning to & watching channel 101, then stopping the viewing, then getting out of the guide. When you open the guide again channel 101 should be at the top. I don't know if there is a way to always force the guide to start with 101.

I'm not sure what you mean by "Also, it seems to start recording the channel it opens up on". Mine does not record anything when I open it (EPG or WMC). When I put my HTPC to sleep I make sure nothing is being watched or played. IOW I stop these functions. If it's recording it goes to sleep after the recording is finished.

Search this forum for issues regarding waking up from sleep, or maybe someone else can help with advice.

[AidenL]

Thanks Mike - think the guide problem is sorted by doing that.

Yes, as you described, it seems to start recording / time shifting whatever channel it starts up on. Thats strange, and I have Googled and can't find a solution.

Today I have had another problem, and failed recordings - I'm getting a message along the lines of Your PC does not have enough Video Memory - not sure what that means - theres 8Gig of Ram onboard, Im using the onboard GPU of a high end AMD chipset - anything else I should adjust.

If I can't get this sorted, I'm regrettably going to have to go back to Sky for recording reliability.......

[Mike88]

I have no idea what the memory problem might be. You might want to start a new thread about that & hopefully someone else could offer advice.

That being said, every so often I would get an unexplained system shutdown and/or reboot. Eventually I ran a RAM test, I used memtest and also memtest86. I got error messages when using both sticks of RAM, however using either stick by itself was fine. My desktop happened to have the same type RAM but a different brand. I swapped RAM & the HTPC has been working OK every since, and so has the desktop. Apparently there was some compatibility issue with the first RAM & the HTPC.

You might want to download & try one or both of the memtests and see what they say. I was surprised I had a RAM problem because it never acted up when I was actually using the HTPC.

[barnabas1969]

I think that when the OP describes the recording/time-shifting behavior, he is simply talking about the fact that you can rewind live TV. This is normal behavior for every DVR I've ever seen, including Windows Media Center.

[AidenL]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the input - my PC still seems to start up on a channel in the 1100 range when I turn it on, no matter what I leave it on due to the crash or freeze due to the Video Ram error (which I have posted on another thread) - and hrs timeshiftimg it, even thought i haven't paused or rewinded anything.

Heres the video error message too, just fyi.......

[Scallica]

^Upgrade your video card

[AidenL]

^Upgrade your video card

Its a 2 month old HTPC!

Ok, when you say Video card, do you mean the tuner? I don't have a video card, I thought / assumed I was using the onboard GPU in the AMD chip - I was told when buying the PC, I didn't build it, that as long as I wasn't gaming, I'd not need a video card?

[smcmillan2]

Then it sounds like you need to give the graphics more of the system memory in the BIOS. How/where to do this is dependent on your motherboard, check the user's manual to see what your options are.

[AidenL]

Oh gawd ! That sounds like it will be a saga for me !

[blueiedgod]

Oh gawd ! That sounds like it will be a saga for me !

What are your PC specs?

Sounds like you are using windows default driver, and not the AMD driver for the video card, and you may have by-passed Digital Cable Adviser test, which is fed by the Windows Experience Index test.

If your hardware is up to snuff, update the driver, run WEI, then run DCA, and see if the issue is resolved.

[IownFIVEechos]

That definitely sounds like you have the generic VGA drivers loaded. Get the proper drivers and it should go away. They don't make 64mb video cards anymore do they?

[bandook]

Update your video and sound drivers. Also make sure that the default windows sound, in control panel, is set to stereo or 2.0. Then configure wmc as you need for audio, stereo, 5.1, 7.1 or whatever your setup is. Stay away from installing audio codecs until you know what you are doing there. Yes, an incorrect setup of your audio will give you video errors in wmc.