Bretts Posted January 28, 2005 Posted January 28, 2005 I have been experiencing this problem for a while. It seems that every now an then, more so when it is a hot day the nebula PCI card loses signal on every channel. If I go to the technical information section each channel shows no signal. To over come this I need to totally power off the PC, if I just restart the PC there will still be no signal. I have also put the Nebula in another PC and see the same problem. Anyone else experienced this? Could it be faulty card?
Anarchi Posted January 28, 2005 Posted January 28, 2005 Sounds like reception either due to your antenna or interference from other devices such as TV or stereo, or the other PC's cables passing the antenna leed - for instance the power cable and VGA cable. When it happens again, try moving the antenna leed well away from everything else to minimize interference. Replacing your antenna leed with an expensive shielded leed will also help - I did this myself and I managed to get D44, ABC, and channel 10 back.
joeybloggs Posted January 28, 2005 Posted January 28, 2005 Could be your power supply crapping out ~ Do you have instrumented Case and CPU temperatures ? Next time it happens, try taking the covers of the case and positioning an ordinary household fan to blow full bore into the case at an angle, see what happens ~
HyperReality Posted January 28, 2005 Posted January 28, 2005 Could be your power supply crapping out ~ That's certainly one place where I'd start looking. The stability and "cleanliness" of the PCI bus powerlines can have an impact on the tuner on a DVB-T PCI card (this is not just DigiTV specific).
renura Posted January 28, 2005 Posted January 28, 2005 I have been experiencing this problem for a while. It seems that every now an then, more so when it is a hot day the nebula PCI card loses signal on every channel. If I go to the technical information section each channel shows no signal. To over come this I need to totally power off the PC, if I just restart the PC there will still be no signal.I have also put the Nebula in another PC and see the same problem. Anyone else experienced this? Could it be faulty card? Hi Bretts, as mentioned by others, certainly look at the power supply, etc. But I note that you have tried on another PC and get the same results. In that case, (and presuming that you don't have a coincidental failure of power supplies in both PC), my guess is that it has to be something else? Check your leads, splitter/amplifier, anything you may have in the signal feed chain and that you used for both PCs. If possible take your PC elsewhere and try it there. If, after that, you are still having problems, I suggest you return your card to wherever you purchased it from for testing and replacement if necessary. Cheers Renura
stevefair Posted January 29, 2005 Posted January 29, 2005 I have been experiencing this problem for a while. It seems that every now an then, more so when it is a hot day the nebula PCI card loses signal on every channel. If I go to the technical information section each channel shows no signal. To over come this I need to totally power off the PC, if I just restart the PC there will still be no signal.I have also put the Nebula in another PC and see the same problem. Anyone else experienced this? Could it be faulty card? Hi Bretts, as mentioned by others, certainly look at the power supply, etc. But I note that you have tried on another PC and get the same results. In that case, (and presuming that you don't have a coincidental failure of power supplies in both PC), my guess is that it has to be something else? Check your leads, splitter/amplifier, anything you may have in the signal feed chain and that you used for both PCs. If possible take your PC elsewhere and try it there. If, after that, you are still having problems, I suggest you return your card to wherever you purchased it from for testing and replacement if necessary. Cheers Renura <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I have the same issue, but you will probably find that if you leave it alone for a few mins it will come back. Re auto tuning seemed to reduce this. Steve
Bretts Posted January 29, 2005 Author Posted January 29, 2005 I will try a better splitter. The power supplies are good, I have tried removing all other equipment, the anntena cable is good quality cleaning and re-seating the cable has no affect. No matter how long i leave it for it never comes good a full shutdown is the only way I can get signal back. The ambient tempruture in the case is 35 - 39 deg when this problem occurs I am also going to try a chassis fan. Does anyone know the operating temprature specs for the Nebula? Cheers Brett
renura Posted January 30, 2005 Posted January 30, 2005 The ambient tempruture in the case is 35 - 39 deg when this problem occurs I am also going to try a chassis fan. Does anyone know the operating temprature specs for the Nebula?No, not really. I suspect it can withstand temperatures higher than your motherboard/CPU can, so it should not be the issue.Cheers Renura
Chop Chop Posted January 30, 2005 Posted January 30, 2005 From my unsuccessful testing of nebula card I had similar experience. This afternoon I installed the card in my pc and tested with the antenna from dse - nothing. So I took it to the kitchen and connected to the existing antenna port - after tuning it showed 7/9/SBS and other crap channels. So I though, ok, might try with the dse antenna - after tuning, only got SBS and crap channels. Put the antenna lead back on got nothing . Tried again and just got SBS and other craps
murrayt Posted January 30, 2005 Posted January 30, 2005 Chop Chop Obviously you've had a rather crappy day. Why not give us some more meaningful details so that those of who know what works well can assist you. Like where are you located PC specs antenna type shared/non shared Distance and terrain to transmitter other reception quality. what sort of testing you have conducted already
Chop Chop Posted January 30, 2005 Posted January 30, 2005 Chop ChopObviously you've had a rather crappy day. Why not give us some more meaningful details so that those of who know what works well can assist you. Like where are you located PC specs antenna type shared/non shared Distance and terrain to transmitter other reception quality. what sort of testing you have conducted already <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Ok - here is the thread I started regarding the cards and my antenna situation. My workstation is just dual xeon 1.8G with 1G RDRAM, MX440 video card which I will upgrade when I go to dual monitor setup. Antenna type - no idea, it is on the roof that's all I know. Since we moved into this place the tv in lounge room is connected to optus cable and I used to get free cable tv on my pc via my optusnet via leadtek tv tuner card till optus scrambled the transmisson Distance and terrain to tramsitter - again I've no idea - terrian wise is I suppose there's a hill next a few blocks, no big trees, if that's what you meant. reception quality - not much. the reception is poor for sbs via antenna port in the kitchen, probably bad during rains for all chanel - that I'm not sure 100%. Testing wise - again not much just a few quick connections and that's all about it. I'd be happy to try any suggestions you guys have though. I'm not sure whether I'm hijacking the thread. If it is, pls feel free to post to the thread I started. http://www.dtvforum.info/index.php?showtopic=13404 ps - I live in condell park btw, if that's help. thanks. pps - what are the chances - should I spend another a few hundreds bucks to get an antenna. If so who do you recommended and what type?
digitaladvisor Posted January 30, 2005 Posted January 30, 2005 Brett Passive splitters no matter how they good they are can still drop signal levels. If you are losing signal - you could well on the margins. Discoonect any slitters and try quad shiedling fly lead directly from the aerial as possible. That way you'll remove one factor in the chain - bad signal testing from aerial. Regards DA
digitalize Posted January 30, 2005 Posted January 30, 2005 I'm not sure whether I'm hijacking the thread. If it is, pls feel free to post to the thread I started. http://www.dtvforum.info/index.php?showtopic=13404 ps - I live in condell park btw, if that's help. One very strange thing that I have found, here in the ACT is that sometimes during the day, suddenly the signal is at significantly lower strength (and its not heat, as it happens in colder days too), and it happens with all three PCI cards I have, although the DNTV Live sofware seems to be coping better when that happens. The first time it happened I thought it was the aerial, so I moved it around, and ended it up making it worse, basically lost it completely , then a couple of hours later everything was back to normal. It may not be what happens in your situation, but worth checking
murrayt Posted January 31, 2005 Posted January 31, 2005 Digitalize I am wondering whether it is localised noise sources (the possibilities are endless) that cause this sort of behaviour I haven't observed it on my installation, but I have seen the impact of computer generated "noise" (the average PC is a rich source of VHF and harmonics One wonders how when multiple cards are affected, how one software application would cope better than others in this given that the DVB stream is processed and transported on the cards and not in the software.
digitalize Posted January 31, 2005 Posted January 31, 2005 One wonders how when multiple cards are affected, how one software application would cope better than others in this given that the DVB stream is processed and transported on the cards and not in the software.Murray, when this degradation in signal happened, I checked with DigiTV/nebula card and DNTV Live/DVICO and DNTV Live/DNTV Live cards, the result was that with the digitv/nebula the picture was pixelating, breaking, pausing and stuttering very badly, practically unwatchable.Using DNTV Live software with either of the other cards the result was not as bad, but still not good. My thinking was that the maybe the DNTV Live! decoders are better at handling those low signals, errors, etc. Of course, now that you mention it, it could be the hardware. Dean
murrayt Posted February 1, 2005 Posted February 1, 2005 Dean/DZ I guess you have the observations, and are best placed to link local conditions to theories about what may be going on. Software decoders are delivered a bitstream TS, high/low signal isn't really relevant to how the decoder operates at that interface. I'll leave you to observe some more and (hopefully) develop a sound conclusion as to what is going on around your installation. Such simple things as cable quality, physical location of cards relative to the noise source are likely to have effect. I guess with a bit of work you will be able to give us all an apples for apples comparison, from which we may all be able to learn some more.
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