Failing cards, or XP update?

[bernardwheeler]

PCV-RZ424, XP Home with WindowsUpdate set to automatic.

Just recently, I noticed that GigaPocket stopped working - "Failed to open Sony TV Tuner device".

Had a look in the XP Device Manager and both the "NEC OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller" and "Sony MPEG RealTime encoder board" have warning marks next to them - each with a (not at all helpful) device status of "This device cannot start. (Code 10)".
I've tried power cycle and re-seating the tuner board, but ot no avail.

Sure enough, the PCMCIA slot doesn't recognize things either (I now find).

Anyone know if a recent XP update has knackered things, or am I looking at a warranty call for blown hardware somewhere?

TIA

[adamb12]

I have the same vaio as you and i have installed all of the windows updates and mine is working fine. have you tried reinstaling windows or ring sony. hope this helped:smileyhappy:

[bernardwheeler]

Just took out the TV Tuner card and its internal cables at tha board end, reattched and re-inserted -- but in the next PCI slot (so it's next to the video card now) and everything's working again - including the PCMCIA slot.

It's odd that a problem with one PCI card can have a knock-on to quite a bit of other stuff (IEEE 1394 and PCMCIA).

Glad it's working now though.

[kee-lo_]

Thanks for the info.

[bernardwheeler]

Interestingly, the move of the card to the new slot reverted to the original XP drivers for the TV Tuner card. This had issues with locking the system up - especially after a suspend (e.g. through inactivity). I had these issues before and they were fixed by updating the drivers to the latest versions from Sony.

Luckily I still had the download from the vaio-link site (that site's been having some weird problems recently), so I just updated the drivers - and the TV Tuner card still works.

I really suspect that a recent WindowsUpdate has munged something...

Hope this helps someone else

[bernardwheeler]

Just applied the latest DirectX update and my system's trashed again:
- hangs when recoverying from inactivity suspend
- won't hibernate because the PCMCIA/ATAPI device is stopping it from doing so
- remove the power cord (at the risk of trashing the disk) because there's no other way of rebooting (keyboard totally unresponsive)
- on restart the MPEG encoder and IEEE 1394 devices are not started (in DeviceManager)
- GigaPocket can't find the TV Tuner and the PCMCIA slot is unresponsive

But I know from last time that the cards are actually OK - unless the motherboard is gradually degrading. or there's something up with the PCI control system?

Anyone had anything similar?

[bernardwheeler]

Further update - just removed the link cable between the TV Tuner PCI card and the A/V sockets on the front of the PC - and the tuner card now works.

Doesn't resolve the PCMCIA slot not working, but now at least I suspect a hardware issue at the front of the box.

Guess it's time to call Sony...

[Dwestie]

bernard,

Two things immediately came to mind;

1.a possible driver/hardware conflict with any other devices installed

2.Windows update ballsing everything up when it plays about with directx. as it did with mine not so long ago. a re-install of windows (arduos as it is) solved it but i don't have a clue what the problem was...