So far, I have fixed up some antenna problems, but the dvb-t TV tuner (swann dvb-t SW112-DVB) still causes problems (the occasional PC lock-up… sometime more frequently than others)

On one PC I tested (P4 1.7 Ghz) the dvb-t worked without a hitch… a 10 hour overnight recording.

This PC has a PCI card to add an additional 4 USB ports, so I figure that my original PC might have had usb ports that were not able to sustain a high data rate.

So I plug in the PCI card into my sempron PC. XP installs the drivers for the card, but says there was some problem. Sure enough, the usb ports don’t recognise the TV tuner, and not even a usb drive.

After some head scratching, I eventually remember that a did some mild overclocking on this PC. I increased the memory clock from 200Mhz to 212Mhz. This also increased the CPU speed from 1600Mhz to 1696Mhz, and the PCI clock from 33Mhz to 35Mhz.

Obviously this must have been just enough to disrupt the timing / stability of the usb circuitry.

I went back to the default clock settings, and I now get crystal-clear digital TV reception, with no dropouts, using the built-in usb ports (and the PCI card also started working normally after that, but I remove it, as I figure I don’t need it.).

After a few days, I noticed that the built in USB port would still (occasionally) cause the PC to freeze.

OK, reinstall the PCI usb card, and that seemed to fix the issue… except… now the freezing seems even less frequent… but it still happens.

While watching TV, CPU usage is 20% – 25%, but if I watch a HD channel, then CPU usage goes to over 70%. (and the stuttering returns… unless I increase the priority of the totalmedia.exe process to “above normal” via process manager.

I don’t care much about HDTV, but I eventually ditch my sempron and ga-k8vm800m motherboard, and get a used intel d865glc mobo and 2.6 Ghz P4 with HT… and thats the start of another story…