update the video capture sections?
 

from e-mail...

The options and quality available in computer capture cards has sadly gone downhill in recent years. The best experience in capturing are still being had with the older hardware and software options.

This is one case where consumer demands created worse products, the technology was not allowed to mature on its own merits. Stupid people demanded crappy items, and it happened. Those of us who wanted quality-related features became an ignored niche. Cards switch entirely to dummy-friendly TV recording PVR devices, often with an assumption that the computer would be plugged into a TV. Even something as simple as the ability to save a recording to DVD became a hassle on some devices.

I'm working on some new information, currently plodding through USB2 devices and DVD recorders currently on the market. At the moment, its mostly reviews, though I'm writing out a capture guide for Pinnacle Studio 12.

Is there a specific ATI cards you're using?
And if so, what's your current setup?
What are the disappointments and troubles you're currently facing?

Maybe armed with that info, we can get you where you need to be.

I have an ATI AIW X800XT AGP card in a MSI MS-7025 mobo, Athlon 64 4800+ 2.4ghz dual core skt 939, WD-1500 raptor, Win xp sp3.

The Video capture functions stopped working after doing some O.C. ing... (Yes I'm a dumba** for playing with it) I never overheated the GPU or the CPU. (monitored with ATI TOOLS)

Using CCC version 1, ati mmc 9.03,
The pkg was 8.083 (drivers from Cat 5.1?) They came from the install disk...

Computer video functions good on the card, but the tv capture will no longer launch correctly.. it shows a gray screen on tv and the MMC controls show a question mark on the video inputs.

I'm thinking that I must have damaged the drivers during the OC session and was going to un-install / re-install them. Since I'm going to 'gut' the ATI software I was hoping to locate a more uptodate version of CCC and MMC and drivers that will work correctly on the AIW X800XT card. I tried to access the http://www.digitalfaq.com/downloads/software/ site but it blocks me.

I would like to see whats available in the form of complete CCC install pkgs that are pre 6.11... these are no longer available from the AMD site.

I am not an advanced user, but I don't consider myself a noob either...

Can you offer me any guidance on how to proceed?
Thx.

That's not a valid link on the site, it never was. I don't know where you got it from. There is nothing available at that exact URL.

At this late date, I've forgotten what "CCC" stood for. It was the combined Catalyst package, or something along those lines. Prior to that method of installing system drivers, ATI provided several separate installers for graphics, video capture (WDM), control panel, DVD player, remote control and WME encoding. Eventually, some of those were merged, like WME+Catalyst (video capture). The earliest CCC that I archived was 6.11 -- and in fact, I think that was the first version of it.

Shortly after the drivers/MMC found on your CD came out, ATI software got worse. Newer versions would be downgrades in performance and features, not an improvement. ATI started to screw up everything, limiting the quality/features of video capture on legacy Radeon AIW cards (via terrible software updates), making newer/poorer AIW PCIe "HD" cards, and spending more time on the video game graphics cards. After AMD bought out ATI, much of the legacy ATI information and support was wiped out, including the software/driver archives. ATI doesn't seem to care about video anymore -- it only cares about video gamers now, judging from their current product lines, and support of the products that made them a recognizable brand name.

I suggest simply using what is on the CD.

If that fails to work, then you probably have a deeper Windows issue. In those cases, it's best to re-install the OS.

I'd also want to know if your system was on SP1, SP2 or SP3 -- when it did capture properly. Some of the XP service packs are known to corrupt the drivers from ATI. I ran into this with SP2 some many years ago, older drivers made for SP1 did not work correctly. Is running SP3 a recent change? (I run SP2 on my capture systems, leave well enough alone.)

I have a number of older capturing drivers and packages saved, but those were created for previous AIW 7000, 8000 and 9000 series cards. I don't know that it would help you. These are not online, they are stored on my hard drive.

I got the link from within some of the posts... for the ATI MMC .RAR downloads, I was hoping to just view all the .RAR's in one directory...
CCC stands for Catalyst Control Center and if its in a download pkg its usually the combined suite of Catalyst, drivers, MMC, remote, etc software. The stuff I got on the install cd's is way older than 6.11.. I thought the versions used the year and month to id them... ex 6.11 from 2006 November..

The CD for AIW X800XT is numbered 180-V01095-100 and is dated 2004. here's what shows on the installed software from the Catalyst Information Panel

Driver Packaging Version 8.083-041207 a020023C-ATI
Catalytst Version 0
2D Driver Version 6.14.10.6497
Direct 3D Version 6.14.10.0277
Open GL Version 6.14.10.4777
Catalyst Control Center Version 1.0.1833.388 using Microsoft .net framework 1.1.4322.2407

I'm thinking this is from somewhere around CAT 4.12 - 5.1 but not 100% sure. The WDM drivers show the following info when displayed from Device Manager..

ATI WDM Rage Theater Audio 6.14.10.6290 1/17/2005
ATI WDM Rage Theater Videio NSP 6.14.10.6290 1/17/2005
ATI WDM Specialized MVD Codec 6.14.10.6290 1/17/2005
ATI WDM Specialized PCD Codec 6.14.10.6290 1/17/2005
ATI WDM Audio Crossbar 6.14.10.6290 1/17/2005
ATI WDM TV Tuner 6.14.10.6290 1/17/2005

Windows XP control Panel - Add / Remove Programs shows the following:
ATI Catalyst Control Center 1.0.1760.38296
ATI Control Panel 6.14.10.5134
ATI Decoder 3.02
ATI Display Driver 8.083-041207 a020024C-ATI
ATI MMC 9.03
ATI Remote Wonder 2.5.0.0
ATI Tool 0.26
DAO ver 3.5

I'm Using DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904) by the way all diagnostic test work thru dxdiag.exe

MOBO is MSI K8N Neo2 Plat MS-7025 with nForce3 250 Ultra chipset driver ver 5.10.2600.446

When I first installed the ATI stuff, I was using Windows XP SP2
but then applied the XP SP3 update after the ATI stuff was installed. The video capture functions were working great with my AIW X800XT under xp sp2 and sp3. I watched TV from its tuner, recored to MPG / AVI, used the S-Video input to capture from the DVR, recorded etc... Card and software worked great.

I built the system from spare parts that I have leftover from my 1st pc which I built in Oct 2004. Its all from around the 2003-2005 era. (AMD Athlon 64 skt 939 w/AGP graphic, Soundblaster X-FI Elite Pro sound, PC&C 510 atx power supply, x 1gb sticks of OCZ DDR-400 mem 2-2-7-2 1T)

The first x800xt AIW card began to malfunction a few months ago. (pixelation on computer and TV monitors) I tried cleaning the fan and applying new thermal paste on the GPU and it did help lower the temps (70-78C under load, 41C at idle) but the
card still pixelated. This was a hardware issue though not software. I actually was able to swap out the old AIW x800xt with a spare AIW 9800 pro with no issues... both cards worked off the same software... tv capture and everything.... I used that for a month while searching for a replacement AIW X800XT.

I'm thinking the AIW 9800 pro and AIW X800xt will play on each other software.. I'm running CAt 3.4 on my other pc with AIW 9800 Pro, MMC 9.061, and Remote Wonder 3.02 and it works fine. If you have older CAT versions I'd be interested in seeing what you have if its from CAT 4.1x or 5.1x

I was lucky (or cursed) to find another used AIW X800xt with only 6 months use on it. (supposedly) They are such rare cards these days so I snapped it up as soon as I found it. (but still paid way too much for it... I just like the one card solution.. when these things work, they are awesome... I really enjoy screwing around with video capture and multi media stuff... I'm not a guru but I feel that I've got a bit of working knowledge..

I installed a Zalman CU-700 GPU cooler & heatsink on the replacement AIW X800Xt and heatsinks on the memory chips of the card. The used card I got looked to be in really good shape, most of the cables and connectors were still in the sealed pkgs...
(card was not dusty either)

I installed the card into my HTPC and It worked great... and runs very cool now... 30C at idle and 55c under load (using 3D renderer on ATI TOOLS) all the tv capture and mmc functions worked... even recorded some mpg...

Then I got stupid.. I decided to try out the card on 3DMARK05..
I don't even know why I bothered.. I'm not a gamer and I know that the synthetic benchmarks are not even a reasonable indicator of real world performance.. but I'm a sucker for those benchmark scores... So I put what I thought was a 'mild' oc on the card... gpu bumped from 500mhz to 520, video memory bumped from 500 to 540mhz.. - equiv to an x850 plat ati card.. then I benched... got thru it 5830 score, then OC'd the CPU... HT dropped from 5 to 4, FSB bump from 200 to 220mhz, got a stable 2.6 ghz oc and cracked 6600 on the 3dmark.. quite respectable for an old AGP rig running DDR-400 memory.. on air cooling...neither the GPU or the CPU showed any signs of overheating... 55C on gpu and 51C on CPU.. system appeared stable...

When I was done with 3d mark 05 I tried launching the ATI MMC while still having everything OC'd.. BAD MOVE... The ATI MMC controls showed up after 2 mins on the clock, the TV screen grayed out, but the MMC controls showed a question mark on the inputs button of the MMC controls... (MMC 9.03) At that point iMMC froze. (The PC still worked) I can't close or even move the MMC controls.. I try to cancel the task with task manager.. no dice... try shutting down windows and it hangs on 'windows is shutting down...' so then I have to hit the reset button to re-boot. This is consistent.

I checked device manager and none of the WDM drivers show any ! inside of yellow triangle or any errors... just for grins I tried to run a repair on the MMC and I restored all the WDM drivers using Driver Magician software.. but the problem remains. I then disabled the secondary adapter for the TV, shutdown the PC, physically removed all the input/output connectors except for the DVI/VGA monitor and rebooted. then shutdown clean, re-attached the connectors and tried it again... same problem.

I do have an image of my harddrive from oct 4th 2009 prior to this occurring so I was going to fall back to that as a last resort.
I would like to try un-installing / re-installing the ATI stuff first though to see if I can correct the issues without going back..

I keep seeing folks making references to Driver Sweeper software for use in a clean uninstall... I checked control panel and I do not have the ATI uninstaller showing up... plus I had a bad experience with that pgm on my AIW 9800... it dorked up the registry bad on my other machine and I had to manually go thru and delete all the ATI stuff using regedit cause the control panel would not uninstall mmc after using the ATI uninstaller.. it really broke things badly so I don't feel real good about trying to reload the un-installer back on my HTPC machine... do you remember if driver Sweeper is a good pgm to use vs ATI un-installer.

From what I've read, getting everything ATI cleaned off is crucial to getting the software to re-install correctly... I've never had to do a uninstall / re-install... always started on fresh xp sp2 install in the past. But the damn software on the HTPC machine is so old and so tweaked... I doubt I would be able to get it all re-built the exact same way.. lots of extra plugins for dbpoweramp / creative mediacenter / pinnacle studio 9 / WMP /

I can share music across my wireless lan (denon has builtin 802.11g wireless and can decode mp3, wav, flac files across the wireless network from the computers... kinda like a poor mans media streamer...escient fireball for example)

The Computer Video still functions fine, and I can still use the ATI file player & Power DVD to play back mpg and avi files on the TV but the TV capture and S-Video, composite inputs no longer work. (the inputs button on MMC shows a ? mark..)

I know I'm dealing with a dinosaur but the damn thing worked really good for what I needed...good quality NTSC 4:3 video capture... and Powerdvd coupled with the line doubler on the TV & the scaler on the denon the Video quality is damn respectable for an old 36 inch tube, the HTPC plays back DVD's real good too.. with DD 5.1 surround output.. My TV is an old Sony KV-36XBR450 4:3 with 1080i / 480p capability and a built in line doubler / component video inputs..
It puts out excellent color and black levels... blows LCD panels away... but the old tube is a little soft on resolution compared to the fixed panels but its really been a good tv for me over the last 7 years..

I pump the video thru a Silicon Optix Realta HQV scaler thats built into my Denon AVR-5308ci receiver and send the optical SPDIF output from the Soundblaster X-FI thru the denon (150 watts per chan x 7) to Legacy audio speakers.. classic towers, Cinema center, Mists surrounds.. 4 10"subs in the 2 towers are bi-amped using proton D1200 stereo amp (1000 watts per chan into 4 ohms crossed over at 120 hz).. so its a 7.2 surround system that will vibrate the flesh on your bones and play classical music with very wide dynamic range and clarity. I always test usng classical music cause its the most demanding.
It also plays rock,jazz,country,rap well too... Nice and loud and clear.

I would very much like to get the TV capture stuff back in service if I can... its just so freakin complicated... just so you know, I've been a MVS - z/OS systems programmer for 20+ years so I'm no stranger to software upgrades, but I have to tell you that this ATI stuff gives me a very hard time... makes me feel like a noob...

Here is what I'm gonna try:
1. download / install driver sweeper software.
2. un-install all ati software using MS control panel
- Catalyst Control Center first.
- Control panel second
- MMC third
- remote wonder fourth
- Decoder fifth
- DAO sixth
- ATI Display drivers
- ATI tools last

Run CC Cleaner and delete any leftover ATI registry entries
Delete the C:\ATI folder

reboot into safe mode
cancel out of any found new hardware msgs (if it lets me)

Run driver sweeper and go after anything ATI...
re-boot to normal mode

run CC cleaner again to check for any additional ATI reg entries..
reboot...cancel out of any new hardware found

then run the installation disk...

Well, what do you think? Does my game plan sound ok, or am I missing something?

Thanks for attempting to help me out man... I could really use a second opinion here cause I feel like I'm about to CRATER my HTPC today... Yikes!

Let me know what you think...

Status Update: I uninstalled/reinstalled ati stuff. The remote wonder and DAO components did not uninstall nicely. The remote wonder software complained about every USB device I had on the PC, so I had to remove them all. Then the USB harddrive enclosure (Rosewill 2x Sata drives JBOD) would not go away... even though I had disconnected it... started getting delayed write failures... so I reconnected it, used safely remove hardware to disconnect. Then had DAO uninstall issues. Would not uninstall from control panel. Rebooted into safe mode, canceled out of found new hardware...twice.. installed MS DAO on top of the damaged DAO. I was then able to uninstall it. Ran
msconfig set /safeboot in boot.ini tab. Reboot, ran Drivercleaner. Very nice product. It seemed to work as advertised... and it didn't hose my system so I give it a "positive" rating. (had to do the live update to get all the driver options) The licensing was a bit tricky... but I eventually got it. Reset msconfig to normal boot and rebooted... canceled out of found new hardware... ran CC cleaner.. it found bukoo bogus ati registry entries... deleted them all.. reboot, defrag
the C: drive, reboot, Run ATI Catalyst control center, and set the displays opts for 1024 x 768 monitor and 640 x 432 Component Video Monitor. (640 x 480 crops the bottom)

Ran dxdiag and direct x came up and passed the tests...
on both monitor and tv.

I tried to launch the ATI MMC 9.03 TV app and a Setup Wizard runs, I get to the 2nd page of intro info and when I click the NEXT button it hangs... I tried to close it...Program not responding... tried to cancel the process in task manager ... Program not etc...but I can move the dialog box around and windows does shutdown most of the time... ;-(

I've uninstalled the remote wonder drivers, and some scripting manager... can't recall the name now... and I'm gonna try to re-install over the top... but this time without remote wonder, guidestar etc.. just for grins...

Consider trying ATI MMC 8.7 -- it was the most stable version of them all.

I'm still reading through the long post of yours, will reply again in a little while.

Can I get away with just uninstalling the 9.03 mmc and installing the MMC 8.7 ?

Try it. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

The OC'd card could always be fried. Try the 9800 in the problem system, see if it works. Try the maybe-fried card in the known-good system, and see if it works there. If the maybe-fried card fails in both places, it's definitely dead. If both cards work in the known-good system, you're back to a pure computer issue.

That's after you give up -- if needed -- from the multiple re-installs of drivers and MMC from the problem computer using the maybe-fried card.

I have several installed ATI cards in various states of disrepair.

• One has a defective tuner. No problem anymore, as there's no analog channels anyway, and I don't have analog cable.
• Another has a dead composite input. Also not an issue, I use the s-video.
• One likes to freeze up MMC, but I don't need to capture on that system anymore.

So even the best of us have issues.

I have never found a good reason to overclock, nor to use RAID 0. Both of those activities are just too damaging to the hardware, pushing it to be used ways for which it was never designed. Horror stories like yours are more common than the gamer geeks who show off benchmarks. Honestly, I think some of them do it simply to post benchmark graphs online -- they don't actually use their computers for anything aside from benchmarking "because they can" (their own words, quite often) and video games. Sorry to hear you got suckered in by that. I know it can look tempting.

Yeah, I'm starting to think it might be the card too... I will definitely try out the spare AIW 9800 Pro in there for a 'sanity check'. if it works.. then the issue definitely starts looking more like hardware on the x800xt. If the symptoms remain consistent,
then I will go one extra step and try laying down the OS image backup from Oct 4th... prior to my trying the OC foolishness...

I'll post back with my results sometime later on today...

Thanks for your suggestions... its always nice to have another perspective..

Couldn't get to it today... will try tomorrow nite...

Slow and steady wins the race, right?
I know all about "couldn't get to it today" -- story of my life lately.

I guess so... Seems like the more I try to take care of getting stuff fixed, the more other stuff breaks... I went to power everything up on the HTPC and discovered that my Denon AVR-5308ci had lost power... dead as a doornail... :-( so I spent the day unhooking everything and replacing it with a backup Denon AVR-3600 receiver... took most of the day.. l bought the unit new in March 2008.. dropped some serious $$ on it too. Fortunately its still under warranty, but the closest Authorized repair center is over an hour from my house.

I'm starting to think I have gremlins... I go outta my way to hook up the computers on UPS's, and the Receivers /amps to power conditioners and I still have this SH** happen. (WTF!)Maybe I should just go back to plugging everything into $5 power strips like most other folks do... they seem to have less issues than me... at least the old Denon AVR-3600 seems to be working ok.. Hopefully I will get time to putz with the Video card tonight after work..

I took out the AIW X800XT and put in the AIW 9800PRO and MMC works now. :-| I'm happy to see the software working but now its looking more like the X800XT is possibly damaged on the video capture functions. The X800XT showed a ? in the MMC inputs button on the blue controls for the TV software.

I will leave the 9800Pro in place for a few days until I decide on if I'm gonna try going back to my original system state. I probably gutted and re-installed ATI software for nothing...
but I guess it was good practice ;-)

I'm gonna try giving the X800XT another try in a few days. Maybe it will start to work again after being de-energized... (and maybe I'll hit the lottery too.)

Will keep you posted...

Try the x800 in the other system, maybe?

I might try putting the x800xt in my other system... but.. that system is acting a bit bizzarre too.. Same Mobo as the HTPC and a single core amd 4000+ skt 939, raptor drive, 2 x 1gb sticks of ocz ddr400 ram. When the system is booted after beeing off and cooled down, there is no monitor output... just flickers for 5 min to 20 min and then presto... up comes the video display... I'm convinced that the system is booting up fine.. I bought a spare aiw9800 pro and swapped it in just to see if the video card was the culprit.. but the replacement card behaves the same way so now I'm wondering if its the mobo...

I'm planning on shutting it off and resetting the CMOS jumper and redoing the bios settings to see if that corrects it.. but I'm reluctant to turn it off now... as long as its warm it restarts and shutdowns re-boots perfectly... the prob only happens when I let the system cool down for several hours...

The aiw9800pro video card that I pulled from the old system is now in use on the HTPC.

I think I have a behavioral disorder... can't let go of the these old AGP systems... lol

I bought another used K8N neo2 mobo from ebay and I currently have it over at a buddies house on his test bench... (have a 2.2 ghz 3500+ cpu in it, 2x512mb sticks of crucial ballistix and an old WD 250gb sata drive on it... if the issue turns out to be a dedective mobo on the old system, I will swap everything over to the new mobo...eventually...

I don't do anything quickly... like you said earlier... slow and steady...

I am still hoping for a good result from the x800 aiw but I am already eyeing some used replacements....

I'll keep you posted..

No, you're fine. I cling to my AGP systems here too, specifically for the ATI AIW support. The newest systems I have are non-AGP, dual and quads only useful for video encoding and video/photo editing. I've tested device after device this year, PCI-e and USB mostly, and they're all so disappointing -- aggravating, to be honest.

Behavioral disorder would be one of those people who insists on having something "newer" solely because it is newer. The upgrade junkies of the computing world. To them, measuring hardware specs and owning the latest computing yacht is the goal. You're thinking task-based, to you the computer is a tool, a means to an end -- you're the sane one!

I will say this -- the ATI AIW AGP cards are in a period of heavy re-interest right now, not really sure why. Well, I guess I know why -- they're great cards. But why now, October 2009? No clue. Just be aware there's a lot of people looking for these good cards right now, so they're somewhat scarce at the moment. If you see one you want, don't be too slow and steady -- it may be gone by the time you decide.

On that other system, eliminate the monitor and VGA cable as variables -- I've seen similar problems, and the problem lied there, not in the computer.

Another potential issue is the power supply may not be adequate for that particular system's hardware. Lack of video at boot-up is a symptom.

Your PSU observation has struck a nerve with me..

Ever since I had the single core based PC (oct 2004), it seems to eat PSU's... I went thru several generic 400 watt units and finally got pissed off and bought a PC&C industrial grade PSU (Turbo-Cool 510-ATX)

Last year in Sept 08 my single core PC bit the dust due to the Turbo-Cool PSU malfunctioning ... The PSU did not die, rather it started to generate wild swings in voltage on the 12v rail which ended up corrupting my OS. In the weeks leading up to the OS failure I started taking bsod's with various system drivers... nvatabus... etc..

At the time, I was under the impression that the problem was with the mobo... HD, or memory. I never thought that the Industrial grade PC Power & cooling Turbo-Cool 510-ATX PSU would fail in this way... only two years into its life...

I took the PC to a repair shop (one of the few I trust) and the owner/technician informed me that it was indeed the PSU. I spent the next several months rebuilding all the various software products / plugins / upgrades / tweaks etc... I DO NOT want to do this again! Thats when I replaced the 3500+ cpu with an AMD 4000+ cpu. A generic 480 watt PSU was installed and failed within 90 days... he then installed a 600 watt server-grade PSU... still a generic no-name brand (starpower or something along those lines) but so far it seems to be holding its own..

The MSI CORE Center monitoring software shows the following voltages..
VCORE: 1.34 volts
3.3v rail: 3.25v (never could get to 3.3v on this board)
5v rail: 5.11v
12v rail: 12.86 v
The generic PSU has two 12 volt rails, one dedicated to the CPU/mobo, and one for peripherals...
12v rail 1: 22amps
12v rail 2: 23amps
3.3 & 5v are 30amps each
-5v: 0.3amps
-12v: -0.8amps
+5 vsb: 2.5amps
the 5v + 3.3v rails combined load max at 200watts
the 12v+5v+3.3v rails combined load max at 580watts
total output power of 600 watts...

Up until recently it seemed to be ok, but now that you have brought up the PSU as a potential cause of my blank monitor problem I'm starting to have my doubts...

what I can't measure is the power draw on bootup... which I hear can be up to twice the steady state voltage... (which is still well below the PSU rating) The strange thing is that I only have the monitor issue after the PC has been powered off for several hours and has completely cooled off... if I shutdown the PC and immediately start it back up within a few minutes its fine... same thing with restarts it only does this when its cooled down...

usually this type of issue happens when things heat up... not cool down...(wtf!) I looked at the mobo caps and did not notice any buldging ones... I talked to my repair guy yesterday and he also suggested that I test the PC with another PSU...

I have the original Turbo-Cool 510 that went out on me.. it was RMA'd and repaired by PC&C late last year... The turbocool 510-ATX has the following specs...
5v rail: 40amps
12v rail: 34amps (38 peak)
3.3v rail: 30amps
-5v: .3amps
-12v: 2.0amps
+5vsb: 3.0amps
(no ratings listed on PSU for combined rail loads.)

I just tested the RMA'd PSU out on a spare MS-7025 mobo with an AMD 3500+ newcastle cpu, 2x512mb sticks of Crucial ballistix, one WD 250gb SE16 HD, and an XFX-4650 agp card that a buddy lent me... runs good... so I will probably use that Turbo-Cool PSU to test out the PC... when I build up my confidence... (I have not turned off my single core PC other than an occassional restart for fear of having it not come back up.)

If the new PSU doesn't fix it, I will reset the cmos jumper and re-do the bios settings, if that don't fix it, I will remove and re-seat the CPU, if that don't fix it, I have bought a spare MS-7025 mobo (identical to the one thats in there)... so I WILL get this resolved thru brute force and ignorance if necessary... (@%$@#^ computers)

I do remember my repair guy commenting on how he could not get the machine to boot with lower power psu's... (I think he tried no-name 480 watt models before eventually moving up to a 600watt unit) I really don't have that much stuff in the case...
1 WD raptor 150 gb sata I HD
1 WD caviar black 1tb sata II HD (jumpered to sata I compatibility)
1 AMD 4000+ single core skt 939 cpu
MSI K8N-Neo2 plat (MS-7025) mobo
2x1gb OCZ performance memory
1 Soundblaster audigy 2zs plat pro sound card with external i/o hub (requires 12v mini 4pin molex power)
1 ATI AIW 9800pro agp video card (also requires 12v mini molex power connector)
2x5" case fans (Sony S-flex, 1 intake front fan housed in a Scythe Kama bay 2200 rpm,
one low speed exhaust at 800 rpm in back)
3x80mm case fans (no name brands - 2 in front of case blowing on the HD's, 1 on side blowing in towards CPU/HSF)

I am running the case with a slight positive pressure to keep out the dust, all intake fans have sponge filters) 1 thermaltake HSF Silent K8 w heatpipes w/2200 rpm fan I plug the PSU into an APC UPS 900VA which also has a USB attachement to monitor its voltage output..

the PSU draws approx 200 watts at idle and approx 240 under load... (prime-95 & ati tool 3d renderer running at same time... spanks the cpu and gpu...lol)

Now a reasonable person (me) would think I'm ok on the power..given the fact that PSU is rated at 510 watts rms at 50 degrees C, and 650 watt peaks... but I was proven wrong... even the 8 pound turbo-cool got torpedoed over time...

I still like these PSU's so I just bought another one for a third MS-7025 amd skt939 agp build for my 13 year old, its a used PSU but 100% new parts after the unit was RMA'd by the 1st owner in Sept 09... 1st owner says he has all the documentation from PC&C to backup his claims... it should be arriving within the next week or so... (cost me $50 bucks) ...

If my mobo is the cause of the blank monitor issues then I will use the spare mobo and buy another used one from china... they are selling for around $60... sorry junior... dad's PC comes first... lol)

As for the HTPC, I just did another image backup of the C drive and will try out the X800XT one more time this weekend.. time permitting of course..

if it still don't work, then I will restore the OS image back the last known good working version from OCT 4th 2009...then try it... if its still don't work its getting pulled and I will start looking for another one to replace it... the 9800pro spare will have to take up the slack... I will put heatsinks on the ram memory of the 9800pro Video card and re-apply fresh thermal paste onto the GPU for good measure.

I gotta tell you man, between these two PC's and my Denon receiver going out, I'm about ready to shitcan everything and go back to my S-VHS VCR's and start listening to a $65 boom box.(which still work fine by the way)

I like USING my computers & av equipment... not fixing / building them.. I get no jollies from trial and error testing...(I reserve that for video editing using pinnacle studio 9 and its optional plugins)

By the way, you mentioned that you were putting together a guide for pinnacle 12... you got anything around for the version 9 pinnacle software?

(sorry for the long post... )

I can measure the initial start-up power draw by watching the LED read-out on my UPS surge box. It can pull pretty strong on some systems. Even a peak 100% CPU does not draw as much as the first-moments power pull.

I had a chronic boot-up and shut-down issue on my main machine for probably 6 months before finally isolating the PSU as the only culprit left. I replaced it with a name-branded Thermaltake 500W unit (SILENT TOO!) and have had no problems since. I've started to opt for the $80+ brand-name PSU's, instead of the cheap sub-$50 no-names.

Pinnacle Studio versions 8-11 are best forgotten. To say that the software is "buggy as hell" would far understate the fiasco that they cause. I'm pretty adept when it comes to solving computer issues, but those older versions of Pinnacle Studio have been able to fubar computers in ways that I don't understand. Versions 9 and 11 were especially evil. The internet is full of complaints regarding Pinnacle Studio, often with extreme frustration being vented by the user.

Bad RAM can also cause initial-boot slowness and lock-ups.

Sometimes throwing the motherboard out on it's @ss is a good solution, too. I did that with a problem system back in July, refused to duplicate DVDs with two burners installed. I got tired of it. The mobo and CPU is in a box in the office closet. New motherboard and CPU is fine, everything else is the same. Mobo was the problem. Took a couple of months to isolate that issue, all of May and June, tinkering with it for hours.