My HTPC that was connected to my cablecard tuner started acting up.
This was an AMD Athlon 2 Dual Core system. I have the system on a UPS
and am able to monitor it's power usage through the UPS. The AMD system
was pulling about 120 watts on average. The system started acting up
(it turned out to have a memory problem) so I pulled it and replaced it
with another system I had running an Intel Celeron G530 processor.
The
G530 is the baby brother to the i3 family of processors. The G530 is
rated at 65 watts TDP, I was surprised to see my UPS indicate about 10
watts of power while idling. This is with windows up, Media Center
running but no shows recording or being watched.
With this low of power
usage I'm going to dump the MCE Standby Tool and stop putting the PC
to sleep in between shows. I think keeping the computer up all the time
will make it more reliable and user friendly.
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Oh No My Hauppauge 2650 cablecard tuner has died
Embarrassed Update: It turns out it was not the Hauppauge 2650 that
died but rather the power wart I was powering it with. The replacement
2650 arrived and had the same issues as mine. I replaced the power wart
and my old 2650 is running great.
There is a story behind the power wart I was using, my original Hauppauge power wart died and they shipped me a replacement. While waiting for the replacement I found one in my parts bin that matched the output so I put it to work. Weird to lose two power warts in such a short time frame. I now have the HTPC on a UPS so if it was power issues causing the failures I should be OK now.
My Hauppauge 2650 tuner started acting flakey, going offline and refusing to tune channels, usually rebooting the computer would fix the issue so I'm not positive the problem was Hauppauge's. Now the Hauppauge has died completely, all that I get is a quickly flashing tuner 2 light, all others are out.
Hauppauge's warranty is 2 years and they've been good enough to pre ship my replacement, unfortunately it shipped by slow boat and won't arrive for a week.
Thankfully my wife hasn't returned her cable DVR yet so she is not out of business for this time. All of the issues that I've been facing are not instilling confidence in her for this switch over to a PC DVR. Hopefully all will work well soon.
There is a story behind the power wart I was using, my original Hauppauge power wart died and they shipped me a replacement. While waiting for the replacement I found one in my parts bin that matched the output so I put it to work. Weird to lose two power warts in such a short time frame. I now have the HTPC on a UPS so if it was power issues causing the failures I should be OK now.
My Hauppauge 2650 tuner started acting flakey, going offline and refusing to tune channels, usually rebooting the computer would fix the issue so I'm not positive the problem was Hauppauge's. Now the Hauppauge has died completely, all that I get is a quickly flashing tuner 2 light, all others are out.
Hauppauge's warranty is 2 years and they've been good enough to pre ship my replacement, unfortunately it shipped by slow boat and won't arrive for a week.
Thankfully my wife hasn't returned her cable DVR yet so she is not out of business for this time. All of the issues that I've been facing are not instilling confidence in her for this switch over to a PC DVR. Hopefully all will work well soon.
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