Twinhan DTV-S 102G and Twinhan ATSC/NTSC card in the same PC?

[Corey]

Today I tried to install both types of cards in the same PC, and it appears that the software will only support one at a time. I can either have the satellite card installed or the ATSC/NTSC card installed, but not both.

Does anyone here have some experience with getting both cards in the same PC to work?

Buying a second PC doesn't seem like a good solution

[wejones]

Originally Posted by Corey

Today I tried to install both types of cards in the same PC, and it appears that the software will only support one at a time. I can either have the satellite card installed or the ATSC/NTSC card installed, but not both.

Does anyone here have some experience with getting both cards in the same PC to work?

Buying a second PC doesn't seem like a good solution

I don't have the Twinhan ATSC, but I do have a Twinhan satellite card and another brand ATSC card installed. There may well be a conflict between the 2 Twinhan cards, but before you give up, try running some 3rd party software. For example, TSREADER has devices for the 102g, and it also has a device for the 3250, which I *THINK* is the ATSC card you have. However, it is likely that TSREADER would only work in the digital mode, and I think your card is both analog and digital. Probably the simpler thing for you to do is to get another brand ATSC card. I'm using an Air2PC card myself, which works fine along side the Twinhan sat card. But hopefully someone else here has tried both Twinhan cards to give you more specific answers.

[Bigyork]

Try the newest driver from twinhan website, which should support both cards in the same window.

[Corey]

Thank you two for your replies. Using 3rd party software for one of the cards, or just buying a different brand didn't occur to me. I appreciate those suggestions.

I will see if the new driver from Twinhan helps matters, and will report back in case someone else would like to use the same set-up.

[Corey]

I just tried the newest TwinHan driver (2.65) tonight and I'm unable to install it.

I currently have just the 102G card in my system, and the install process gets as far as recognizing the card, begins to install the driver, then the whole system locks up for good. The screen is frozen, I can't even Ctrl-Alt-Delete. It requires a re-boot to get it going again.

Edit: I should note that the TwinHan web site says that the driver is not intended for the 1020 and 1030 boards (among others). The number of my board, 102G, is similar to 1020 and I'm wondering if they are referring to mine too.

Possible fix.

For the drivers if you can insert 1 card and get the drivers to work then restart and add 2nd card as well ? Might not work.

BIOS:
It looks like the devices needs their IRQ's to be changed or have them trying to access the same irq for the cards or the same as for other hardware.

Possible fix for IRQ is to go into your bios during startup before windows start and select plug and play for the bios or the option that allows the OS / operating system to manage this, "? something aware operating system" or similar term depending on your bios / motherboard.

Possible also go to the motherboard manufacturers website and get the latest bios and update.

Mostly it is a something.exe file and does the job for you in windoze or you have to put it on a disk 1.44 and run it in dos after restart.
Some older motherboards / computers might have problems with IRQ's memory etc. etc. you get the idea.

Alternatively:
Get both in , like you did with the first post about it here.
Right click the computer on your desktop and select properties, next select hardware and something like device manager depending on the Windoze version you have.

It should show all devices = happy and nothing with yellow marks or signs of unhappyness.
If it does open that part be it the twinhan card or another device and select resources this will show memory and irq and conflicting devices in the text box.
Most of the time you can edit this or there is a jumper / fuse made of plastic+metal on the cards that connects 2 pin's and "IRQ" or some labeling next to it.

This if changed can fix the problem but I doubt there is old hardware like this being sold anymore.

Possibly if the ? sound card shares the same IRQ or is in conflict with the atsc/ntsc card likely then disable it and restart computer so that it can get default access to the IRQ and once back in windoze and it works enable the sound card this will force it/it's drivers to select another IRQ etc. might have to load drivers again ?

You can also remove every pci / isa / installed cards leaving only SVGA video card + cpu + memory + hard drive no cd/dvd drives / no floppy / 1.44 drive /no modem / no network and try again as one of them might cause the problem / conflict.
Then one by one reconnect and start up = eliminate until solved.

You might want to check and make sure the power rating of the new install /all parts max consumption does not exceed the power supply rating by 68% IE: 450w is max for 5 min.s and then constant of 360w in actuallity.

Fried 2 psu's with 2x XFX 6800 xtreme in SLI mode used 130w max each per card, solution = 680w psu $30 somewhere.
shopzilla.com / newegg.com / pricewatch.com
Under powered hardware = instant death = $$$ plenty.

Hope this helps.

Air temp in box = overheat = lockup.

Speedfan gives you an idea.

SpeedFan Screenshots Page

Very usefull
Sorry for the long previous post.

[wejones]

Originally Posted by Corey

I just tried the newest TwinHan driver (2.65) tonight and I'm unable to install it.

I currently have just the 102G card in my system, and the install process gets as far as recognizing the card, begins to install the driver, then the whole system locks up for good. The screen is frozen, I can't even Ctrl-Alt-Delete. It requires a re-boot to get it going again.

Edit: I should note that the TwinHan web site says that the driver is not intended for the 1020 and 1030 boards (among others). The number of my board, 102G, is similar to 1020 and I'm wondering if they are referring to mine too.

I don't know if this might help or not, however several years ago, there was a Twinhan tech on this forum briefly. At the time, I had some problems getting new Twinhan software to load properly, and he said that it wasn't enough to just uninstall the previously installed software first. Ie before installing new Twinhan software, I think the instructions were to uninstall the old software, then completely remove the old software remanants, ie delete the directory contents, etc. Then install the new software. I think the thread is at:

http://www.sadoun.net/forums/classic....html#post5276

Anyway, the above thread suggested that sometimes the Twinhan software installation is confused by remnants of previous installations. Not sure if that would help in this case or not. I've also read posts that sometimes problems with these cards can be cured by switching which slot the card is plugged into, but I've never had to try that.

[Corey]

Thanks for the suggestions! I forgot to mention that I did try two different PCI slots with the same hang result.

The system is definitely not running hot, and the installation of the driver always hangs the system in the same exact place.

One other thing to note is that the driver (2.43) that comes with the board installs just fine (though it does not recognize the 3250) board.

I will try digging in an uninstalling every last bit I can find and see if that helps, and check the status in the device manager.

As I was googling around last night, I found this thread on another forum:Two Twinhan Cards: 102g & ATSC Card - SatelliteGuys.US

You can also try a forced install.
Extract the new driver to the place it wants to / installs to with only 1 card, then restart and add the second.

It will complain once it starts up and as for a driver + connect to the internet to get it = no internet , no on 2nd question and 3rd option it gives you = search cd or browse.

Use the browse and locate the *.inf file something.inf in the extracted folder / install folder.

Usually this works and it installs the 2nd card.

If it still hangs with this option the the driver from twinhan is poorly coded and they should make a new one = nothing more to do except wait / replace card.

WOW dntv looks nice as well as the mytheatre.
Not sure if dntv / mytheatre will load the drivers for the cards or how it does this yet. Australia it must be good.
DNTV Live! software - DigitalNow

Other than dntv and mytheater I also found this one.

DVB Viewer:

What is it?
DVBViewer allows you to experience Digital TV on your PC. With a proper DVB card you can enter the world of digital entertainment and experience high quality, incredibly sharp TV pictures and near CD quality radio!

What features does DVBViewer provide?
It provides all basic functions you need to enjoy digital television and radio programs. In addition, DVBViewer offers you a wide range of advanced features such as Teletext, Electronic Programming Guide, Remote Control support and enhanced recording capabilities which enable you to record your favourite shows on hard-disc, edit them or share them with your friends.

Which features make it unique?
DVBViewer contains functions which are groundbreaking : It was the first program with a so called DesktopTV mode and in its category the only product which offers AC-3 and Timeshifting features. It is even possible to handle more than one DVB device at the same time. Further on the multimedia skills of the DVBViewer do not need to hide behind other mediacenters. From playing multimedia contents up to receiving RSS newsfeeds, weather data, everything is possible.

Pics:
DVB viewer - Screenshots

[Sadoun]

Installing both cards in your PC (with WIN XP) is possible:

• Start by uninstalling any TwinhanDTV drivers you have installed before on your PC. You may have to go to system control panel and uninstall any twinhan devices
• IMPORTANT: Update your PC to the latest version of DirectX.
• Install the Two cards inside your PC
• Download the latest TwinhanDTV 2.65 driver from the mfg website and install it on your PC
• This software will operate both cards from one control panel.

[Corey]

Again, thanks for the suggestions.

I would like to stick with Twinhan stuff if I can, so that I can make use of all of the features of the cards (for example, I may lose NTSC ability if I go to something like DNTV), but that certainly is something to try if the Twinhan route dead ends.

I will try the complete uninstall, put both cards in, install 2.65 and see if that works. Hopefully I will have some time tonight to try that out.

You can be sure that I will post the results

Edit: ooh.. I just noticed that you specified (with WinXP). The system I am using is running Windows 2000. Do you think that will make a difference?

[Sadoun]

I am not sure if WIN2K will make a difference. I tried it with WINXP and works like a charm. It is nice to have both the NTSC and Satellite channel on the same interface.

[wejones]

Originally Posted by Corey

...

Edit: ooh.. I just noticed that you specified (with WinXP). The system I am using is running Windows 2000. Do you think that will make a difference?

Maybe Sadoun can say for sure, but I use Win2000 with my Twinhan and it works fine, although I'm not running the newest software, and I only have one card. I've seen several programs that claim to only work on XP, but I've never found one that wouldn't run on Win2000 too. If it does only work on WinXP, then it's really poor design by Twinhan. If that were the case, I'd almost recommend using 3rd party software for the satellite card, and the Twinhan software for the ATSC/Analog card.

Same problem here Twinhan 1025 tried both 2.3.8 and 2.65 drivers even the bda drivers = lockup.
It tries to install some ccdecode streaming thingy and that is where it locks up.

Tried it in Windows Xp pro sp2 and MCE sp2.

DVB Owners Discussion Forum - dvbowners.com > Bda Driver Installataion Problem (1.2.3.8)

This guy had same problems with the drivers.

Might help.

[Corey]

I am at a loss.

Here's what I did tonight:

1. Pulled both the 102G and 3250 cards from the PC.
2. Booted the PC up.
3. Went into the device manager and removed the DTV drivers
4. Uninstalled the Twinhan DTV software.
5. Removed the C:\Program Files\PC-TV directory
6. Removed the oem*.inf and oem*.pnf files from \System\inf
7. Removed bda878.sys file from the System\drivers directory
8. Shut the machine down.
9. Put in the 3250 (NTSC/ATSC) card
10. Removed the ethernet and sound cards (to eliminate possible IRQ collision).
11. Booted the machine up. Windows found new hardware and asked me to point it at the drivers - so I pointed it at the 2.65 release (from the downloaded zip file) in the drivers/878/Win2K directory.
12. It went for about 5 seconds then locked up again like usual.

I'm starting to think this 2.65 driver will either not work in my PC or will not work correctly in Win2k. It locks up with either the 3250 and the 102G card in place. Note that I don't even have both cards in the PC at once.

Both of these cards use the Connexant 878 chip, so I think that's the right driver to use.

Any thoughts?

Are there other 3rd party drivers that I should try? Do programs like DNTV come with drivers?