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Re: Multiple cameras active freezes PC

4/23/2007 12:00:28 PM

Platinum Support

755 posts

Re: Multiple cameras active freezes PC

James,

1st - Do NOT try to upgrade the software, as this is not a problem caused by the software, but rather by the hardware/drivers of your PC.

The 1st server that you used had a Thunderbird CPU, which causes video rendering problems because it did not have the required SSE instruction set which is required for rendering video on-screen.

The new server, is experiencing difficulties that are very common on lower-end motherboards, which do not have a full PCI bus, or are sharing the PCI Bandwidth between the PCIe and PCI slots.

1. First, Install the latest Chipset Drivers from NVIDIA - These are important as the Windows Native drivers will not have all of the device specific information that is required for full use of the PCI bandwidth.

2. Next, remove all PCI devices completely and move the DVR card to a different PCI Slot

3. Reboot the PC and Reload the Security Eyes Version which came with your DVR Card - You will have to COMPLETELY remove the V3.011 drivers and software from your PC.

4. Re-test with the new configuration.

If you are still experiencing problems, repeat steps 2-4 with another slot. The freezing when you enable more than 1 camera, is always due to PCI Bus problems, so if it is non-functional with any of the PCI Slots, we may have to test with a different motherboard.

Platinum Support
http://Platinum-CCTV.com

4/28/2007 10:14:26 AM

Platinum Support

755 posts

Re: Multiple cameras active freezes PC

James,

It certainly cannot hurt, if you can change it to a fixed IRQ, but with Windows that might be a bit difficult since it steers IRQs automatically.

Platinum Support
http://Platinum-CCTV.com

4/25/2007 5:47:04 PM

mototoad

18 posts

Re: Multiple cameras active freezes PC

Finally got a chance to test this. I removed the 3.011 software and drivers last weekend and went back to what I had. I pulled the firewire card out so the only PCI card in it is the video card. I uninstalled the software and 878 drivers. Deleted all the oem files in the the inf folder. I went through the process of installing the drivers and software and then installing the card. I tried all 4 slots and each time I uninstalled everything and reinstalled. The result was almost the same. Except this time when the system froze up there would be a few socond delay and then I'd get a blue screen consisting of a Machine_Check_Exception and then a physical memory dump. It advised me to remove the hardware or update the drivers. It also said to turn off any memory shadowing but I couldn't find an option for that in the BIOS.

NVIDIA chipset was updated to the lastest version a week or so ago. MSI has an update tool and I'm at the latest version.

I'm unsure what you mean by a "Full PCI Bus". Can you elaborate? Also, I'm not sure how the PCIe and PCI share bandwidth. The PCIe has it's own dedicated "bus" and does not share the PCI bus due to the architecture of PCIe and PCI.

Since I've still got the problem then I'll see what MSI says since you say this can happen in lower end motherboards. The one thing I don't understand about that is how a 1999 motherboard is of better quality than one from 2005 (think that is when this one was made). I would think things would have improved in technology and design. I'm kind of thinking out loud... obviously you guys deal with this way more than I do.

This might be a silly question, but why would the drivers of the video card itself not cause any problems? I ask because you mention the problem is with the hardware or drivers of my PC. I guess the more I understand about this the better prepared I'll be if I have to convince MSI of the issue.

Thanks for all your time.

James

4/26/2007 2:12:41 PM

mdunteman

5 posts

Re: Multiple cameras active freezes PC

James,

   Unfortunately newer is not always better. In many new motherboards, they have reduced the number of PCI slots and the resources that are available to the PCI Bus, in order to save costs so that they can manufacture the PCs and components and still stay in the highly competitive PC market.

   Many of the newer PCI-Express motherboards seem to actually share resources between the PCIe and PCI slots, which were supposed to be more Isolated.

    We will post a slightly modified driver here to test...If you are having the same results with the 3.003 version, then lets clear it out and start with the V3.011 version instead, with a new driver...we will post it here for download momentarily.

Thank you
Platinum CCTV Support
http://Platinum-CCTV.com

4/26/2007 2:19:29 PM

mdunteman

5 posts

Re: Multiple cameras active freezes PC

Once you remove the software and existing drivers again, also delete the OEMs again.

Then lets try loading with this new driver, we have uploaded it to this location for download:

http://platinum-cctv.com/downloads/software/Security_eyes/SE_V3.011_Drivers.zip

Load the drivers and the V3.011 Server software and retest. We will await your response.

Thank you
Platinum Support
http://Platinum-CCTV.com

4/27/2007 8:52:57 AM

mototoad

18 posts

Re: Multiple cameras active freezes PC

Thanks for the explanation.

I never had the 3.003 drivers. I found the 3.011 drivers on another post and tried them last weekend. I went ahead and downloaded them again and I'm getting the same thing. Crashes with the memory dump. With 3 cameras it'll run from a few seconds to a minute and then the clock in the video screen starts to pause and then skip a few seconds and then it locks. I allocated more virtual memory (like 4GB) and changed windows so that it spends more on background processes and system cache instead of programs but that didn't help (system properties, advanced tab, performance button then advance tab again).

Know of a good motherboard for a AMD 939 dual core CPU? Preferably with more than 2 PCI slots? :)

You'd think there would be something I could alter to dedicate resources to this card. I just don't know if it's possible or where to go do it if so. This is another reason for me to hate computers...

Oh, depending on if/when you reply... I'm headed on vacation Sun and won't be back until next Fri... so if you have me try something I don't get back to you right away that's why.

Thanks,
James

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