Nvidia GT640 0x0000000B Service Error Arghh

Look out, there's a Blue Screen of Death Ahead!

So everyone,

what's the first thing we get told to do when we have a blue screen of death or error with a graphics card?

What's that?

Aha, yes, you at the back, update your drivers. And if the cause of the blue screen is you updating the drivers but you have to update them to fix another issue?

No?

Me, either.

I have a low to middle power PC in the living room for the family to play mame, emulators and some steam / big fish stuff on the TV. It's running Windows 7 64 Ultimate, 4GB of RAM with an over clocked Gigabyte 640GT. It's not going to set the world on fire for gaming and it wont touch some AAA games but that's not why it's there. I can kick back and play Outrun, Metal Slug or bash away at Portal etc. using either an Xbox 360 controller or the wireless mouse, keyboard.

Recently some software started to need an updated graphics driver so I updated it from Nvidia.

And the fun started.

One of my sons favourites is Sonic All Star Racing Transformed and after the graphics driver update it wouldn't start. Any attempt blue screened with a service error (0x0000000B). Rolling the driver back wasn't going to help in this case as other things would then break so I began diagnostics. I checked for patches on windows and drivers all was up to date, no malware or spyware. Nothing new installed (bar a Microsoft cordless keyboard / mouse dongle replacing my old Logitech one which finally died).

I then turned off the over clocking on the 640, no joy. Even under clocking it didn't help.

So I turned to Steam (through which the game was bought) and backed up the game content, deleted it and re-downloaded it. Nada, same error.

Finally I unplugged the USB sound card (used to get 5.1 as the PC doesn't have discrete 5.1 on it and I failed to get optical 5.1 working from Steam games) and bingo, no blue screen. Even over clocking the card again everything stayed stable.

Plugging the USB back in and bang, back to the blue screen. So I uninstalled the driver and then plugged the card back in, the driver reinstalled and I ran the game. Blue screen again.

Mmmm.

Finally I uninstalled the card, changed the USB socket it was plugged into and let the drivers reinstall.

No blue screen.

I can only assume this is an IRQ or similar conflict but running the sound card from this USB works, the original fails every time.

As a bonus I finally sorted low volume levels and stereo separation on the usb soundcard and the new GT640 drivers have finally resolved some screen tearing I was having on Sonic (for reference turn on the graphics card vsync and triple buffering and turn off vsync in the game configuration).

MythTV lost BBC HD Channels

Ok, hands up all those that use MythTV with a DVB-S2 card for BBC HD in the UK.

Ok, who lost their channels from the 27th September?

Ah, not just me then.

As of the 27th the BBC have shifted the channels around again so, just like the fun last year when the BBC moved from DVB-S to DVB-S2 its switcheroo time again.

I noticed when the recording for the Doctor Who Semi-Finale' wasnt recorded, some digging around raised this article http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/aboutthebbc/posts/bbc-hd which discusses the changes.

Since everyone assumes that all viewers are using self-tuning Sky or Freesat boxes (Virgin cable is a different matter since its received at the cable provider source not at home) leaving those of us with boxes that require a little more.....love with failed recordings.

So, in order to sort this out start up the mythtv-setup app and retune to

Parameter	Current	New
Frequency	10,847 MHz (vertical polarity)	unchanged
Modulation	DVB-S2, QPSK	DVB-S2, 8PSK
Symbol Rate	23.0 MSymb/s	unchanged
FEC	8/9	2/3

And hopefully you'll get the new channels tuned in.

MythTV and Rowridge re-tune

So with the wonders of rowridge being retuned as part of the big digital switchover I've had to retune my mythtv back end. All went well but some channels including

• Yesterday
• Film 4
• E4

Had no EPG data. I tried retuning, clearning down with no luck. Those of you who know about myth will know that it uses a mysql backend so I dove into the database and found that the networkid in the dtv_multiplex table was 0 for the multiplex that carries these channels.

Running a command to update these to 9018 (the network id for the other multiplexes on Rowridge) then kickstarted the eit scraper.

Once you're connected to the mysql database on your backend:

mysql -u mythtv -p mythconverg

(then your password)

Check to see if this is your problem:

select * from dtv_multiplex where networkid=0;

If you only have the one video source (e.g just freeview) then you can skip to the updating table section below if you also have a dvb-s tuner (for freesat channels) then you will need to identify the source id from the table (its one of the columns that come up when you ran the query above). Once you have that sourceid run this command

select * from dtv_multiplex where sourceid=3;

(where 3 is the sourceid you got from the previous query)

Make a note of the network id that you got in this query (mine was 9018)

Updating table section

Run the command

update dtv_multiplex set networkid=9018 where sourceid=3 and networkid=0;

(Where 9018 is the networkid you got above and 3 is the number you got in the first query)

Once done you should see the EPG data start populating.

Yay, New TV

Yup, after 5 years of faithfull service the Hyundai Q321 32" is migrating to the bedroom. Taking its place is a 42" LG LH3000 unit. After much spec investigation this unit seemed a good compromise of value versus features.

Good: size, features, modes (720p and 1080p are available in 24,50 and 60hz with other modes also available over HDMI) TV reception. HD Picture quality, SD picture quality (with good sources)

Average: Audio (much is commented on this set having "great" audio but its quite thin and with no line level output - the headphone jack cuts the speakers and the SCART socket is unaffected by the volume control - there's no way to hook a subwoofer up. You can use optical out to an amp - my solution - but its a little overkill). Some very minor backlight banding/seepage - typical for most low/mid end LCD TVs

Bad: Nothing really, turn off ALL the dynamic noise contrast etc features if you dont want a mush mess (ignoring most freeview channels which are a mushy mess to start with)

More on this and new integration soon...

ACER Revo HTPC frontend

..yup

Yes its in and working. I got the unit in December and, after running through the fun restore disc creation (the software insists on a physical DVD drive to write the discs and the unit doesnt have one, my trusty USB to IDE converter and a spare DVD-R drive came into play here!) I used partition magic to change one of the 80GB windows partitions into blank space and installed Ubuntu Karmic.

Several fun filled days later I'd installed the NVIDIA ION drivers, XBMC and mythtvfrontend. I've also purchased a £20 MCE remote from Maplin and programmed an lirc script. Now when the machine boots up it uses the LAN to connect to the big old backend mythtv server (the one with the drives and satellite / freeview cards) and runs up the myth interface on the Revo. Pressing livetv on the remote kills mythtv (front end - the backend server whirrs away regardless) and starts XBMC, pressing liveTV in XBMC kills it ans goes back to MythTV front end and so on.

The Revo (a 3610) has HDMI and SPDIF (although WHY the SPDIF output is on the front of the box is a mystery to all) and my Hyundai TV only has DVI and analogue audio so the spdif routes to my Yamaha amp for DTS ,PCM and Dolby Digital audio.

Using NVIDIA VDPAU this little beasty handles 1080p/720p High def output nicely (there are a few dropped frames as the LAN wakes up and a few hiccoughs but thats a tuning issue). In MythTV I can also watch live TV even viewing BBC HD!

Next up is a new Tv that can go to full resolution and match refresh rates (the Hyundai is stubbornly locked to 60hz at 1360x768 - see my postings at AV Forums ) and a redesign to get rid of the big old tv unit and server whirring away in th lounge!

Samsung DVD Player

Oh yes, this was fun.

As you read my DVD player went foom so off I went to Richer Sounds Bournemouth. As with most RS shops its small and always busy. Good staff who know what they're talking about and good prices. Not internet cheap but not far off and they'll beat most prices or match them.

So I eventually settled on an open box Samsung DVD-SR275M DVD recorder with freeview built in, for £50 this is all region, DVD-RAM and has freeview so seemed a good purchase. On getting it home it wouldnt play anything but region 2 but, after a minor screaming session, I found a guide on line for multi region goodness and it's working fine now serving Bob the Builder and Disney fayre on demand like a gooden. Of course it's getting less of a workout now because of the ....

HTPC Update

Hi there and welcome to 2010!

So whats been happening then?

Well, the Revo system was built (more of that in a mo) there's a new DVD player, new TV and TV unit and more grey hair...