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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CyberSimian" data-source="post: 1239457" data-attributes="member: 141969">I also have two TBS quad-tuner cards in my HTPC (two of the TBS 6284), but I have had problems with them.  Specifically, three of the tuners on one of the cards no longer work.  They have progressively malfunctioned, over the last two years.  What is really suspicious is the identities of the tuners that have malfunctioned.In a multi-tuner setup, TV Server has a particular algorithm for deciding which tuner to select when TV Server needs to tune a channel (either for recording or for live TV).  My understanding is that TV Server selects:(1) The tuner that is already receiving the MUX containing the channel to be tuned.  If that MUX is not already being received, then:(2) The highest-priority tuner that is idle and which is capable of receiving the channel to be tuned.The significance of (2) is that the highest-priority tuner is selected first (assuming all tuners can receive all channels), and so experiences significantly more use than any of the other tuners.  Why does this matter?  Well, in my case each time a tuner permanently malfunctioned, it was always the one at the top of the list, i.e. the highest-priority tuner.  To quote from (I think) "Goldfinger":Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, but three times is enemy action.It is not obvious why my setup should be susceptible to the most-used tuner wearing-out prematurely.  One possibility would be overheating.  But when I installed the cards, I carefully removed the TBS labels from the Samsung tuner boxes in order to uncover the ventilation holes in the tuner boxes (which were otherwise blocked by the labels).In addition, my HTPC case is built to the unloved BTX standard that made a brief appearance in the mid noughties.  In an ATX tower case, the position of the motherboard means that the components on a card are on the underside of the card, where hot air is trapped.  In a BTX case, the motherboard is rotated 180 degrees so that the components on a card are on the upper side of the card, where they can more easily be cooled by convection.  And my HTPC case has a case fan for the cards, in addition to the CPU fan and power-supply fan.  So I am not convinced that overheating is the explanation.I suspect that my experience of TBS is not typical, which is why I did not post originally.  Also, the TBS 6284 is two generations behind; it was superseded by the TBS 6285, which was in turn superseded by the TBS 6205.-- from CyberSimian in the UK</blockquote>

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