Having Standby and Full TV Display problems with first MP installation (1 Viewer)

[lafaki]

Hi,

I recently built an HTPC and installed Media Portal together with the latest svn following the instructions provided in Wiki and in the forum.

After setting up and configuring MP, I have the below problems:

- Standby: when I put the PC in standby (S3) mode keeping MP open, the PC does not properly resume from the standby. It seems to start up (power LEDs go on), but there is no picture and no control over it. Only a hard restart is possible.

- Full TV Display: when I am in My TV and choose to view a TV channel in full screen mode, I get a blank screen. If I change the channel resolution to the original one, it works but then I get a very small TV window that covers a very small portion of the 16:9 screen.

- Scheduled Recordings: when I schedule a recording and put the PC in standby mode, it does not record. This may be related to the standby resume problem. Recording in realtime works. However I haven't checked the scheduled recording keeping the PC on and not putting it in standby.

Is there any configuration and/or fine tuning that I need to do on top of the basic setup?

Has anybody else experienced any of the above problems or even their combination?

Can you provide me with ideas and instructions on how to overcome the above problems and have a more stable MP installation ?

Thanks,
Akis
_________________________________________________________________
Windows: Windows XP SP2 (patched up to February using autopatcher)
BIOS: 1222
MediaPortal: 0.2.2
Svn: 04-23-2007--01-01-Rev14324
_________________________________________________________________
Case: Silverstone GD01S-MXR
Motherboard: ASUS P5B-E
CPU: Core 2 Duo 4300 (s775/1,80G)
CPU Cooler: Zalman 9500 LED
RAM: KINGSTON KVR667D2N5/1G 1GB PC5300 667MHZ x 2
VGA Card: ASUS EAX1600PRO SILENT/TD 256MB PCI-E RETAIL
TV Tuner card: Hauppauge wintv pvr-500 mce
Hard Disk: SAMSUNG HD401LJ 400GB SATA2
Power Supply: Zalman ZM460-APS - power supply - 460 Watt
Remote: iMON PAD
_________________________________________________________________

 

[ronilse]

Hi,
Grab the latest availible SVN & test, lot's of things with Power Scheduler it's fixed.

Regards
Roy

 

[lafaki]

Does indeed the latest available SVN (MediaPortal SVN-Snapshot: 04-25-2007 01-04h - Revision:14405) address Power Scheduler instabilities that were observed in 04-23-2007--01-01-Rev14324?

Any ideas with regard to the other issues?
Is it possible that Media Portal could cause problems to resuming from Standby when kept running during the Standby?
I am asking this, as the Standby function seems to work when MediaPortal is not running when going into Standby.

 

[ronilse]

Hi,
Attach your MediaPortal.log to your post after you tried a standby with MP running, maybe something in it will tell.

Regards
Roy

 

[NickName]

Resuming from standby does not work for many (all?) people if TV is fullscreen when the PC is put into standby.
Try going to standby from the main/home screen and see if that fixes your issue. Note: you can't have timeshifting on either at the home screen. Press 'b' to turn it off.
I wrote a script and mapped it to the shutdown button to get around the issue. The script takes MP back to home screen, presses 'b' and then lets powerscheduler shut it down after 'x' amount of time (5 minutes in my case).
Alternatively you could try using the "MCE Replacement driver" plugin that has a standby option in it that works too.
You may ALSO want to try the "MCE Standby tool" as that fixes some PCs problems with standby. The tool is freeware and enables your remote to resume too Its nice having one button for On and Off.

Good luck,

Nick Name.

 

[lafaki]

Thanks for your posts!
I will try to collect the logs and provide them in this thread.
Do I need to enable the debugging mode first?

With regard to the standby issue, the MP is running in the main/home screen and not in the full TV screen.
Btw, the script you mentioned is called by the Remote Control driver that receives the Standby command from the remote? Is a script that can be re-used with other MP configurations?
Personally, I am able to put to standby and wake the PC using the same Power button on the remote - something that finally works out of the box

I assume that the reason that MP cannot properly wake the PC from standby in order to perform a scheduled recording is related to the generic standby problem discussed above. If not, please advise me accordingly how to check and solve the power scheduling function within MP.

Any ideas with regard to the display issue?

 

[lafaki]

Generic Standby problem solved!

It seems that the generic standby problem has been solved!
The computer can now enter standby and properly resume without any problems.

This was achieved by unchecking in the Device Manager the box:

"Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power"

in the power management options of a USB Hub that was connected to a card reader device. The card reader seemed to prevent the computer from entering the standby mode (S3 & S4). Once the above setting was done, Windows most probably don't try to power down the device during standby and it therefore manages to successfully enter S3 and/or S4.

What led me to change the power management options of that specific device was the fact that it was generating USB "Power Surge Errors" (and unfortunately it still does).

If you have had power surge messages on USB and managed to overcome them, any ideas will be very appreciated!

Finally, the main Media Portal problem that remains is that Power Scheduling does not work properly. I will start a different thread for this and try also to attach some portal logs.

P.S. The Full Display problem has disappeared as well (don't know how exactly). So, the only problem I am currently facing with MP is power scheduling.