[mits]

For the most part, my system(s) are working good. I have three H20 Directv receivers locked at 1080i and SPDIF audio with one HD-PVR 1212 Rev C2 per receiver, and I'm about to add a fourth set to the system.

I can record multiple shows back to back most of the time. I rated the system as passing, however, it's pretty random at times. Sometimes I can go up to two weeks without problems. Other times, only 3 to 7 days before I have problems. Almost always, the problem shows as multiple shows recording, mostly duplicate active recordings from the software having to restart a recording because it failed to get a signal for 30 seconds, and so attempts to start another. This results in more active recordings listed than there are receivers and capture devices, and results in the software thinking there are no more devices available to tune for live tv or record new shows. At this point, I have to shutdown BTV server, delete started but unsuccessfully recorded shows, and then restart BTV server.

Another symptom I see is that you try to start live tv, and it fails with a message stating that no tuners are available (or something similar), and to rerun the setup wizard. However, I've found that the only thing I need to do to fix this problem, is to power off and back on the HD-PVR boxes. No need to shutdown or restart the server software, just rebooting the Hauppauge HD-PVR boxes brings the whole thing back online and everything works again. In all cases when this happens, the XP OS sees that all three tuners are up and running in the device manager, it just seems as though the Hauppauge tuners are locked up. I'm pretty sure that this condition (Hauppauge Tuner Lockup) is what causes the above problem as well, but shows up as this second condition if you happen to attempt to watch live tv before a recording attempts to start and fails as in the above scenario. I sure wish someone could find out conclusively why this happens. Is it truely a hardware overheating problem due to poor cooling/ventilation, driver problems, or the Beyond TV software. I really want to find out if it's heat related or not, which I could do by opening the C2 boxes up and running a table top fan aiming at the hardware and see if things would run solid for a few weeks, but I'm afraid to open the boxes and void the warranty.

Has anyone been able to add significant cooling to their boxes and seen them run solid, or do you still have random lockups requiring a capture box reboot?