Survey - Hauppauge PVR-250 OEM / Freestyle Owners

[koltz]

Well right now I have $120 paperweight that I can't use since I upgraded my motherboard. I have tried it in 3 others motherboards with no luck. If you own the OEM/Freestyle version, please respond to this with the following information:

1. Motherboard Brand/Model

2. Driver version if known

3. Any tricks to get it to work.

Thanks, Corey

[richt]

I bought my PVR 250 on ebay. It was advertised as a Gateway OEM. I have not bothered to check the chipset info as I haven't had any issues.

MB - MSI KT4VL Motherboard, onboard audio and LAN. PCI Firewire card, nVidia GF4 MX440 AGP card.
PVR 250 Driver - 1.17.390.21283
Tricks - Plugged in, installed drivers according to info on SHSPVR site.

I did run the Hauppague HWCLEAR utility before my original install.

[koltz]

Thanks for the post, looks like only 2 people have the oem board Oh well.

[dickrichards]

I have two of them I got from eBay as well and my driver version and install routine is the exact same as above. My motherboards are ASUS A7N-266VM & MSI K7N2 and I've had no issues are problems at all. I also used the utility to clear everything first.

[reesd]

I just got the OEM version working using the drivers from http://www.shspvr.com/ as well. I had no success with the ones from http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/support_pci_boards.html.

Sure is nicer than my AIW...
d

[grillcheese]

I wasnt real happy with the Gateway driver, and during each BTV update I was reminded about driver updates being available for my (oem) 250. Sometime in January I decided to remove the gateway driver and install the haupauge drivers and I lucked out. Everything worked. The picture is definitely better now than when I was using Gateway driver.

For system specs see my sig.

[lathos42]

I, like richt, bought my PVR-250 on eBay, and it was also listed as a Gateway OEM card. I'm using the same version of drivers as he is. As for my install, I just placed it in my computer, and it was detected by Windows XP. I then installed the drivers and it worked. I'm not sure if I was just lucky or if someone had already prepped the card before hand. I'm sorry if i'm not much help

[mtcabral]

I bought this one from pcalchemy last week (still awaiting its arrival):

http://www.pcalchemy.com/product_inf...b4e1b16de7e0df

Is this the one we're talking about here? If so, should I expect more issues than I'd have with a retail version?

Thanks!

[koltz]

No, the one you bought was the MCE version. It may still have issues, but probably less than the gateway pvr-250 (or freestyle). I guess the freestyle board was specifically developed for gateway's hardware and could work with other motherboard's, or it may not. That is the price of buying OEM. I ended up buying an ATI eHome Wonder instead. Isn't currently supported by BeyondTV, but works great in MCE which I am starting to like a lot. I will see what comes of 3.5 and Beyond Media before I switch back. They both have their benefits.

Corey

[mtcabral]

Cool, thanks for the quick (and comforting) feedback. Anyone out there have experience with the OEM MCE I'm getting? I'm a newbie, so I'm hoping this will be relatively pain-free.

Thanks!
Mike

[grillcheese]

Not sure I understand. I bought my 250 off of ebay and there it was advertised as being the gateway pvr250 card. I was even given the link to the gateway driver.

Other than a few hiccups where updates to XP would corrupt the driver for my 250, requiring a reinstall of the 250, I haven't had any trouble with my card. (not yet...now I probably will)

So I dont think its all of the gateway oem's. I dunno.

[koltz]

Your motherboard that you have listed in your desrip is known to work with it. I had an FIC AT31 mobo originally and it worked great, I decided to upgrade my in-laws computer with that board/proc and upgrade mine to something faster. So I upgraded to an M7NCG 400 from Biostar. Couldn't get the damn board working under it, posted here, and found out others had the same problem with certain motherboards. I was looking at the ASUS, but this was a better price. To be honest, visual quality, I feel the eHome Wonder beats the PVR-250 and uses less CPU cycles (but I am comparing BeyondTV to MCE also). It was an OEM card, but is a general OEM, not a manufacture OEM.

[richt]

Koltz - I ended up buying an ATI eHome Wonder instead.

Which ATI eHome Wonder are you using? I see that there are a few different versions. One seems to have FM and what appears to be an S-Video input. I need a half height hardware card and am considering taking a chance that BTV will sooner or later support this hardware.

[ThreePutt]

I bought the WinTV-PVR-250 MCE from Z-Buy which I think is the same as the unit at pcalchemy. It is working great with BTV 3.4.3.

[mtcabral]

Thanks, ThreePutt. Does it come with the CD or did ya have to download drivers, etc?

Thanks!
Mike