HD PVR flicker problem! :(

Ramza

Hi guys, LONG POST AHEAD, but hopefully more of the more experienced people on this board can chime in and maybe help me with this problem!

So I've had my PVR the better part of 7 months, bought second hand off a mate who only used it once/twice, was literally good as new and not very old at all when I purchased it from him. Pretty standard setup, Xbox component cables in, Hauppauge cables out to TV, worked perfectly and installed fine with no problems and recorded and operated 100% fine, until the last few weeks

So basically, I'll be playing on my TV and the sound will disappear, for anything from 1 second, to sometimes 10 or so...totally random! And sometimes the sound loss will be accompanied with a purple coloured horizontal bar that covers a tiny portion of the top of the screen, again, no more than 10 seconds, sometimes less, random It keeps happening over and over repeadetly and it's so frustrating, but what makes it so annoying is that, if I am recording, it will freeze the recording and render it useless. If I play back the video file, it will either be freezed entirely at the first moment the screen messed up, or it will just have dead air or a freeze frames during the purple screen thingy, either way, renders recording useless.

So I immediately assumed it was my TV, so I unplugged the hauppauge and just plugged the xbox cables direct into my TV, played for a few hours, flawless, no problems at all. I decided to keep em that way for the next day, just to be sure, and never once experienced this problem, so I can now say it is not my TV inputs or my xbox cables

Here's where it gets interesting, I assumed it was just the Hauppauge cables, and here's why ; as the cables are VERY long, and very heavy, my Hauppauge is right next to my TV and Xbox, so when the wire is plugged in, the cables sometimes weighs unevenly to one side, and maybe over time I thought, caused the cable ends to bend or the wires to mess up, so the input was flexing out of its slot while playing? Bear with me on this So to rule this out, I changed my setup, I moved my TV far away from my unit, so the Hauppauge wires would be stretching to my TV a distance and thus not putting undue weight or stress on the input slots or the cable itself...this worked for about a day and a half, until today...it happened again! I was devastated, annoyed and confused, so I pulled the cables out, stretched them out to make them straight, and put them in again, still a problem...:(

So to rule out further, I tried to replicate the problem myself and maybe pinpoint a culprit, so while my TV was on etc, I pulled out wires one at a time, fiddled with them etc, to see could I get the sound loss/purple screen effect...here is where I am lost, I first did it with the audio red and white..sound loss, sure, but no purple flicker, so I played with the sound cables out altogether, and the flicker appeared. Scratched the audio cables off the list, and pulled out the red video cable, still got a flicker..hmmm, next, did the blue (or green? can't remember?), STILL got a flicker, and it cant be the last remaining one, because, if I plug out that one, I lose all signal to my TV, experimenting with none of these cables causes the same problem

Researched the internet and discovered it could be either two things, 1) My inputs on my unit have become weak and old and are basically dead or 2) it's my computer/USB interfering, causing something called a ground loop?. Now, it can't be 2, because my setup has not changed, same computer, same usb slot, same plugs, same outlets same EVERYTHING, but, my unit is about 7 or so feet from my PC, so I use an USB hub extender to reach my PC, and as far as I know, it can't exfeed 5 meters before encountering problems, and it doesn't, and even so, it didn't at first so why would it now?

So, what are my options? , obviously buying a third party component cable wont do the job? I want to know before I go and spend money on anything, any input is greatly appreciated, I hope the news isn't bad Any questions tell me and I can answer! Thanks guys if you have read all of this

Doctor DooM

I actually would try new component cables myself.

I would say 90% of the issues I've had with recording video has come down to cabling.

You can say you don't want to spend money solving it as much as you like, but at the end of the day you are in a problem solving situation and experimentation is the only way to do it.

Using a different USB port on your comp will show you if that's the issue, usually.