I have a Vista Media Center PC with dual OCUR tuners. The "first" tuner works all but flawlessly, but the "second" tuner works fine for a few hours and then will tune only clear QAM channels. I can fix this problem, by ejecting and reinserting the CableCard, but it then alwas recurs several hours later. I have replaced the OCUR tuner and have had Comcast out to replace the CableCard itself (which of course worked fine for a few hours). Both OCUR tuners are bing fed from a three-way splitter from the cable coming into our house. Two lines go to the two OCUR tuners and one goes to the cable modem. Comcast says there are no signal issues.
I am tempted to blame this on a bad CableCard, but fear a situation where Comcast blames my hardware.
Any idea what would cause the behavior I am describing, or how to further diagnose this issue?
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You can check authorization by going into network and then the device and click on card. There are several apps there which open browser windows. When you first install the card check the CA (conditional access) screen and you should see one-way authorization received. When you can only tune clear QAM check the app again and see if you still have one-way authorization. You should also check that your OOB return signal is working (which can also lead to this problem). It could still be either the card or the tuner, but since you can tune clear QAM, it looks like either the card or card interface in the ATI tuner. Hopefully you bought it from your OEM so replacement won't be a problem (ATI hands off all of that to the OEM source).
John
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Thanks for the reply and sorry for my delayed response due to travel. I have looked at the Conditional Access pages for the tuners and reprint their contents below. I don't know enough to tell if the one-way authorization has been received or whether the OOB return signal is working. Can you tell from these?
Also, strangely, the information displayed on these pages for the two tuners ("Good Tuner" and "Bad Tuner" below) is different, even when both are working properly, e.g. for the "Bad Tuner" after the CableCard has been reinserted and can then tune all channels.
Here are the pages (do they shed any light on what my issue may be?):
Good Tuner
Unit Address: 0011D19BA9 000-02989-49545-127 Encryption: DES Connected:yes, EnabledByCP: yes Auth: SUBSCRIBED CA enable: possible ECM PID: 0x0439 Component PIDs: 0x0A00 0x0A01 0x0000 0x0000 0x0000 0x0000 Host Validation: Valid 00 Copy Protection Key: Disabled CCI: 0x00
Bad Tuner - When only tunes clear QAM
Unit Address:000-00125-63761-056 Encryption:DES Con:Yes EBCP:Yes Val:? 0x00 PMTCMD:D Prg:00022 ECM:0x0000 SvcID:0x000000 Svc:0 Enc:ENC CP:Disabled CA Reply:0x00 N Auth:? CCI:0x00 ? Epoch:0x00 Component PIDS in Hex: 0840 0841 0842
Bad Tuner - After reinsertion of CableCard and working fine
Unit Address:000-00125-63761-056 Encryption:DES Con:Yes EBCP:No Val:? 0x00
Problem seems to have been solved by replacing the CableCard in the problematic tuner. See http://thunor.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!71C238B5E0E3724D!2126.entry