[mythtv-users] Hauppauge PVR-250 difficulties

[Dan]

I am a Newbie to Linux.  I am currently running the default install of
Mandrake 9.1.  I installed mythtv from the HOWTO as well as the PVR-250 as
detailed in the "example configurations".  My setup uses a celeron P4
1.8GHz, 384Mb PC2100 RAM, and ASUS P4VP-MX motherboard (I am using all the
onboard VIA devices: video, sound, ethernet).  The Hauppauge card I am using
is a PVR-250 model 980 NTSC/NTSC-J.  I am experiencing two difficulties with
watching TV.

1) The first time I start mythfrontend after a reboot everything works ok.
However, if I stop watching tv and then attempt to watch tv again the signal
becomes choppy and eventually locks up.  If I switch over to the terminal
window in which I started mythfrontend I see the message "prebuffering
pause" then "waited 2 seconds for data to become available, waiting
again..".  The only way to regain use of the tuner is to reboot the
computer.  I tried stopping the ivtv module (and all its dependencies) and
restarting it again without rebooting the computer, but that had no effect.
I also updated the firmware to the recommended version from the ivtv site
(from file pvr_1.18.21.22168_inf.zip), this had no effect.

2) When I watch TV all I receive is static.  I tried fine tuning the
frequency with no success.  How are the frequencies set?  I use DataDirect
to set the channel info, but maybe I missed a step that sets the channel
frequencies.

I would appreciate any help on these topics

Thanks,

Dan