[mythtv-users] NTSC USB tuners: which ones are out there?

Gary Buhrmaster gary.buhrmaster at gmail.com
Sat Aug 29 22:51:34 UTC 2015


On Sat, Aug 29, 2015 at 9:25 PM, James Miller <gajs-f0el at dea.spamcon.org> wrote:
..
> I do recall reading/hearing about overheating and power supply issues with
> these tuners Gary, but thanks for reiterating that and adding some further
> detail. These do have good passive ventilation--both the units themselves,
> as well as their power supplies

Note that the power supplies have (essentially) no ventilation.  They die
due to (usually) the internal caps exceeding their design limits after
a few years of usage (if you tear one part, almost always you find the
caps "blown" or no longer able to meet the specs).  Without a good VOM,
you are not going to see the ripple voltages.   Try replacing one and
see if it statistically improves (I should note that I replaced my supplies
proactively for the follow on rounds of Hauppauge devices (I started
with the original PVRUSB2), because long experience demonstrated
that those POS supplies were not worth spending any time with; it does
not hurt that I could pick up high(er) quality switching supplies for pennies
on the dollar for "NIB" supplies at a local electronics surplus store).


More information about the mythtv-users mailing list