Tech: TV Card Drivers

Subject: TV Card Drivers
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 23 Dec 06 - 05:12 PM

I'm trying to reconfigure a PC for my daughter, and mostly all seems OK. But there is one problem.

Her old PC had a TV card. The old PC motherboard has died bigtime. The old PC was made by the now defunct Tiny - who supplied dedicated, integrated, program discs. The Tiny discs are notorious for not running with any other computer. You do not get a separate disc for each program. You get one integrated disc or a set of discs that have to be run consecutively. That computer ran 98SE. And Rachel has left the driver discs in Nottingham and I'm in Kent.

Anyway, I've put the old TV card (and some other bits, including the hard drive from the old computer 'cos it had all her music on it, but now set, of course, as slave) into the new computer (also, by chance, a Tiny) that was working fine and does not need a restore or anything.

The new computer runs XP. It can't find the drivers for the TV card, although they must be on the old hard disc that is now in the new PC and recognised. This might be because the old drivers would have been 98SE drivers, not XP drivers (or it might be because the old TV card won't talk to XP at all).

I could not find a makers name or model on the TV card. So I now cannot readily search the internet for drivers for the TV card.

I'm sure there used to be a program, with a silly name, something like (but not very like) "Beth's cool stuff" that would accurately identify all the hardware on your PC - precisely so that you could go and find the drivers for it and so on.

Anyone got any ideas how to identify that dratted TV card so I can go to hunt for the drivers?

Subject: RE: TV Card Drivers
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 23 Dec 06 - 05:42 PM

With older systems, it often was necessary to load drivers at startup, even if they weren't needed immediately.

Looking at the CONFIG.SYS and/or AUTOEXEC.bat files from the original machine might give a clue as to what was loaded at boot - and if you're extrememly lucky the required driver might be one of them. That would maybe give you at least a "name" to search for. Both of those should be plain text files that you can open and read in notepad.

Looking in Control Panel where the card is installed, or just running System Information (Start|Programs|Accessories|System Tools|System Information in WinXP) might tell you what the new machine thinks the card is, from the PnP "signature" shown in Device Manager. If the card isn't PnP enabled, you'll likely find something pretty generic, if WinXP has tried to substitute a driver, or nothing if it just punted on the device.

Win98 allowed "direct access to hardware" pretty freely, and it's quite likely that the driver she was using is one that uses this kind of control. WinXP is "resistant" to using drivers and/or programs that want this kind of access, and a requirement for direct hardware access is a common cause of failure even running in "Win98 compatibility mode" on WinXP. It's probably the most common cause of "incompatible" hardware/software that just can't be used with WinXP in any "practical" way.

Especially if the TV card has no maker's name on it, some of the other labels on the card might include a "generic type" number that might yield to a Google for information.

Ultimately, you probably need someone who's used - or maybe is still using - really obsolete stuff. Maybe *Foolestroupe will be able to help if you bribe him with a tyranosaur bone?

* Sorry. Couldn't resist the chance for a tweak.

John

Subject: RE: TV Card Drivers
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 23 Dec 06 - 05:42 PM

You might try PCWizard, available here: PC Wizard 2006. It's self-explanatory to use and might be able to identify the hardware, though since it's not installed in XP I don't know if it can.

(If you still have the old 98SE on the old disc you could look though the drivers there to see if you can identify the one for the TV and then try and locate the model from that - look for drivers directories under the old Windows directory, then try to find XP drivers for it).

You might also try and get the chip identification from processor chip on the card and see if you can use that to locate a driver.

Mick

Subject: RE: Tech: TV Card Drivers
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 23 Dec 06 - 06:20 PM

Richard

Several web references suggest the card may use a Brooktree BT878 chipset (and one ref found a Philips logo on a Tiny TV card, though no name - see Tiny drivers - this was a 1999 UK Tiny PC).

If that is the chipset, you might look at this at Sourceforge, which (at a quick read) may provide a driver that will handle a card with that chipset BTWincap.

Mick

Subject: RE: Tech: TV Card Drivers
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 23 Dec 06 - 07:09 PM

Yes, thanks, I was working towards the Brooktree 878 as a possible after a bit of rummaging about. TIme will tell.....

Subject: RE: Tech: TV Card Drivers
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 24 Dec 06 - 12:21 AM

"Ultimately, you probably need someone who's used - or maybe is still using - really obsolete stuff. Maybe *Foolestroupe will be able to help if you bribe him with a tyranosaur bone?"

Well, John, funny you should choose to bring the topic of obscure TV cards...

A year or so ago, I was walking with a friend past a dumpster, and we saw an on PC sitting in there. It had no HD, but it was otherwise intact, including one RAM chip - (probably all the good working stuff had been removed!) - and an old sound card, and some sort of an unidentifiable TV tuner card.... The PC MB seems to be a P2 chip btw... no fan, just a heatsink... have been wanting to get the thing working... or even put that TV card (for Aussie standards) in a spare box... thanks everyone for the useful hints so far...

I have been wondering about trying to get some SW that can identify various weird obscure cards, and there used to be some web sites that would help identify various weird crap from numbers printed on the cards... I was told that there was often some sort of FCC licence code number on plug in PC cards that was very helpful for this purpose - this being for RFI noise emission level approval...

Btw, I was able thru Google itself to track down some useful info for some old 'micro-size' CB handsets, just from the Brand name and Model number...

I really want however, to get a Linux box working - it seems to be able to better identify 'old junk' on install than Windows... and I have a friend who needs to get a working sound card in her Fedora machine to replace the blown output section on her MB - more identification issues - no manuals you see...

I won't be going Vista, at all, at all, at all with my old HW, and the length of time that XP will be supported now makes it uneconomic to acquire... so I am currently studying up on the current state of Linuxes, being an old UNIX hacker from way back... I personally am looking for two types - one simple 'plug and play' for my friend, and one that I 'can tweak'...

BTW, I have noted that Intel have recently released the drivers for its P965 Express graphics adaptor chipset (which suitable motherboards handles Dual CPUs) for Linux Open Source.... :-) which means that should I be able to afford new HW, it will be far better to go Linux, than the Expensive MicroCrap path...


Oh, John, you were sending me up, again, eh, well, I'm not making all this up you know... ;-)

:-P

Some of us have very good financial reasons ...

Subject: RE: Tech: TV Card Drivers
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 24 Dec 06 - 01:51 AM

Foolestroupe -

The tweak was just to see if ya was listenin'. You've been a lot closer to Win98 than I have, since my last surviving one fried itself a while back.

It looks like Richard and Mick may be onto something, and since I don't know squat about TV cards - new or old - I can't offer much, except that I have had some (little) success with just plugging random numbers off of cards into Google to see if one will bring up something useful.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: TV Card Drivers
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 24 Dec 06 - 04:35 AM

Richard

Time weren't very successful with Tiny and I don't think they'll tell you anything now!

Mick

Subject: RE: Tech: TV Card Drivers
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Dec 06 - 04:47 AM

Richard have you not got a tv program on the old disk that might help identify the card? It might even be kind enough to halt with a "can't find <missing driver>" message for you.

A text search for tv through the inf files might reveal something.

Subject: RE: Tech: TV Card Drivers
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 24 Dec 06 - 08:27 AM

Given up.

Nothing in the inf files.

Old hard drive is in new machine but reveals nothing.

I found a Hauppage driver that appears to do half the job but not enough to let the card properly identify itself - now it calls itself a Hauppage which may or may not be right.

PC Wizard does not tell you what the hardware is, just that it needs a new driver and then it wants a subscription to help you downoad the right one.

Some time when I am bored I'll rip the card out again and try it in a W98SE machine.

Subject: RE: Tech: TV Card Drivers
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 24 Dec 06 - 08:52 AM

You might also try Everest to see if that can id the card: select a download site from Everest at MajorGeeks

Mick

Subject: RE: Tech: TV Card Drivers
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 30 Dec 06 - 04:09 AM

I found another program that may be useful but I ahven't run it yet - I've spent the entire time between Xmas (BOxing Day) and now fighting with my main computer that now seems more or less to be running - more on another thread. However, the program I may try (although the affected computer has now gone north with daughter, AOK except for TV card) is called "Driver Detective". I may need it for another reason (again see another thread).