wiinter
28-06-2005, 4:34 AM
I’ve purchased, built and troubleshot many a computer – and never have I had so many problems with one system, and I’m getting fed up. Since most of them are MCE related, I’m going to reach out to this community for input. See system specs and other relevant info at the bottom.
In order of annoyance:
#1. The XP MCE OS locks up a few minutes after reboot/login. Always at different times. The event viewer ALWAYS says the very last thing that "The IMAPI CD-Burning COM Service service entered the stopped state". I searched online for this, and the best anyone could come up with is to disable the service altogether. This works, but, of course, I cannot burn CDs from within MCE anymore. Any ideas of how to better fix this?
#2. MCE (the application) freezes upon launching. If I use the activity buttons on the remote, or manually launch MCE, it freezes about 9 times out of 10 after it gets a few frames into its intro animation. Sometimes it makes it partway into the main menu animation. Oddly enough, very occasionally after a freeze, if I leave it long enough, it will unfreeze – this has only happened a couple times, but made me wonder if it had anything to do with the wireless connection.
#3. MCE fails to remember that it was in windowed mode when I use the activity buttons. I won’t go into detail, I’ve started a different thread about this. See next point.
#4. MCE will not allow a window resize to 1280x720, even in /widescreen mode. Again, I won’t go into detail, because I’ve covered this here:
http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=223043
#5. Not MCE related. I’ve got three of these nice USB keyboards that have a built-in USB 2-port hub. On the problematic computer, when using a USB keyboard, about 2 times of every 3 reboots, the bios throws a keyboard error. Not touching anything, a reboot often solves the problem. Now, because of first two problems, I’m not sure, but it’s possible the keyboard could also be ceasing to respond once in the OS, even if it does boot up.. but it’s hard to tell apart from the crashing and freezing.
#6. Not MCE related. This question is for you Harmony remote users. I’m about to contact support about this, but I figure I would throw it in here too. I’ve purchased two of these remotes (688) and the first living room worked out perfectly. The second living room / remote is having an issue: The “channel+” and “Device” do not work at all – they simply send no signal. With any other button press, I can see the little IR receiver light come on, regardless if it can use the code or not. But with those two buttons – nada. Let me know if you’ve run into the prob.
Hardware:
- Soltek 75FRN2-L
- AMD Sempron 2500+
- 2x256megs Corsair Dual-Channel (not value select)
- 20gb + 200gb + 200gb hard drives
- Microsoft IR receiver w/Harmony remote
- D-Link Wireless G (108mbps. also, the router has a directional antenna)
Software & Configs:
- XP MCE 2005 w/Tweak UI (XP and MCE’s tweak), nothing else really installed
- 200+200gb hard drives are in raid-1, stripe
That’s all I can think of. Let me know if you have any ideas!!
In order of annoyance:
#1. The XP MCE OS locks up a few minutes after reboot/login. Always at different times. The event viewer ALWAYS says the very last thing that "The IMAPI CD-Burning COM Service service entered the stopped state". I searched online for this, and the best anyone could come up with is to disable the service altogether. This works, but, of course, I cannot burn CDs from within MCE anymore. Any ideas of how to better fix this?
#2. MCE (the application) freezes upon launching. If I use the activity buttons on the remote, or manually launch MCE, it freezes about 9 times out of 10 after it gets a few frames into its intro animation. Sometimes it makes it partway into the main menu animation. Oddly enough, very occasionally after a freeze, if I leave it long enough, it will unfreeze – this has only happened a couple times, but made me wonder if it had anything to do with the wireless connection.
#3. MCE fails to remember that it was in windowed mode when I use the activity buttons. I won’t go into detail, I’ve started a different thread about this. See next point.
#4. MCE will not allow a window resize to 1280x720, even in /widescreen mode. Again, I won’t go into detail, because I’ve covered this here:
http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=223043
#5. Not MCE related. I’ve got three of these nice USB keyboards that have a built-in USB 2-port hub. On the problematic computer, when using a USB keyboard, about 2 times of every 3 reboots, the bios throws a keyboard error. Not touching anything, a reboot often solves the problem. Now, because of first two problems, I’m not sure, but it’s possible the keyboard could also be ceasing to respond once in the OS, even if it does boot up.. but it’s hard to tell apart from the crashing and freezing.
#6. Not MCE related. This question is for you Harmony remote users. I’m about to contact support about this, but I figure I would throw it in here too. I’ve purchased two of these remotes (688) and the first living room worked out perfectly. The second living room / remote is having an issue: The “channel+” and “Device” do not work at all – they simply send no signal. With any other button press, I can see the little IR receiver light come on, regardless if it can use the code or not. But with those two buttons – nada. Let me know if you’ve run into the prob.
Hardware:
- Soltek 75FRN2-L
- AMD Sempron 2500+
- 2x256megs Corsair Dual-Channel (not value select)
- 20gb + 200gb + 200gb hard drives
- Microsoft IR receiver w/Harmony remote
- D-Link Wireless G (108mbps. also, the router has a directional antenna)
Software & Configs:
- XP MCE 2005 w/Tweak UI (XP and MCE’s tweak), nothing else really installed
- 200+200gb hard drives are in raid-1, stripe
That’s all I can think of. Let me know if you have any ideas!!