Wallace said:
My XP computer won't recognise that my video card is present- it just states
that it hasn't been installed (specifically the error message in Windows
Media Centre is "Tuner Not Installed. Video cannot be displayed because no
tuner hardware has been detected". I've had to reinstall Windows XP due to
another issue, so it may be software related.
How can I work out whether it is a hardware/ software issue?
There are a few utilities around. You can get a copy of Everest Home Edition
(free) and see if the hardware is detected. (More recent versions of
Everest come from lavalys.com and cost a few bucks.) If you look in
Devices
CI Devices, you can get a Device ID, and that would have been
fetched across the bus.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4181
When my sound card was not making good contact in the socket, I could see
one binary bit in the Device_ID changing. And from that I could tell
that the PCI bus connector was not making good contact. Since installers
check the Device_ID and compare to the .ini file contents, that can stop
a driver from being installed.
Everest also has a Report Wizard, and you can dump gobs of info with
that. Then snip the parts you want and post them.
And by "video hardware", my presumption is that we're talking about
a video capture card or a TV tuner card. If WinXP could not see your
graphics card, then you wouldn't have a desktop to look at on your monitor
Another utility you can get, is Sisoftware Sandra Lite (Sandra Lite XI.SP2).
But I like the convenience of Everest a bit better. In Sandra, you'd use
the Hardware tab, then Busses and Devices, select the bus having the piece
of hardware. There is a button at the bottom that copies to the Clipboard,
if you need to paste the info elsewhere.
http://www.sisoftware.co.uk/index.html?dir=&location=downandbuy&langx=en&a=
Seeing the DEV and VEN codes, proves the hardware is visible and
accessible from the bus. It doesn't prove that the hardware does
anything useful, and the card could still be broken in other ways.
This is my sound card, to give you an example.
"Device Information
Device Type : Audio Multimedia Device
Device ID : bus 3, device C, function 0
Windows Device Name : CMI8738/C3DX PCI Audio Device
OEM Device Name : C-Media Electronics Inc CMI8738/C3DX PCI Audio Device
OEM Hardware ID : FUN_0, VEN_13F6, DEV_0111, REV_10
Device Name : Hercules CMI8738/C3DX PCI Audio Device
Product ID : VEN_1681, DEV_A650
Revision : B / 1 (16)"
HTH,
Paul
