Capture Card Issues
3 years ago
California, USA

Hey all,

I recently started having issues with my brand-less old school capture card that I use to record from a Gamecube. I have never had an issue with this card until last week when I got a new SSD and installed Windows 10 on it.

The issue specifically is that I get stuttering and screen tearing, as seen in this recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjX5wPj4Lq0\

I just CANNOT figure out how to fix this. Things I've tried:

  • Plugging the capture card into other USB ports on my PC
  • Plugging the capture card into my laptop (the capture card works fine)
  • Using other recording software (I tried both OBS and Xsplit)
  • Performing a DDU on my graphics drivers and clean installing them
  • Reinstalling Windows
  • Reinstalling Windows on my old SSD, where it was previously working fine (this SSD was rapidly failing, which is why I got a new one)
  • Reinstalling my mobo chipset
  • Various OBS/computer settings found in internet searches

I've never been so stumped by a tech issue. Anyone have ideas?

Antarctica

If your capture card is brand-less then I doubt you’ll be able to get any help here. Without a specific brand, we can’t really offer any advice on how to fix it (ie. reinstall drivers). Chances are it just died and you just need to buy a new one. If you’ve gone through all those things and it still isn’t fixed, then I’m not sure what other option you have.

California, USA

It definitely didn't die though... it works perfectly fine when plugged into my laptop which also has Windows 10 installed. It is called "USB 2820 Device" in my Device Manager, which also let's my uninstall and reinstall drivers. Not sure if that's helpful or not. The manufacturer there is listed as "eMPIA Technology"

Edited by the author 3 years ago
Antarctica

What’s different about the laptop? Different OS, different OS version? If it works on one computer but not the other that makes me believe that maybe your PC has a windows update installed that the laptop doesn’t that is causing it to have issues with the card.

Pear likes this
California, USA

Desktop (where it's not working): Windows 10 Home Version 10.0.19041 Build 19041

Laptop (where it works): Windows 10 Enterprise Version 10.0.17763 Build 17763

So... not exactly the same. I guess it's possible a Windows update messed something up but I'm not seeing anyone else report issues with the most recent update so I'm not sure.

Antarctica

I’ve had random issues like this with Windows updates so I wouldn’t be surprised if that was what is causing the problem. Obviously it’s hard to troubleshoot these types of issues through forums, but the most you could do is update the laptop and see if it stops working. The plus side is you’ll know what the problem is and you can hope a future update will fix it, the downside is that you’ll have no working PC to use the card with.

Otherwise, I’m out of ideas. It seems like you have a compatibility issue between Windows and the drivers of the card, but it’s hard to say for sure.

Edited by the author 3 years ago
California, USA

Sounds likely. I can't update that laptop unfortunately since it's a work computer and they have to enable updates, but yeah once it updates that sounds like a good test. Appreciate your thoughts!

United States

Hey Nintendude. Based on what you wrote here and your suspicion that the problem might be the Windows 10 version, I would try downgrading your desktop operating system to the one your laptop possesses to form a more equal testing field. Your desktop computer has Windows 10 version 2004 and your laptop computer contains Windows 10 version 1809. There likely were big structural changes in some core system components in Windows from the older version on your laptop to the newest product being publicly distributed by Microsoft which may have rendered your video capture device buggy. You can research the changes with some world wide web work, but it could be a slog and hard to find exactly what is causing your video capture device to not function (finding a likely piece of information might be some work, too). If you do try to downgrade and if you can make your item work correctly on that same Windows 10 software version, you will at least have some basis to make further decisions off of.

With some brief searching, it appears that there are valid, safe sources online where you can get older Windows 10 versions from, but use care to know what you are finding and obtaining. If you choose to do this, you must create a Windows system restore point right away so that you can quickly roll back to your newest operating system version if the test doesn't go how you need it to play out. Of course, many other things could be the reason your hardware is buggy. Your desktop computer's hardware might have a component that is interfering with the video capture device's intended execution. The cause could be many things. Getting the correct answer to a problem like this is usually tedious as the hardware you have may not be documented well, and the changes to the operating systems over time that might concern you may not publicly be documented, or hard to locate. As a whole, a lot of software/hardware products are not documented as thoroughly as people might need, based on my prior situations doing similar troubleshooting. There are so many parts to software/hardware and so many different products out there, which makes documenting or even knowing about certain problems difficult.

Edited by the author 3 years ago
California, USA

I'm late, but I appreciate your input. Unfortunately I can't update my laptop to the same version since it's a work computer. Also it runs Windows 10 Enterprise... not sure if that makes a difference. I suppose a logical step though is to plug the capture card into a computer with the exact same version of Windows installed, so I'll try that next.

I'm a little skeptical that this is actually the issue though, because I keep my Windows fully up to date and version 2004 came out in May. I didn't do the clean install with new SSD until earlier this month. Then again, seems like I've ruled out everything else.