Decklink Extreme PCi installation issues Win7/CS5

[Nicky Van der walt]

I have some bad news for you.

The PCI versions of the Decklink cards does not work in 64 bit systems with more than 2GB of RAM (I found this out the hard way!). You can test this by downgrading your RAM to 2GB and the card will most probably work.

Your only solutions would be to either upgrade to a newer card like the Decklink Studio or downgrading your RAM. But trying to run CS5 with 2GB of RAM will most probably drive you to murder.

[Andrew Crawford]

Hi Nicky,

thanks for the quick response. I have just tried removing 2Gigs of RAM. Unfortunately, this doesn’t help. I also found another thread suggesting that anything under 3.5Gb – which I could live with – should work: https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/124/873749

The fact that I am getting the error message on older Blackmagic timelines also still suggests to me that this is a software issue. Anyone?

[Andrew Dobson]

Hi colleagues,

I had a strange problem capturing SDI into a FCP system with Decklink Extreme3.
Feeding different SDI machines in, it would see DSR1500, J30, analogue sources but
when A500P Digibetas were connected, there was either nothing or very erratic intermittent input.
After much discussion with BM in Cheshire UK (always helpful!), the solution was to put a much longer video cable between the SDI source and capture card. It would appear that the card is designed to work on longer cables and 2-3 metres as I would normally use don’t work well at all. It’s all about re-clocking, loops and eyes in the SDI signal. I don’t have this with my other BM products. I suspect the design is over pre-equalised . I’ve hidden 50 metres of PSF cable behind the edit desk and all is well in the world again. Hope others find this helpful, best wishes to you all. Andy

[Bo Higbee]

I have 2 pci Decklink SD cards and neither work in Win 64bit. I also have a Decklink Extreme pci-e 1x card (old card also) which does work in Win 64bit.

I think issue is 33/66 mhz pci buss type cards.

[Elvir Radeljas]

Good news for you, hope.
I have same problem at home, but at work we have windows 7, 64 bit, 3 GB RAM, and 7.9.5. version drivers for decklink extreme PCI.
THIS WORK.
But at home I have the same problem like you.
Dont know why. I have asus sabertooth p67, all looks good in device manager but card doesnot work.
Soon when my friend,who install this at work, come from holidays I will ask him to visit me and try fix the problem.
i believe problem could be in windows 7 or PCI bus.
Let you know what happened.
My card works on XP2, 1GB ram on old computer

[Elvir Radeljas]

Problem solved, juhuuuuuuuu…
Ok, like this.
If you install windows 7, 64 bit, and Decklink Extreme PCI, you can put only 3,0 (3×1024)GB of RAM and thing will work.
If you put 4 or more not working.
I prove this on my new computer with 8 GB of RAM.
So I have installed dual boot system.
Windows 7, 32 bit, can see 3,5 GB of my 8 GB installed RAM and my decklink work.
Windows 7, 64 bit, can see all 8 GM of RAM, but deckling not working.
So like this I can live, capturing with 32 bit, later working on 64 bit.

If this help somebody please let me know on elvir_radeljas@hotmail.com

[Iain Forsyth]

I’ve been trying to get a PCIe Decklink Extreme card to work in a 64-bit Windows 7 PC for some time, and encountered similar problems to many of the posts. I tried dual booting, but this caused problems with a 4GB RAID(0) array failing and loss of data.

I was about to give up, but spotted a post about Hauppauge devices not working on 64-bit systems here: https://www.sevenforums.com/hardware-devices/46632-hauppauge-fix-how-do-i-limit-ram-win7-sees.html
The solution is down at the bottom of page one, and it also seems to work for my Decklink Extreme card by limiting the amount of memory that Windows 7 ‘sees’ without having to physically remove it.

– Start Windows Vista/7
– Enter the command msconfig into the search/run bar
– Click on the Boot tab
– Select Windows Vista/7 and open Advanced options..
– Check the box next to Maximum memory
– And enter a value lower than 4000 (MB) (3800 or lower recommended)
– Click twice on OK and restart Windows.

I set the Maximum memory to 3500MB for capture, and then back to 32000MB (ie the 32GB of physical RAM fitted) for editing/compositing.
The PC does need to be rebooted when the value is changed, but this is much safer than taking memory sticks in and out of the motherboard, and for me did not result in the dual boot problems.

I’ve not been able to get any drivers ver. 9 or above to work correctly, so I’m using ver. 8.1.0 which is OK for CS5.5

Hope this helps someone else!