re-acquiring LIRC device

[Mike McMullin]

  I have an Hauppage PVR_150 tv capture card with a 350 remote, which
worked in MythBuntu 9.04 until about 12 days ago ( it also died under
openSuSE 11.1 at the same time).  I have tried IRW and get not results
although, I did have a fully functional  IR remote.  FWIW, the remote
works fine under WinXP and WinTV.

  I'd really like some suggestions as to how to go about getting the
remote back.  (All of the buttons worked right!!  unlike under the
kludge I had to do for openSuSE.)