Hi folks. I'm having trouble "learning" my VL710. I hope you can help...?

I have an HP z545 Media Center PC running Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005. It came with an infrared remote which only controls itself. No learning, no punch-though, no nothin'.

So I bought a VL710 for the "learning" function and "punch-through" volume idea. It appears to learn commands from the HP remote. But it will then only execute each command once. I don't mean, "I can't just shoot the volume all the way up by holding the button down."

I mean, I cannot change the channel from 6 to 8 by pressing the CH+ button twice in a row. I can CH+ from 6 to 7. Then I must press some other button to do something (anything) else. Then I can CH+ again from 7 to 8.

Likewise, I can change directly to channel 12 by pressing "1,2" but I can never change to channel 22, becuase I cannot press "2" twice in a row. It ignores the second instance of any key learned from the HP remote.

It does not do this with commands sent to the Sony 5.1 receiver programmed simply by the 4-digit code in the manual.

The goal here is to run the PC Media Center features (not yet) and force the volume and power buttons to the Sony 5.1 receiver (easy).

Any chance this is a problem with my technique or something? Hold a button down longer or shorter while programming? Or does this sound like something beyond me, like an "END TRANS" is missing at the end of each signal or something so it goes in the pile of "some commands cannot be learned" in the manual?

Any thoughts?
Thanks so much.
Tom