Sky+ will not switch on or respond in any way
Yesterday evening the Sky+ was working fine. When I went to bed it was recording from a series link, the power light was red. This morning the power light is red, it does not respond to the remote control and pushing the power button does nothing. Have switched off at mains for over an hour, switched back on and no improvement. Red light flashes intermittently.
Anyone know an easy fix? Don't want to lose the recorded programmes (about 18% disk space free so many shows to watch). It's a Thomson 160 box, about 5 or 6 years old I think.
Anyone know an easy fix? Don't want to lose the recorded programmes (about 18% disk space free so many shows to watch). It's a Thomson 160 box, about 5 or 6 years old I think.
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Remove power, hold down BACKUP on Sky box (not remote), then put power back on, and keep hold of BACKUP button until all lights flash (and screen should say updating software).
Doesn't seem to work. Held down Backup button, switched on mains - nothing happens.
It's presumably corruption of the HDD, and can usually be cured by reformatting the HDD, which wipes all your recordings.
Would using Copy+ to copy the contents off, then put them back on help?
Not sure if Copy+ is clever enough to ignore the corruption and put the drive back to how it sohuld be.
Thank you.
AFAIK I've had the box since 2006. Maybe even 2005. So it's not had a bad innings. It's just annoying that I've saved a lot of programmes to watch over the summer and I doubt that they will be repeated soon so I'd have to buy the DVDs.
You could try this - http://www.skycopyplus.co.uk/
Hold down the outside two buttons on the front of the box while you plug the mains in, continue to hold them in until the circle of LED's lights up. Then press 'select' on the front to start it formatting, the LED's will circle backwards during this time.
Once finished it will reboot, and hopefully work OK.
Yes, I've had to bite the bullet and order an HD box. The Sky tech on the phone talked me through pushing various combinations of buttons without success and the consensus was that it was highly probable that even if it could be brought back from the dead I'd lose all my recordings. So sadly I've had to accept that a new box is the best solution.
Satcure and others do replacement kits (on ebay) - for anyone with a soldering iron and electrical knowledge it's easy to fix, worth doing, and you'd still have your recordings.
The lower current, and thus lower operating temperature, of the Sky+ box means it's rarely a problem - I've seen LOT'S of faulty and swollen capacitors in the Sky+ boxes, but in every single case fitting an upgraded PSU hasn't cured it. In each case the HDD was faulty - possibly damaged by the faulty PSU? (although I've found no evidence of that).
But it sounds like the OP's box is the later Thomson?, and that doesn't have the capacitor problem - but as I said earlier, it's VERY, VERY prone to needing the HDD reformatting, which it doesn't sound like he's tried?.
Unfortunately, it does. Although the capacitors in the later versions appeared to be slightly better, we've still seen failures. Although the PSU in the Sky+ box is less stressed than in the HD box, we've still seen failures.
Basically, Thomson = unreliable capacitors. Replacing them is essential to get a reliable box and it will often allow existing recordings to be played, but not always.
If you want to be reasonably sure that capacitors will fix the problem, it's possible to remove the HDD, connect it to a PC and carry out a test to make sure the data is intact. You need to ask yourself how valuable those recordings are.
As I said, I've not seen any so far where replacing the PSU cured anything (and the old PSU works perfectly in another box).
The Sky rep told me my box was from 2005 according to their records.
He told me to switch off the mains power and then switch back on whilst holding down various buttons, as I understand it to force a software download or to reformat the disk. Neither worked - the red light stayed on and nothing else happened.
Does it have Anytime on it?, if so it's the last Sky+ series.
How long did you hold the buttons down for? - they MUST be held down continually, for perhaps 30 seconds or more. The slightest 'blip' on them and it won't work.
Sorry for the hijack........
I've got the same problem on an old plain Grundig Sky box. Just a plain old box no pvr capability.
I try to turn it on and the red power button just blinks and nothing happens. At the moment it's upstairs gathering dust and have a spare freeview box in it's place but if the sky box can be revived I'd be happier
Thanks in advance for any help.
Cheers Tom
First off check the PSU capacitors, see if any have bulging tops.
Thanks for the reply.
I won't be able to check them for a couple of days though. If they're bulging, what is the next step? Replacement?
Cheers Tom
No, it doesn't have Anytime.
I held down the buttons for over a minute at a time. All that happened was that the red power light flickered from time to time.
In that case it's an older model, and most probably requires both the PSU capacitors replacing, and the HDD replacing. In my experience of those models I've never found one yet stuck on standby like yours that was cured by doing just the PSU, in every single case replacing just the HDD cured them. Although I wouldn't return them without replacing the capacitors, because as I said I suspect it's those that killed the HDD.
But in any case, it's extremely likely all recordings are already lost.
Yes, you can get a kit of the required parts from Satcure, don't go for the cheaper ones off Ebay, they don't provide the same high quality ones as Satcure.
Ok, thanks for the info.
Cheers Tom