Delaying the Thomson PSU repair
Hello please could you advise,
My Thompson HD box has a failing PSU, while watching it will switch off and show just a blue screen and can only be recovered by switching off at the mains, any progs being recorded at the time are lost. This happens on average 2 times a day, sometimes just once or not at all.
My question is after reading posts here Iam sure its the PSU that needs upgrading but as finances are low at the moment i am prepared to put up with it for a couple of months, but will waiting cause any more damage to my box ie will it harm the hard drive.
My Thompson HD box has a failing PSU, while watching it will switch off and show just a blue screen and can only be recovered by switching off at the mains, any progs being recorded at the time are lost. This happens on average 2 times a day, sometimes just once or not at all.
My question is after reading posts here Iam sure its the PSU that needs upgrading but as finances are low at the moment i am prepared to put up with it for a couple of months, but will waiting cause any more damage to my box ie will it harm the hard drive.
0
Comments
Usually it seems boxes are still repairable once they have failed completely, but like all things it is probably better to get it fixed sooner rather than later.
So while you will probably be okay, you will get anyone guaranteeing if you run the box into the ground it will still be fixable. And I certainly wouldn't be recommending it.
I have relatively recently (I think since the new EPG) encountered the "loss of an LNB" feed which results in "one" of the feeds giving a blue screen and refusing to record.
Last week I got a new LNB and noted improved signal strength and quality.
Since then I had one instance of a "blue screen" which was I think triggered by me mucking about as a recording was ending. I found that the box was still capable of recording two things (and they were both playable) and, as a result of this further mucking about, I found that all was well again. So I though no more of it.
But today I got a blue screen and oddly both LNBs report a good signal. I can only record one thing and no amount of messing about will change this - I had to reboot.
I am loathe to open up my box again - and I "trust" the Satcure upgrade to still be OK. I think that this is a software issue (along with the tendency of the box to crash when using red button services - something which "arrived" with the new EPG).
I am firmly of the belief that this is a software issue - even though it may only affect Thomson boxes. The problem is, I doubt that Sky are addressing it. Why would they ? The older Thomson boxes are increasing in the minority and being constantly phased out with replacements. The advent of 3D, VOD and a couple of new box models with much bigger HDDs must be soaking up all of their software development attention
I fear that the only sensible approach for me is to buy one of the new 1.5Tb boxes and use the excellent Copy+ to move my stuff across. So that'll be two boxes which I will have bought for about £300 in three years !
Has anyone opened the new box yet ? Is it "easy" ?
A few years back when I went from my first Sky+ box to my second, before I knew about copy+ and the like, I just waited till summer when there is sod all on TV, got my planner really empty by watching it all and swapped box then.
Would probably do the same approach if I went for a TB box, far too much on now but in July I bet my planner will nearly be empty again.
If the input capacitor has failed (and you won't know which ones have failed unless you look inside) then continuing to use it may cause the chopper IC to fail, adding another £20 at least to the repair bill.
If it's so bad it's crashing twice a day, it needs to be done NOW.
Dave,
Not sure if you remember but you rebuilt a PSU which I bought from you early last year- you replaced all the caps except the large input one as you said that one never fails. You seem to be implying above that it could, has the thinking changed on this?
Yes it has.
If the big input capacitor fails, then it can blow the chopper. Often if it is failing, often the red light flickers rather than illuminates constantly.
I don't recall the circumstances last year why I didn't replace that one on your PSU, but I certainly have a spare for that if you want it changed. If so PM me.
I am taking in the box for repair tomorrow, was pleasantly surprised after talking to the repairer that it will only cost £45 and take about a half hour to fix.
I tend to agree with you on the software point.
I have got a Thomson’s HD box in the front room and a pace sky + in the back room which her indoors uses big time.
My son has a Thomson’s HD box in his room, which when into dying mode last week blue screens, no sat signal, pixilation big time.
As it happen I had an old Thomson’s 160 sky + so took the power supply out of this and put it in my sons H D box and this worked just fine.
I was then going to send my sons old power supply off to SatCure for repair, however had a quick look on eBay and put a bid in for a Amstrad HD box DRX 780 and won it for £85 inc the postage.
So I put the Amstrad HD box in the front room, copied the Paces hard drive using copy+ with all the wife’s programmes on to a 500gig Sata drive.
This for the Thomson’s HD which replaced the Pace box in the back room.
Then rang sky and had the original cards matched with the new boxes, so the Thomson’s HD box now ran in sky+ only mode no HD channels.
Well it was a nightmare the Thomson’s HD box just kept on freezing or just blue screened. It was so bad and to “keep the peace” I had to put the Pace box back in which still had her “programmes on” and get sky to rematch the card.:eek:
As a test for the Thomson’s HD box I put the old drive back in put it on top of the Amstrad plugged it all in and tried it, ran without a problem.
Then used copy+ to copy over a few programmes to the 500gig hard drive put this in and not a problem works fine.
Looks like my Thomson’s HD box is fine running HD but sky+ SD only no way.
So my bet here is with you; lack of updated software, come to think of it the Thomson EPG is 8.3.2 while the Amstrad is running on 8.4.0 Multiplatform Ver 3.0.