The clock board came from Humax within a couple of days of ordering. I've fitted it and all seems to be functioning as normal again. Fitting it was more awkward than I expected, but not difficult. Many thanks for the help in this thread.

I don't think its unreasonable to expect such a device to last 5 years and certainly anyone who has one fail in under 3 years should complain as no end of companies are prepared to offer extended 3 year warranties meaning they expect them to last that long!

I just replaced the 32Khz crystal on my machine, and unfortunately it didn't make a difference. The clock still shows --,-- when I put it into standby.

When you replaced the crystal, did you solder the body of the crystal to the PCB? There was an area under the crystal showing bare copper, with the solder resist removed, but the previous crystal wasn't soldered down.

When I replaced my crystal, it was not soldered down, nor did I solder it down.

In my case, I reported that changing it hadn't worked. A couple of times over the next few days I got the old --:--. Strangely enough though, since then it has worked perfectly since then (probably 3 weeks now). I have no explanation for this, I can only hope that you get a similar result.

My one has done exactly the same!!! After I changed the crystal it still said --:-- so I thought it hadn't worked.

I looked at it a few days later and realised the clock had come back while in standby!

I've been away for a long weekend and everything in the record list has recorded succesfully, which hasn't happened in ages!

I'm now wondering if the fix was actually removing the clock PCB from the front of the Humax or if the crystal was the problem.

Anyway, but Humax is working again, so I am happy.

And another! Came back after a weekend away to discover my 9200 has also caught the stand-by --:-- clock disease - it was also an early model bought for Christmas 2005.

I've just done the full recommended unplug and default reset in case that cures the problem (so far - after 30 mins - the clock is still showing the time)... However, I suspect I will end up ordering the £30 replacement unit.

However, in doing the retune, a whole load of what appear to be duplicate channels have now appeared in the 800 range. I've never noticed these before and wonder if they are anything to do with the Rowridge changes earlier in the year...? Can anyone enlighten me please (especially as the Ch 5 in the 800 series seems better than the Ch5 in the 'right' place 005).

Thanks.

PS In the last few months my 9200 also seems to have developed the sluggish remote problem that is referred to in other threads. Almost as if the 9200 was designed to automatically self-destruct after a 3-4 years...!

It looks like my happyness was shortlived, as the problem is not resolved.

Sometimes it does appear to be OK and I get a clock when it goes to sleep, but other times it doesn't and I get --:-- still.

I did contact Humax support by email 4 weeks ago, but they never replied.

Unfortunately the standby clock didn't show the time for long and is now back to --:--.

Accordingly, today I have tried many times to contact the Humax Customer Support Line on 0844 669 8800 but both options (existing customers and prospective ones) seem to always end up with engaged tone.

Apart from email, does anyone know how to contact them about the replacement clock card?

Snap!
After many years of no problems, this past week ive had the --:-- too, but seems to be an intermittent problem.
I took out the board which the cable seemed loose under the HHD. Reconnected which still showed --:--, left hummy on for the rest of yesterday afternoon and evening and just thought id put it into standbye and the clock stayed on and so far its still on now.

Are there any instructions/photos about how to do this? I'm a bit nervous of opening the box and doing the wrong thing!

V

Just undo the screws around the cover edges, lift off the top.
Undo HHD screws and just moved it enough to get to where the white cable goes thats connected to the front display board.

After reading another thread, I retuned my 9200 manually last night to eliminate the duplicate (800 series) channels. Living in Poole, I suspect the back of my aerial points at Stockland Hill and so not surprisingly the duplicate channels turned out to be SW ones (as opposed to Rowridge channels). However, although the Stockland Hill channels were much lower strength than their Rowridge equivalents (resulting in serious pixilation), they had populated the 1, 2, 3, etc. tuning positions and the Rowridge channels were shown as the 800 series duplicates (could this be because the Stockland Hill channels have lower channel numbers than the Rowridge ones and so are scanned first?).

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I manually retuned the Humax and now have the correct channels in the right places and no 800 channels at all.

Since when, the clock has kept running accurately in stand-by mode…

Is this a coincidence or does it just show that the clock fault is inherently intermittent in nature?

Sadly, it didn't last long!

I just used some plumbers silicone "jointing compound and leak sealer" to stick down the resonator body. After having bent and pushed the leads through the cleared plated through holes of the board, the leads were soldered, excess cut off and with a short length of bare 1mm wire the compound was applied between the body and board. Soldering the body could damage the resonator due to the high temperature.

p.s. I thought the thread had ended so I have not kept up to date until today and I can say honestly that replacing the resonator solved the problem on my machine and it has since not given any trouble.

Have just replaced my clock card with a £30 replacement from Humax. Seems to have fixed the problem and the display is very bright once again!

Although changing the card was not rocket science, it was trickier than I'd expected. Given that there must be many 9200 owners who wouldn't be sure where to start, I'm surprised the card doesn't come with at least some minimal instructions for replacement?

V

How did you get in contact with Humax? I emailed them about a month ago, but they never responded...

There are instructions in this post: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s...19&postcount=6

My clock is playing up again so left Hummy on for a few hours now its back to normal again when in standby.
My dilema now is, do I spend out £30 for a new PCB or seing that ive just got a new HD tv that has lots of HDMI sockets, do I spent out for the 9300T or should I go down the Freesat+ route as I have a satelite dish on my house doing nothing which will need a twin LNB and extra cable?
Obviously a new PCB would be the cheaper option, but im not sure whats best for the long term.
Any recommendations would be very helpful.

I have the 9300T, and prefer the PQ over SCART with my HDTV, so no real advantage to HDMI in my case.

Personally, I'd probably "waste" £30 on keeping the 9200 going, and invest in a Freesat HDR to get the best of both worlds.

I'm certainly not disappointed with the HDR, and the Freesat/HDR implementation of AR is definitely much better than the 9xxx series.

HTH.

Rgds.

Les.

I just phoned them using the number on their homepage http://www.humaxdirect.co.uk - 0844 669 0677.

The chap I spoke to was very helpful and confirmed that they are having to send out a lot of replacement boards for early machines. (He said it would only take a couple of days to arrive but in fact it took ten).

V

Thanks for that - wish I'd known about it before. Actually, to remove the front panel, I also had to unplug another very small (but rather short) cable.

However, my point was really about the average 9200 owner who perhaps would be nervous about taking the cover off and changing a PCB, and probably doesn't even know of the existence of this forum.

When I spoke to the chap at Humax, he just said "Oh, you need a new clock card - we'll send you one for £30". There was no question of asking if I was capable or willing to replace it myself!

V

Yes, mine did that for a while but then reverted to going faulty again. Intermittent faults, the worst sort to fix!

Anyway, for what it's worth, the replacement card does seem to sort the problem so, in that sense, £30 will not be wasted and will give your 9200 a new lease of life.

V

I'll chip in my tuppence worth - when my clock showed "--:--" in standby, about 6 months back, I resoldered the clock chip in case of dry solder joints. This seemed to do the trick for several months but it has now happened again. I suspect the same issue but it was quite tricky to solder the first time round. I think a second attempt could kill it!

I've been trying to find a repairer to look at it without success as Humax's response to my request for a recommended repairer has so far been a deafening silence.

Given the charge a repairer might make coupled with the possibility that the intermittent fault might still return again, doesn't the £30 new card option look like a better bet?

V

It might be worth replacing the clock chip if you are going to re-solder it. You can get ones from Maplins or RSH for about 50p - all you have to lose is £30 for a new board.