When I read the post from Patbees of the 9/2/2012...#218, it could have been written by me. As you may recall, I have had a problem with the 9200 clock card not responding to extensive cleaning as described by yourself, so I bought a new card from Humax but, just like Patbees, it just showed just a series of dashes where the Standby time should be, and nothing else. Changing back to the original, everything was OK, channels could be watched, programmes recorded, even those still in the future, provided I left the machine "On".

I 'phoned the Humax support team and told them the new board didn't work, and described the problem. One of the four representatives I spoke to over a four hour period, asked me to read out the numbers printed on a label on the PCB, he then asked what the number was on my old board, it was quite different to the new one and, from the noises he made, I got the impression that these numbers might signify something. He asked me to hold the line while he went off to consult with a colleague and, on return, said they would send me another new card. On installing the second new card, the result was the same, a series of dashes where the Standby time should be, but nothing else. On re-installing the original, old card, everything bar the standby time was once again OK.

Fortunately I have taken photographs of the screen displays of all the cards. The pictures show the original was working in part, but the two new boards show just dashes (-----).

Yesterday (Thursday) I sent the Humax support team an email with three photo attachments illustrating the cards respective displays and, today, I have spoken to Lester, a support team representative, who informs me that Humax are carrying out an investigation into the possible "incorrect programming" of these boards. He further said Humax would contact me when they had rectified the problem, hopefully within the next two to three weeks.

The board numbers I spoke of are: (First new board) 020-2780....A6....MFC 10040303339............(Second new board) 020-2780...A6....MFC 10040303349.

My old board number is: 020-2210B.............MF 140125903317.

So, it looks like all of us who have unworkable clock cards will have to twiddle our thumbs for the next few weeks (hopefully, not longer).

For what it's worth, my original old board was 020-2780 MF1402125505493.

It looks like you and Patbees may have found a problem with Humax's stock of new boards, they will be pleased. Do keep us informed.

Can I get this clear, your original board displays the clock and channel when the 9200 is ON and the 9200 works as normal. In STANDBY you get --:-- (with colon) where the clock digits should be on the right of the display. With the new board the 9200 fails to boot and gets stuck with ---- (without colon) on the left of the display where the channel name usually is. Is this correct?

I can't understand why you can't get you old board to work, it might be that a component has been damaged. If you want to send your old board to me for investigation, when you're up and running with a working new one, I'd be interested to have a look.

Things happen very quickly when I switch on the 9200 and attempt to observe what happens on the display, but here goes:

The machine is plugged in at the mains but switched off by the switch on the rear of the machine, hence, no power and the display is a blank black.

In the absence of diagrams I will attempt to indicate the position of the symbols on the display by showing their relative positions within the body of this text i.e. symbols on the left of the text will be of symbols on the left of the display, similarly with symbols on the centre and right of the display.

I switch ON the switch on the back of the machine: 1. Swirling symbols resolving into four dashes, no colon.

L/H SIDE........................APPROX CENTRE..................................R/H SIDE (of display)

- - - -

L 00 to 100

S T I N G

- - - -

......TV
BBC ONE.......................... 1045 (time)

______________________//________________________

Now switching to Standby, using remote conrol ON/OFF button


BBC ONE. 1045 disappears, replaced by:-

- - - -which is soon replaced by:-
...........................................................................................1045 on R/H side.

______________________//________________________

Pressing the ON/OFF button on the remote control again, brings these responses on the display, in order of sequence:-

L 10 to 100

S T I N G

- - - -
______________________//________________________

Continuously pressing the ON/OFF on the remote control gets no further response from the Humax, the four dashes remain on the left hand side of the display.

When I get this problem resolved, I'll be glad to send you the old card, for the moment, I can still record things.

Regards. D.

So with the new board fitted, from mains OFF you can get the 9200 to boot once and from your description it doesn't boot to STANDBY, it boots straight to ON. Then switching it to STANDBY it goes correctly to STANDBY displaying the clock correctly but then you can't switch it back ON, not at least until you do a mains OFF/ON cycle.

The only thing obvious here is that you have the old version loader that displays STING during boot, the new loader displays DUOVISIO. I don't know if this is relevant but it might be worth telling Humax if you haven't already done so. The newer version loader a4.09 can be installed from your computer, see this page.

My apologies, I'm afraid I may have unintentionally mislead you. As stated in my post #229, when I received the first new card, and it failed to work, showing only a series of four dashes and no colon, I put the old card back to verify it was the new card and not the machine
that was faulty. When the second new replacement card arrived and also showed only a series of four dashes (no colon), I reinstalled the OLD CARD, which, just as before, worked fine, apart from not showing the time in Standby. It was with the old card still in the machine that the sequence of events were as I described in my post #229.

So, to reiterate: both new cards show only a series of four dashes on the left-hand side of the display (where the Standby time should be) and NO COLON, they do not boot up, and no other symbols appear on the display.

Once again, my aplogies for not making it clear that my scenario apertained to the OLD CARD, which is still in situ awaiting the arrival of a properly functioning card.

Best wishes. D.

OK so your 9200 is working correctly with the old board installed apart from having no clock in STANDBY. Just one thing though, the clock digits are always on the right hand side of the display, the left hand side where you are getting four dashes (----) during the stuck boot is where the channel name is when the machine is ON. The two dashes, colon, two dashes (--:--) you get in STANDBY with the old board is where the clock digits should be, the dashes are simply replacing the digits.

I think you should still mention to Humax that you are using the old loader, it would be interesting to know the loader version in Patbees machine.

The four dashes on the left being what is normally displayed during saving/loading the cached epg during shutdown/boot by the latest firmware.

As I tried to illustrate in my post #229, there is no colon, just dashes. May I ask, what made you infer the presence of a colon on any of the cards.

To summarise the sequence in post #229:

Step 1. Switch on rear switch. Swirling symbols, loading (including brief appearance of four dashes but no colon) resulting in channel and time on LEFT HAND SIDE OF DISPLAY (as shown in #229).

Step 2. Switch to STANDBY (first time) using the remote. Result: Channel and time on L/H side (see step 1. above) disappear and are replaced by four dashes - - - - on L/H side, but NO COLON. These are almost immediately replaced by the correct time, but now on the R/H side of the display (once again, see #229).

Step 3. Pressing the ON/OFF button on the remote again (for the second time) results in: Loading 00 through to 100, followed by STING, followed by four dashes - - - - but NO COLON, and ALL on the L/H side of the display.
Because of the frequent reference by yourself and others to the colon, I feel its presence or absence must signify something. Is it important in understanding what the problem is?

In the absence of photographs, my post #229 is as close as I can get to showing what is on the display with the OLD CARD installed.

When looking at my post #229, please imagine you are looking at the black display panel of the Humax. In that post, I have attempted to show the relative positions of the symbols as seen on the Humax's display.

I am confused, you seem to be contradicting yourself. In your post #231 you say this.

But in post #229 you clearly show the clock showing the time 1045 on the right hand side of the display which is where it should be (and should be showing 10:45, look carefully).

Which is why I assumed post #229 was with one of the new boards installed. Also in post #229 you suggest that the 9200 does not boot from STANDBY, this suggests a problem with the 9200 that is nothing to do with the clock problem discussed in this thread. I don't think you have the clock problem which is why cleaning the board didn't solve your problem.

You mention in several places in you posts that you get four dashes on the left of the display "where the Standby time should be".

As far as I'm aware the clock is never on the left of the display therefore no colon, it has it's own dedicated digits on the right of the display with a colon between the second and third digits, look carefully.

I think your 9200 has a problem which causes it to get stuck during boot from STANDBY showing ---- on the left of the display. I think you are confusing this with the clock problem discussed in this thread which causes --:-- to be shown in STANDBY on the right of the display where the clock digits should be. With the clock problem discussed in this thread the 9200 can be put into and brought out of STANDBY with no problem but won't record from STANDBY because it doesn't know what time it is.

From this comment

I think you have an older version of the software, the latest version is v23. If you had v23 installed "which is soon replaced by" would actually be about 30 seconds.

Have you tried doing a Default Setting to cure your problem?

If the problem really is failure to boot properly then formatting the disk in a PC is the most likely fix. The likelihood of this working can be tested by disconnecting the hard drive and seeing if the box will now boot properly (although obviously without any recording capability).

I agree Martin and also this information might be worth looking at. I'm not sure why the machine boots successfully from mains OFF but then fails from STANDBY but it might be worth disconnecting the aerial just to see if it will then boot from STANDBY. I strongly recommend a Default Setting though as the first line of action.

EDIT: I think I'll be surprised if removing the aerial does anything to change the situation.

Definitely (seeing as I wrote the majority of it despite it being attributed to Barry( and I haven't known the first bit that he wrote to do anything useful for a very long time.))

Sounds like handbags at forty paces come dawn, good job he's in the southwest.

To avoid misunderstanding, let me make it very clear that I have no problem with Barry's post. I think he has resurrected something from the old hummy forum and edited it together to give the advice in a single post.

I think I can now see where the confusion lies. From my perspective, in previous posts the references to colons seemed to be whether there was one between the four dashes. In my rather pathetic diagram I failed to put a colon between the four time numerals, because, on my elderly machine, they are so faint I just didn't see them.

You say the Standby time is not shown on the left hand side of the display, my reason for thinking it was is because, when my machine first developed the fault, and the cause was identified as a failure of the clock circuit, my machine just showed four dashes on the left hand side of the display and, not being able to remember what was there before the fault, I put two and two together and assumed the dashes were where the clock numerals had been prior to the fault.

If, on my diagram, you insert a colon between the second and third numerals, then you will see what I see when I switch on from the rear switch with the old card installed.

Recap: OLD CARD INSTALLED: Step one: Switch on from rear. Swirling symbols. Four dashes ( no colon).

- - - -

L00-100.

STING.

- - - -.

BBC ONE.10:45.
_______________________________________________

Step 2. Pressing ON/OFF button on Remote Control. (I thought this was going into Standby, so I'll call it S/B 1)

RESULT:

BBC ONE. 10:45 disappears, soon repalced by:

- - - -soon replaced by:

10:45
_______________________________________________

Step 3. Pressing ON/OFF button on Remote Control for the 2nd time S/B 2 (is this putting the machine into Standby?)

RESULT:

L00-100

STING

- - - -
_______________________________________________

After this third step, pressing any button on the Remote Control has no effect, the display just continues to show four dashes and no colon.

I tried returning to the Default Setting, still with the old card installed, it tuned all the channels atomatically, but when the process was finished, the machines still showed four dashes and no colon at the left hand side of the diplay.

Step 2 is putting the machine into STANDBY and you clearly show the clock (presumably on the right) so your machine does not have the clock problem as discussed in this thread.

Step 3 should bring the machine out of STANDBY back to the ON state but it is sticking during the boot for some other reason. This can be caused by a faulty hard disk, have you tried the machine with the hard disk disconnected as Martin suggested in post #236?

No, but when this problem first arose, and I was unable to resolve it with your cleaning procedure, and before I had acquired a new board, in desperation, I called in a repair man who assured me he was familiar with Humax. A couple of days later he 'phoned me to say it was my hard drive. I agreed he should replace the h/d. On returning the machine a day or so later, he gave me a brief demonstration of the machine working, although his demonstration did not include recording from standby.

I must admit I was surprised that he should blame the original h/d because I had been able to do with that h/d, exactly what I can do with the new one, namely: make scheduled recordings, provided I leave the machine ON.

I asked him for the original h/d, saying I wanted to pull it apart (not true), I wanted to try it back in the machine to see if it really was u/s. Unfortuantely, it didn't work, although it had worked before he took the machine for repair. Whether he has pulled a fast one, and replaced a usable h/d unecessarily I can't say for sure. There is a shorting link that goes somewhere on the long row of pins, next to where the power plugs into the h/d, I've tried that link in a few different positions but it has made no difference. There is no obvious, visible sign that the h/d has been deliberately damaged. Both h/d's can be felt whiring quietly, so I guess the discs on both are spinning. I will do as you suggest, but what should I be looking for? Also, is it time to send it back to Humax, assuming they do actually accept old machines for repair. So far it has cost me about a hundred pounds.

The old, original 160Gb h/d is made by Seagate and carries a Humax label, the new replacement is made by Western Digital.

OK that is your problem. It is well known that many Western Digital hard drives do not perform well in the 9200. If you want to send me your orginal Seagate drive I will test it for you and return it if working correctly.

But you real problem is that you can't get the machine to switch ON once you've put it into STANDBY.


Is the disk he's given you back the one that was originally in the machine? The shorting link should go in the CS position.


Simply to see whether you can put the machine into STANDBY and then bring it back to ON without it locking up. As Martin said in post #236 "the likelihood of this working can be tested by disconnecting the hard drive and seeing if the box will now boot properly (although obviously without any recording capability)".

Problems with Western Digital disks in these machines has been known about for ages, is the Western Digital designed for PVR use or is it a bog standard PC disk??? If only you'd told us all this before. Disconnecting the hard disk will show whether the problem is the disk or not, coincidental that the original Seagate also gave the same problem.

That's very kind of you, Martin. Can you let me know how I can do that, please. D.

PM sent.

To disconnect the h/d, I removed the white power connector rom the rear of the h/d. I found the long black multi pin connector too difficult to remove without first removing the entire h/d from the machine. This seemd to prove your point, however because: Switching on from the rear switch took the display from swirling symbols, L00-100, STING, BBC ONE 16:45.

Going into Standby via the On/Off button on the remote resulted in: four dashes (no colon) on L/H side of display soon changing to 16:45 on the R/H side of the display.

I repeated this standby test several times, and each time I switched ON from S/b, the Humax booted to show BBC ONE 16:45, which was, of course viewable on the TV.

I don't think the Seagate h/d the repair man returned to me is the original but, as I didn't mark it before he took the machine away, I can't say for certain.

The Western Digital h/d he used in his repair had a sticky label carrying his company's name covering most of the WD specification details on the top plate, when I peeled this off, it showed this label also concealed the name Phyl scrawled using a black, felt tip pen, which makes me wonder if this was new h/d or one from his spares box.

Some of the numbers on the Western Digital, I don't know if they mean anything:

PATA/ 8MB CACHE.
WD 1600 AAJB-56R1AO
NMB CLASS B

I can't see anything to indicate whether this component is intended for use in computers or PVR's

WD. CAVIAR BLUE.

So your problem is the hard disk and not the clock problem, that's why cleaning didn't fix it. If you give us the number from the Seagate disk we may be able to say if it was the original fitted to the 9200, Martin may have that information to hand. I'm off out now but somebody may check the WD number or you could look it up yourself. You should find information as to its intended use.

Just had my 9200T the --:-- in standby on me , and the missus is rather annoyed and using it as a "shall we get sky instead?" . Need it fixed ASAP!

Have emailed Humax for a new card, but tempted to try the cleaning solution - assuming that instead of Surgical Spirit, Maplin's Contact cleaner is a good solution?

Ta!