If I attach the HD to my computer, is there a way I can backup the good recordings before attempting a re-format?

Have a look at http://humaxdisk.wikispaces.com/HumaxRW
\there is a lot of useful info that may help you.

My pvr9200 stopped recording timer programmes.It was the clock probem as it was showing 4 dashes and a dot in the centre. It is one of the early ones.

I tried cleaning the white film from the board again and again using Maplins pcb cleaner.
Alas it did not work so I tried soldering the connections to the super capacitor and crystal with a miniature soldering iron

Success it worked first time. I can only assume that the film had somehow affected the soldered joints, although they looked perfect under very high magnification.
The moral is dont give up easily, i cleaned the board at least 12 times before soldering.
The clock does work without the hard drive fitted.

I would guess that re-soldering the crystal disturbed any remaining contamination, the super capacitor is not very relevant. Whatever the reason job well done.

Hello everyone, I would like to add my thanks to the heap belonging to Big-les.

My 2003 vintage Hummy 9200T lost its standby clock display a couple of days ago, and researching the fix quickly brought me here.

Some household meths (the purple stuff) and a few cotton buds later, the display was back in time to record Sunday night's footy, proving the recording system wakes properly from standby.

During cleaning with wet buds the meths seemed to dissolve a coating which was almost invisible at first when dry, but which showed up as patches of a dark matt residue when the meths evaporated before the cleaning was complete. It made it very easy to see where to carry on with further washing. I guess the colour of the residue was produced by a combination of the dye in the meths, as well as dust and felt tip pen ink mixing with the coating as it dissolved.

Eventually the meths dried without dark streaking and wiping with dry buds left a shiny surface. At that point I thought it was worth trying the reassembly and all went well.

If I may, I'd like to add a little more; Big-les' investigative skills are magnificent and his level of support displays modesty and generosity. Admirable.

Thank you also to all the other contributors here that helped me understand this issue so easily and arrive at such a speedy fix.

Best wishes, Plodder.

Looks like my mine has finally caught this disease, from the very first post
"A tutorial on how to change the board can be found on the Hummy.org site."
Link is long since dead, how do I find this information out ?
Thank you

You're right, that link has been dead for a very long time. Several times I asked the moderators to allow me to edit the link but they ignored my requests. See post #125 for the current working link.

Another link to the instructions: HERE

An interesting observation that may be useful to future cleaners.

Came home from a 2 week cruise on Monday and settled down the next evening to catch up on Corrie. Horror of horrors, no Corrie had been recorded while we were away! How could we possibly carry on life without knowing what had happened on The Street? This dreadful situation has occurred once or twice before to our PVR-9200T.

Turned it off. No clock display, only --:--. Wonder if there is an internal battery that needs replacing? Log in to Digital Spy for the first time in a couple of years and what is the first thing we see? Big-Les' excellent posting on the 9200 --:-- clock problem.

The job took 60 minutes to do, excluding lunch break, without any problems. Some minor discolouration around the RTC IC, xtal and 0.22 Farad super cap. Used 'Electrolube ULS Cleaning Solvent' as I prefer to drink my vodka rather than use it for PCB cleaning. Dried it off with a hair drier (actually a hot air gun used with great care so as not to overheat).

Lo and behold, now I have the time displayed, albeit dimly, but I'm not going to replace the display 'cos it's still bright enough to read.

So many thanks Big-les and also JefUK for excellent dis-assembly instructions.

Tom

Just to be clear, the dim display has nothing to do with the --:-- problem, and there's always ITVPlayer to catch up with Corro.

Has anyone worked out who will get this problem and who won't? I bought my 9200T in February 2006 and haven't had any such problem (yet).

Is it related to age, hardware version or what not?

Mine is one of the original silver ones with a very quiet fan that is on all the time, version PVR9200T Rev 1.0.

The 2 boards I repaired had solid copper ground planes whereas my own newer board had a mesh pattern ground plane. This made me wonder if there'd been a change in clock board manufacturer during the life of the 9200 and that might be the problem/no-problem cut off point but I have no data other than the 3 boards I've had contact with. I've mentioned this before, probably in this thread somewhere.

Has anyone studied the connection with smokers/nonsmokers? In my earlier life as a manufacturing electronics engineer (HiFi and test instruments) some service jobs on our equipment had to be seen to be believed! The nicotine/tar gunge on front panels and circuit boards was amazing. I gave the awful habit up some considerable time before (in 1991) getting my 9200TB and the clock has been OK.

Mine was one of the original boards repaired by Big-Les. The PVR has always been in a strictly smoke free environment. I suspect the problem is due to poor cleaning at the manufacturing stage, which may have been rectified by the suspected change of manufacturer/process.

I would like to add my thanks to the many people who have contributed to this thread. I got the dreaded four dashes yesterday and as soon as the words supercapacitor and cleaning were mentioned I knew you were all correct and what the fault was. I have replaced countess numbers of these troublesome things in professional equipment over the years. The only solution is to remove the capacitor, clean the board and replace it with a new one (I think it says .22F on it but the printing is a bit faded). Maplin seem to no longer sell them in their shops but as an emergency measure I can confirm that a 330uf 16v electrolitic will keep the clock going for at least 5 mins, long enough for a short power cut, or until you get around to ordering one from the web.
These things just fail, quite often in my experience, its nothing to do with a smoky environment, you are not to blame for their demise.

The super capacitor has nothing to do with the problem that causes the clock to stop in STANDBY.

Well all I can say is that cleaning had no effect but as soon as I replaced the supercapacitor (admittedly with an electrolytic as I didn't have the correct one to hand) the clock came back to life and has been OK for over 24 hours now. It was also happy to be powered down for several minutes whilst it was being reinstalled in the living room. The same supercapacitors fail regularly in Ikegami broadcast monitors locking the monitor's function select buttons. Sometimes leakage is visible, sometimes not. Removing the capacitor and cleaning the board restores all the functions but it has to be replaced to retain the memory. Sony ST-SE300 FM tuners suffer the same problem (loss of station memory in that case). We used to get the capacitors from CPC Farnel or Radio Spares. Maplin used to sell them for about £5 but don't seem to any more.

You must have a different fault not related to the problem discussed in this thread. If your clock has failed due to the supercapacitor then the supercapacitor must be affecting the power supply to the clock, it can't affect the clock in any other way. If this is the case then the clock will not work even with the machine ON.

Of the two boards I repaired I replaced Martin's supercapacitor because I'd abused his original, coulrophobe's original supercapacitor was left in place and as far as I'm aware both boards are still working. Many people have performed the clock problem repair successfully without replacing the supercapacitor, it is not at fault and plays no part in the clock failure discussed in this thread.

Clock worked with machine on , dashes in standby. When these things leak there is often little to see but the board becomes contaminated. The contamination is often under the capacitor and it has to be removed to clean the board properly. The capacitor may still maintain part of its value but will slowly become ineffective. Sloshing cleaner under the cap may well restore operation but it should be replaced as they are not expensive. They are not ordinary C's and can produce a wide range of puzzling effects as they die. I have replaced a considerable number of them over the years in broadcast equipment, we never put anything back in service with aging super caps as in our world time is money.

Again, the supercapacitor plays no part in the clock failure discussed in this thread.

Farnell part EECS0HD224H £1.59

No doubt you are sick and tired of hearing this (Big_les and other posters) but a GIGANTIC THANK YOU for the solution to the clock problem. I was resigned to having to ditch my faithfull 9200 and invest in a new PVR. Did a search and found DigitalSpy with the instructions. Nothing to lose so had a go...took me under an hour (cleaned the board 4 times with drying between) Clock showing again in standby for ther last 3 days. Did I say Thank you? Now if only there was a way to revive the fading clock display figures........

Thank you for the thank you, pleased to see there are still some people finding my instructions useful. My clock display is about as dim as a glow-worm’s armpit but it doesn't worry me as it's only slightly dimmer than my Panasonic recorder that I purposely set to dim. Someone was going to donate an unused 9200 to me to investigate the dim display problem but then went quiet on me. It looked to me that it is the display itself that deteriorates so I doubt I could have done anything, and I certainly wasn't going to mess around with my 9200 any more.

It seems to be a characteristic of vacuum fluorescent displays that they tend to become dim with use, presumably as a result of a deterioration of the phosphors on the anodes, though there is an enormous difference in lifetime between displays.