Hello everyone.

I had an 'interesting' experience with my PVR80 (running twin record software v1.0) earlier this evening. I had two programmes set up to record The Bill (a weekly timer recording starting at 19:58) and Holby City (set as an event timer) whilst watching something on my other PVR (a Digifusion PVR200). At 20:05 I noticed that the clock on the Digihome had frozen at 19:57 (although the 'colon' between the hours and minutes was still pulsing) and the record light was still off. When I tried to power it up from the front panel button and then the remote, it refused.

I power cycled it, and after doing a disk check (which came back OK) it finally started to record both channels, albeit 10 minutes late and (mercifully) all my recorded programmes and timer setting appear intact.

Was I just unlucky that it chose to go haywire at this particular moment, or has anyone else experienced this? Any thoughts gratefully received!

Jazza!

I've got a PVR80 on the bench, currently exhibiting the exact same symptoms - standard v4.9 firmware, not DR. Haven't had chance to have a proper look at it yet, but suspect power supply fault...

Fault is intermittant, but seems to fail when the HDD is due to spin up, either for a timer recording or pausing. HDD is definitely okay - exchanging for a known good unit does not correct the fault.

Out of interest, how old is your PVR80?
Last edited by sparky_paul : 29-03-2007 at 11:03

Hi sparky_paul.

My PVR80 is only 2 months old and up till now has worked perfectly - the only problems so far have been with the operator!

As an aside, this morning I tried to watch the two programmes recorded immediately after it was reset, and the A1GP highlights that were on C5 early this morning. I can only describe the result as like trying to watch a programme on x4 fast forward with sound, as the picture freezes, then jumps forward, freezes again, jumps forward and so on with the sound following suit. If the info bar is brought up, the timer jumps forward about 8-10 seconds at a time. Yet without touching anything, the 2 1/2 hours of programmes I recorded tonight and have just finished watching are all fine. How bizarre is that?

I will monitor it over the next few weeks and see how it goes. If it gets too frequent, it will go back to Argos.

Thanks,
Jazza!

It is possible that your problem is not related to the fault I described, it could hopefully have been a one off - maybe a supply glitch...

The faulty machine I have is locking up perhaps once a day, with 5-6 recordings per day set - but its history is that the issue started irregularly and is now happening more often.

If it does it again, I'd be whizzing it back to Argos as you say... but don't forget to flash it back to v4.9!
Last edited by sparky_paul : 30-03-2007 at 09:12

This is the exact fault I had when trying different hard drives in my thread about upgrading the hard drive.

When I put two items to begin record at the same time the clock froze up and you had to reset the whole unit.

Also if the disk drive had spun down and you tried any action that caused it to spin up the message on the screen like (loading timer) just froze.

I suspect there is a fault with you disk.

Hopefully your unit is in warranty or you could try replacing the disk with a WD160BB.

Regards

Jerry

That sounds like excessive spin-up current - these machines are very picky about the current consumption of replacement HDDs.

It is possible that the same symptom could be caused by failing smoothing capacitors on the 12V or 5V supply rails - the machine I have in for repair behaves exactly the same with a known good Spinpoint, and a new WD. The cap's are the first thing I'll be checking when I get chance - check for ripple on the supply rails.
Last edited by sparky_paul : 01-04-2007 at 19:29