My much-loved Thomson DHD4000 has started refusing to power up properly. The drive makes an odd clicking/whining noise, and the machine refuses to turn on. I've tried taking the case off, to blow out any dust etc. and see if anything looked obviously broken (it doesn't) but no joy

Any ideas on if/how it's fixable? I'd very much appreciate any help...

you might need to replace the drive.
It is a simple job.

Take the drive out and plug it into a normal PC and try running the manufacturers diagnostics against it (Seagate probably). If it reports it as unwell then grab the lowest power new one you can find and replace it.

If it's like mine went - when powering up from the wall, the drive would spin up and down continuously, gradually spending more time spinning up, and eventually gaining full speed. It would require a further reset at this point to bring it back to life.

I changed the capactitors in the PSU as suggested by someone here and all returned to normal. The PSU's are known to cook the capacitors after a period of time. If the drive turns out to be ok, probably worth investigating.

This thread describes it a bit better.

Thanks - I left it plugged in and connected to the arial overnight, and the amber light was still on. I then unplugged and plugged it in again - now seems to be working fine For now, at least...

To state the obvious, I'd tried turning it on/off multiple times before - but for some reason its now started working. Certainly not complaining, anyway

> left it plugged in and connected to the arial overnight, and the amber light was still on.
> I then unplugged and plugged it in again - now seems to be working fine For now, at least...

That was the sort of thing mine exhibited - I powered it off at the mains to move it and after a few minutes being de-powered it failed to start. I could hear the drive picking up speed then dropping, repeatedly, and gradually it gained full speed after about 5 minutes of doing this. By that time though the amber light stayed on, however de-powering and immediately re-powering the set brought it to life. I was conscious it was on its way out and took it to bits to check for anything obvious, nothing found, and the same worrying power-up scenario too, as I scanned ebay for another DHD4000 ... (FWIW I considered any second hand box could be of the same age suffering the same symptoms so I felt replacing the caps was worthwhile).

Having bought the PSU fix kit and replaced around 9 or 10 capacitors it is now back to full working order. One thing of note however, two of the caps supplied were considerably taller than those fitted originally and touched the lid, so I had to insulate their tops. Had I spotted this before I would rather have laid them down so they'd fit in, too late by the time I cut the legs off!

Thanks - and sorry for not replying earlier. As predicted, my box now seems knackered. I ended up splashing out £30 for a thomson box off e-bay (see here http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s...0#post25641870 ) as my soldering skills are lousy