My Dual PVR80 has just developed a weird problem with the LED front display. It now shows weird symbols instead of channel name, time etc.

I have powered it down and done a first time installation which worked for a while but soon started to show weird symbols again.

It does however operate properly at the moment (except the green power LED stays on insead of turning red when put into standby), but I'm not sure I can trust it to record on the timer.

Has anyone else experienced this and if so can it be fixed?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Not the first time I've heard of an issue like this, for example. I suspect it's either a bad/dodgy connection or failed component in the front panel (which is largely separate from the main PCB). It's quite possible the failure is isolated to the front panel itself, which would mean the PVR should function perfectly fine otherwise.

Hi
I would agree with the above i have read of this problem before , if its under g/tee return it .
There are things you might like to check first is overheating ie is there some other
unit on top which might restrict the air flow .
Other things as suggested such as any ribon conections from the main board to the front panel , or have a look at the capacitors on the power supply if the tops of these
are bulging then they are on the way out (the x on the top of them should be flat) but
do take care there is A VERY HIGH RISK OF SHOCK , even when unpluged !! .

Hi all, had this same problem happen to me yesterday (scrambled display, green power light staying on after switching off via remote etc), plus some extra faults... PVR would power up from standby and do a 'disk check' every 10 minutes or so (with scrambled text), then switch itself back to standby. Eventually the power went down all together. A quick check of the board revealed a very obvious dome-head on a capacitor (on the mains power supply board). Swapped the capacitor, and all is well once again.

I've been having exactly the same problem - random menus and corrupted front display.
I was just about to say that I've had the top off the box and can't see any bad caps, but then I noticed the main power board and the main cap on there is slightly bulging.

Is it the 47uF 400V cap that you changed?

hi Gromit, sorry for late reply... hopefully you've sorted it by now. Just in case... from memory, the cap I changed was a 16v 1000uf, think there are 2 or 3 caps of the same spec on the power supply board. I should change them all really, but at the time it was a case of 'pinch' one from an old sat receiver circuit board I had laying around, and just try it. The machine's work perfectly ever since, and I just haven't gotten around to doing the 'proper job' yet!.

The only bulging one I had was the 47uf 400v jobbie.
Ordered a replacement from farnell (higher temperature rating!) and fitted it this afternoon.
All is now working good as new! Hurray!
Will watch it carefully over the next few days/weeks - I know problems might not show up immediately...

Cheers for everyone's help - I would have been buying a new box were it not for these forums!