Came home from work today to discover that I've had a hard drive failure on my 9200.."Serious Problem Detected With Your Hard Disk Drive Error Code 0551" was what greeted me when I turned on the receiver.The Bell tech drone to me do a factory default reset...after that picture in picture doesn't work, can't make shared mode work....geez, I feel cursed....

Fixed the pip problem...didn't know I had to hit the mode button on the front of the receiver to get it back to single mode.Still can't get the pvr part to work, but it doesn't matter, as a replacement is on the way...hope I have better luck with the next one....

I'm concerned as the unit seems to have very little room to vent, if its in a tight cabinet could be a real issue

I noticed my new 9200 (and my previous DSR530 from *C - returned :rolleyes: ) run a little on the warm side.

What I did is purchase a QUIET computer fan from Tigerdirect (about $16.00) and used and old 9 volt power adapter I had floating around.

I mounted the fan on a piece of foam - just enough foam for the fan to operate on without tipping over. I placed this contraption behind (so my wife can't see it :D ) my 9200 to the rear left side (if looking from the front). The air flow runs down the left side of the 9200 and makes a BIG difference on the temp of the unit. It's cool now...not warm/hot.

I must add that I have the unit placed on a shelf above my 32" CRT in a fancy TV type full upright cabinet. A LG All-in-One 5.1 amp sits above the 9200 mounted on custom cut 1.5" high aluminum blocks.

Any air flow around the unit will help.....and the lower temp should increase component life.

Cheers

rob1,

do you know your high temps and avg. temps?

my 5200 was running at a high of 50 and avg around 20-30

I thought my 9200 was running cooler but when I came home I turned it on and it said that the High was 125!!! and avg. like 40!

This was with the cabinet door open! and there is room on the side for it to vent.

I better start putting some fans there.

How do you tell the temperature? Are you just using an external thermometer?

rob1,

do you know your high temps and avg. temps?

my 5200 was running at a high of 50 and avg around 20-30

I thought my 9200 was running cooler but when I came home I turned it on and it said that the High was 125!!! and avg. like 40!

This was with the cabinet door open! and there is room on the side for it to vent.

I better start putting some fans there.

Joe,

It's a very sophisticated scientific way of measurement.........my hand! :p

Fan off - warm/hot to the touch.
Fan on - cooler......

Cheers

I was hoping for the temps. from the counters screen in diagnostics.

I was hoping for the temps. from the counters screen in diagnostics.


Sorry Joe,

I didn't try that...is it a secret menu or the general diag screen.

Yikes, looks like my HDD or the HDD controller is completely dead with the "0551: Serious hard drive failure" error. Really disappointing since:

1) I had almost 30 shows/movies on there that I hadn't watched.
2) We're just coming into one of the busiest weeks of the year with many premiers.

I guess the only good things about it are:

A) It's under warranty, just have to wait who knows how long for a new one to be shipped.
B) I don't think anything I could have done would have caused the problem? The unit ran constantly since the beginning of July. I haven't moved it in weeks. No power surges in the house. Not near any speakers. All I did was play and record shows so I don't see any way that the failure could be user produced, more likely just a manufacturing defect or flaw. Let me know if there are any differing opinions.
C) I only found 2 other posts on this forum with people with the same error so it is hopefully rare. We don't want an epidemic like the Motorola 6208 "8888" errors!! Not sure how many 942's have experienced this - I didn't find many hits on a Google search?

For all 9200 owners, the one piece of good news is that with the dead HDD, it still works perfectly just without any PVR features. So years down the road, if they die (and are replaced by something newer) we can still use the 9200 as a basic receiver. I guess it's just morphed itself into a 3200.

A moment of silence for our fallen (hard disk drive) brothers...
..
..
..
..
They're probably off-the-shelf drives (of one sort or another) that could be replaced relatively easily. Do they need to be preformatted and loaded with the OS before they're installed? Or could someone slap in a new drive from the local PC store?

We should figure this out. Having a spare drive on hand for $120 (?) wouldn't be unreasonable for TV fanatics such as ourselves... Better than a 3-month wait.

I put a fan in my home theatre cabinet (12v PC fan, 4.5v adapter) and it made a big difference in the apparent temperature from 'Oh My Gawd' hot to 'That's Better' warm.

the High was 125!!! and avg. like 40!
Most likely due to a failing bearing or electronics, not environmental conditions.

same as me woke up this morning to the error 0551 lost everything on the drive and will take about a week to get a new one :( does not make me feel very good or comfortable about the quality or how long these units are going to last in the long run since my unit is only 3 months old.

Mine went a solid 3+ months before getting the 0551. Then is was replaced with a refurb - yes they appear to be refurbs, not new that they are sending out.

I see a pattern developing here with these HDDs. It would be interesting to know how many 0551 deaths there are on this forum out of the total ownership.

Got 0551 yesterday...noticed the day before that a show I had recorded had a jittering. Got mine in July as well! Second one has been working fine got it in August, so time will tell on that one!

Alt

same as me woke up this morning to the error 0551 lost everything on the drive and will take about a week to get a new one :( does not make me feel very good or comfortable about the quality or how long these units are going to last in the long run since my unit is only 3 months old.
Same thing happened to me 2 weeks ago on a Friday morning. BEV sent a replacement by the next Thursday to me in Alta. This is my 3rd unit now. First 9200 the TV2 tuner could only be controlled by the remote on an intermitent basis and the 551 error on the second replacement 9200.

Last Sunday morning I was getting a 07 error telling me my recordings could not play. Good news is this easily fixed by a hold the power button reboot.

There are a number of good things I like about the unit such as the bigger hardrive, being able to record hdtv, dual tuners etc.

I really hope they get these bugs worked out soon but right now I could not honestly recommend this receiver to family friends or neighbours as I would have to get an unlisted phone number when they have problems. :(

How was the condition of the refurb? That you received? I also noticed that several users on dishnet have the same error, that tends to make me think it’s not the hard drives that are dieing but more so the Hdd controller.


Mine went a solid 3+ months before getting the 0551. Then is was replaced with a refurb - yes they appear to be refurbs, not new that they are sending out.

I see a pattern developing here with these HDDs. It would be interesting to know how many 0551 deaths there are on this forum out of the total ownership.

I also noticed that several users on dishnet have the same error, that tends to make me think it’s not the hard drives that are dieing but more so the Hdd controller.

Actually the controller is working as the guide info is stored on the HD and I can update the guide and have the "full" (sarcastic here) 44 hours worth meaning the controller is working and part of the HD is working. I wonder if a person was able to perform a diagnostic on the drive if it would fix it? On a related note I tried to force the dignostic by setting two auto times for the same time which use to throw you to the HD diagnotic but have been unable to get that to work :(

If it were not for warranty concerns I would take the drive out of the hosed 9200 and try it in the good one and see what would happen, but do not want to take the chance that BEV would not honor the warranty.

Alt

Wont go in to Details about it for the time Being, But I can Confirm that the guide is not stored on the Hdd.

Not to argue but if the guide info is not stored on the HD, then why when you go too far into the guide that the info is not there does the 9200 say"Program info on drive out dated, do you want to retrieve info from satellite"? and then dloads the guide?

Alt