My 530 had been getting progessively worse for the past couple of weeks but was intolerable on this past Sunday. After over 20 resets i finally called Starchoice. As instructed by the CSR, after disconnecting the coax and unplugging the power for over 3 minutes it would only start as far as one blue light and no more. I was asked to move the unit to the kitchen to try another outlet but after explaining the pain of removing the unit from my cabinet i was allowed to try an extension cord to a different outlet. The result was the same. So I have a refurb unit on the way.

I was also interested in getting copies of some of the movies from the hard drive so i continued to unplug and reconnect the unit until I got the cycling lights. Then, after a reset holding the power button, it came on. I went immediately to the options and reset everything to default. So far I have been able to copy movies and watch some TV with no freezing. I am very careful as to how quickly I push buttons in sequence and I have not tried watching an HD recording while recording another. That was when the real problems started.

So perserverence with the plug may pay off. ymmv

Rick

I decided to phone SC back and was told that the repair person who was supposed to come, didn't have a replacement DVR so he decided to cancel the repair order and just send me one. Unfortunately I couldn't get out of paying the $199, even though my last refurbished unit only lasted 8 months, but I did get them to send a new one instead of another refurbished unit. Hopefully this one will last longer, cause I really don't want to keep spending $199 every few months. I even bought a UPS in hopes it would last longer, but it still quit working.

aqualine, my 530 was dead as a doornail after I unplugged it for a few minutes. After plugging it back in, no lights... just a noise from the harddisk spinning up. I tried unplugging and waiting some more. Nothing. Plugged in and holding the power button for the soft reset. Nothing. Left plugged in for several hours and pressed the soft reset. Nothing. Moved wires, disconnected it, jingled it, gave it an angry look and cursed it. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. And I felt better, but still nothing.

However, carefully waving a hair dryer over the top vents (while avoiding the harddisk) for approximately 5 minutes followed by connecting the power caused the lights to start to cycle. The cycle only completed one and a half loops before hanging with the middle light lit. I then soft reset the machine. The light went out and about 40 seconds later the lights begain to cycle again. This time the lights cycled several times before freezing at a different point. I repeated this several times before the 530 final woke up.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I had to repeat the above twice before I managed to call *C. It's not something that I would like to repeat very often. But at least I had a working 530 to extract my recorded programs.

I'm borrowing my friend 530 PVR while he's away.
It works fine as a receiver. I can also pause and rewind shows I'm watching. I can also view shows he's recorded.

But.... It won't record anything new. It will let me set the timers, and it looks as though it will record, but nothing happens. The lights don't flash, the show doesn't show up in the list of recorded shows, etc...

Is it something I'm doing or did I break his PVR? I don't want to call SC because I'm not sure if we're allowed to share receivers or not.

Any advice? How do I do a soft reset?
Thanks.

Do you have two feeds from the dish going into it?
It's dual tuner where one tuner is desicated to playback and the other is dedicated to recording. Sounds like nothing is feeding the second tuner.

I only have one feed. Do I need the 2nd if I'm not watching anything but simply want to tape something?
Mark

You need a line connected to the 2nd tuner if you want to record something (not using the live buffer). If you only have one feed available, you can move the coax cable over and plug it into the 2nd tuner for recording purposes. You'd then have to move the cable back if you want to watch something live. This involves switching cables back and forth but since this isn't permanent, it'll work. And of course, this solution won't let you watch a show live and record another show at the same time - you only have the one feed.

Yes. If you want to use any of the PVR functions then you need the second feed.
One tuner is ONLY for playback either live or off the hard drive and the second tuner is ONLY for recording to the hard drive.

I would think that would be the case. You need two feeds to tape because I think it records off the 2nd feed.

Q. Could you not attach a 2 way splitter to a single coax feed and then send the split signals into the 530 ?

Just curious

Splitters won't work -- partly due to the different voltages required for certain channels (on a non-stacked system). Some channels use 13v, others use 18v.

1 splitter WILL work to record your show on the background tuner 2.
To be successful your MUST ensure that tuner 1 is on the SAME satellite as tuner 2 AND also on the SAME polarity.

Without going into a lot of details, the EASIEST way to ensure that is simply
PUT TUNER 1 onto the SAME CHANNEL as Tuner 2 (The RECORD Tuner).

In this way, neither a 22Khz tone change or a 13/18 polarity change will disturb either the background recording, nor the foreground viewing channel.

This is considered to be a TEMPORARY measure to evaluate/use the unit when only 1 line is available.
It is NOT a supported configuration by *C.
It also severely limits the DSR530's functionality.

Enjoy at your own risk. (No Damage will result)

Yippee! My 2000th post, whew!

Thanks. I'm pretty sure that's the problem.

Can you use the multiswitch instead of a regular splitter to get the 2nd line?

So you have 1 line that has ALL the signals, vert./horiz. and F1 & F2 and you want to feed a 2x2 multiswitch inside the house to drive tuner 2??

You may have a problem IF you select anything on F2 as the local multiswitch will switch away from the prime line.

To test your configuration, start a background recording and then check Options 6-4-7 and examine the signal levels for Tuner 2.

Even if there is something there, it's NO guarantee that your on the right sat and polarity unless you follow the previous instructions to a tee.

You should be able to get a splitter most anywhere.
Just ensure it's satellite rated one for 1.5 GHz or preferably 2GHz or higher.

Cable TV ones are usually only rated to anywhere from 550-850 Mhz or so and sat. signals BEGIN at 950Mhz and go to either 1.450 GHz or 2.125GHz

Dubious - Thanks for the pointers on getting my 530 to run again, but the hair dryer didn't work on mine. My lights always cycle when it is plugged in. Neither the heat, the hard reset or the soft reset make a difference. Thanks for the info anyway

I have a 505 and a 530. The 530 is always much much warmer than the 505. It is not in a closed cabinet, and even when it is off, the unit itself is warm bordering on hot. It also sounds like something is alway running (possibly a fan?) even when the unit is off. Is this normal? Why does my 505 not behave the same way?

Well, the 505 has only 1 tuner and no hard drive so it is normal for the 530 to produce a lot more heat. Hard drives do get hot.

While there IS a fan, it doesn't run until the disk temperature hits a critical mark.
The noise is simply the hard drive running.

The units are never off except when unplugged.
In standby, they just turn off the panel lights and black the video.
They need to be listening for guide and software updates.

I recently received my new 505 so now have a 500 a 505 and a 530. I have all three connected to a Sony 50" LCD television. The 500 which is soon to be worthless as a High Definition receiver is flawless in operation and has alway been so ever snce I purchased it with the advent of High definition at Starchoice. My 530 (and this is the fourth unit) has been problematic from the getgo. Aside from all of the occasional lockups that most people encounter it give me great distress with the constant audio dropouts, especially on recorded shows. (Dropouts on the live feeds are not so pronounced but are still agravating) The brand new 505, although it has not locked up yet is also experiencing audio dropouts at the same rate as the
530. Looks like there is an inherent fault within the 505 and the 530 systems.
Lester

for 2 reasons.

The H/W platform is essentially identical, but more importantly since the code has been orphaned on the 500, the 505 and 530 have also essentially the same code.

The real question now is; is it H/W or S/W?

I really hope it's S/W as then it can be fixed via an easy download at some point.

While we don't know if its fixed in the upcoming code, we do know that our collective voices have been heard at Moto and Shaw.