5900 Refurbished

[moosefan]

A couple of weeks ago my 5900 died, went through Tech Dept and got my refurbished 5900 a few days later for $149 + shipping. Now less than 2 weeks later with my "NEW" Refurbished, I get a "Serious Hard Drive Error" message and nothing is working. Is it worth my time to keep getting refurbished or will I keep getting dud receivers. Anybody have experience?

[Leaf Fan]

Is there no warranty on the refurbished unit?
Personally, I would keep the faulty receiver, (maybe not this one) and buy a used one online (craigslist, ebay)
For piece of mind, pay for dish care to protect the receiver, and then you can use the hard drive from your old "dead" 5900

[moosefan]

Yes, there is a 3 month warranty, but I don't want to be sending for another one every 2 weeks and losing all my PVR Events. I was just wondering if anybody had any long term luck on a refurbished 5900 PVR.

[Ex Agent EV]

Unplug the receiver and repolug it couple of minutes later. Sometimes it solves the "a serious problem has been detected with your harddrive" problem

[moosefan]

Originally Posted by Ex Agent EV

Unplug the receiver and repolug it couple of minutes later. Sometimes it solves the "a serious problem has been detected with your harddrive" problem

Did that a few times, now it doesn't work at all.

[Leaf Fan]

Ouch!
I guess there is an even more serious problem!
I'm not a big fan of Refurb receivers, especially PVR's, as the HD is just another thing that can go wrong
Hopefully some refurb owners on the forum can offer you some reassuring words...
Good luck with the new refurb

[Nimiq 1]

I know it's a pain, but get them to ship you another one.

Seems crazy that a refurb at a store is $149 and you do NOT have to hand over your old one.....

All I can say is better luck next time, can't be any worse than this one.....

[vmpv]

The following is just a general statement as I have no way of knowing what processes Expressvu has for refurbishing their equipment>

I sometimes wonder why people don't like getting refurb replacements. After a product has been out for awhile certain "bugs" are identified that can be dealt with in the refurb process. So you can either get a brand new unit, with the possibility of having already identified problems or you can get a refurb unit that these issues may have been dealt with.

I'm not saying that this is necessarily the case with Expressvu but in my situation, my first new 5100 died within a year of receiving it and the new replacement failed a few weeks after receiving it. The third receiver I was shipped was clearly a refurb unit and it's been running must be six years now. Case in point is the receivers that were shipped with the fans running backwards. This could easily be corrected in the refurb process even if the unit was in for an entirely different problem.

It used to be (and probably still is) an accepted tenet, so to speak, in the PC world that most failures due to a manufactures defect would occur within the first six months. So if this defect has been identified and corrected, wouldn't you be better off with a refurb unit?
Just my two cents...

[Nimiq 1]

Your point is quite valid for NEW models, the 5100 for example was the first foray into the SD PVR market for Express Vu, it had a quite high failure rate, as you say one reason being the fan going the wrong way, another was due to the solder used on the connexiant chip, it was a "green" solder and failed after repeated heating and cooling cycles.

The 5100 was not really fixed, until they launched the 5800, therefore doing away with the 5100 and its small hard drive, the 5800, was again updated to be a 5900, larger hard drive again.

A huge problem when refurbishing receivers is how much abuse that particular machine received, I do not mean wear and tear, I mean abuse. I have seen receivers with coffee stains and beer crud, stuck to the insides of them and they keep going.

The fact that the failure rate for Refurbished receivers, Switch's, LNBF's is so incredibly high, says to me that the company doing the testing is NOT doing it correctly, they are letting bad product leave the warehouses.

I would see, refurbished Express Vu 9200's come out of the box with a Dish-network Logo, Dish-network Receiver and the number 942 on the front panel, same for the 6100 and the Dish 811,'s.

It is again, Express Vu that should be chasing this shoddy workmanship and pushing the problems back to NESA, if indeed they are responsible.

All this creates a sense that Express Vu are shipping out garbage, when in fact it is one of their major partners who is letting the side down......

[dosborne]

Like anything else, refurbs are for the most part as good as the originals. There is a ceratin failure rate with new models, and a certain failure rate with refurbs. Since you are covered by warranty, the decision here is simple. Get it replaced.

In some cases the refurb is better than the original. I had a 5100 replaced a long time ago and the refurb had many "additions" on the board, components that were not on the original (and obviously added afterwards) when compared to one of my other 5100s.

You would hope that the 5900 (being at the end of a series) would be in good shape, but any piece of consumer grade electronic hardware is going to fail at some point.

Better that it fails sooner (under warranty) than later.

[Ex Agent EV]

I know it's a pain, but get them to ship you another one.
Seems crazy that a refurb at a store is $149 and you do NOT have to hand over your old one.....
All I can say is better luck next time, can't be any worse than this one.....

He got his replacement refurbish a few weeks ago so he stilll under warranty...

The 149$ (unless there is a different promo i'm not aware of) on 5900 applies only to new clients...which he is not!

[Nimiq 1]

As you are well aware Ex Agent, these "New Customer only" deals are not always that when you buy in a store. I assist 4 local Bell World Stores when the staff have questions about installations, usually "How do we add a Dual Tuner when they already have 3 receivers.?", that type of thing.

I call into the stores once a month or so, just to chat with staff and see what is new etc.

I am amazed at just how many receivers that you would expect to be "only" for new customers are being pushed out of the doors. At the end of the day it is all about sales figures, who can blame them.

Look at FS or BB, they were selling 6100's for $49, when the Bell World stores I know had them on at $149, they were loosing sales, so although technically you are correct, many Managers of the Bell World Stores are bending the rules to make a sale.

[moosefan]

The frustration continues…I got my second refurbished and they couldn’t activate it because it wasn’t a unique receiver number. Now I have to send this one back. It will be four receivers in four weeks.

[Nimiq 1]

Funny how that happens, all receiver numbers are 100% unique according to ExpressVu, yet I once had a 3100 & a 5900 sat side by side that had the same R00 #, too funny, "this never happens" was the response.

Make sure after all the BS, you call and get some satisfaction credits for all the hassle.

[Ex Agent EV]

Call back Moosefan... When you receiver breaks they deactivate it from your account, but the receiver number remains in your account. Once they receive the receiver the number is then removed from your account. Unfortunatly that step doesn't always happen.

After that they fix the receiver, and once done the y send it to a client who need a refurbish

When the client receives his refurbish receiver and the agent types in the serial number of the receiver he gets a message tha this receiver is already assigned to another client. All he need to do is type in the receiver number, press search, and he would be in the account of the other person who had the receiver. All the agent needs to do i look in the notes to see if there is a note that this client had that receiver replaced, of course there would be, TECH3, the deprtement that replaces receiver is one of the rare ones that ALWAYS put a note for that type of matter. The receive number will then be removed from the first account, an agent will be able to activate it on your account