[TimeHorse]

On Saturday, I was turned on my DSR530 from idle and decided to play some programming from my 750GB internal hard drive. It was something I just wanted to fast forward through and so I did and when it ended I was brought back to the programme menu. Then, I tried to move the cursor to Delete and the box locked up. So I held power button down for 10 seconds to force a reset and the device has been totally unstable since then. It either locks up or Soft Resets after a diminishing period following boot to the point now where I'm lucky if, hair-dryer enhanced, I can get the unit going for more than 20 seconds before the next soft reset.

Does anyone know how I can figure out what is wrong with my unit and how to repair it since it is no longer under warranty. My original hard drive died after a year and the I've only had the 750GB drive in for less than 3 months. I'd hate to think the DSR 530 eats Hard Drives at such a prodigious rate of $100 every 3 months, so ANY help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

 

[jcol]

That's pretty much how they fail. I just went through a similar failure with mine. You might try unplugging it for about 5 minutes and then restarting. This sometimes gets them stable again, but it's probably the end for your unit. Hopefully you have more than 1 reciever, you are paying the multi-reciever fee. If so, your 530 is covered under the life time warrenty plan. I also hope you have your original hd still so that you can put in back before you ship in the reciever. BTW your hard drive is probably OK. It seems to be the flash chips, which load the software each time it boots that seems to get corrupt. Good luck.

 

[Vader]

Having the same issue. Emailed Starchoice support about it and they gave me instructions for doing the factory reset? Before I go ahead and do it, has anyone done a factory reset in this scenario and did it save the machine?

 

[Sub Zero]

Vader:

Your machine is on borrowed time. My experience is that a factory reset initially will improve your machine. For example, instead of a rebooting every 5 minutes, the unit reboots once a day. Unfortunately, the intervals will slowly decrease until (e.g., say a month later) you need to do another factory reset to make the unit functional. That factory reset will also initially improve performance, but the unit will deteriorate more quickly (e.g., another factory reset will be needed in, say, two weeks). Eventually, the unit will deteriorate to the point that a factory reset does squat.

FYI: The time periods quoted above are for illustrative purposes only - you may have better (e.g., the stability created by the initial factory lasts for several months) or worse (e.g., the initial factory reset does nothing) luck. In any event, the unit will fail - it is just a matter of time.

On the positive side, this procedure should buy you time ... time that you can use to legitimately and legally (i.e., the machine is in "working" condition during this time) obtain the life time warranty (assuming you do not already have it).

 

[Sub Zero]

Vader:

One additional point, when tech support advised me to do a factory reset, they did warn me that a factory reset could kill my machine (i.e., the unit cannot recover and is left in a constant rebooting sequence).

Considering that my unit was not working - it was rebooting every 30 seconds - I figured I had nothing to lose.

 

[TimeHorse]

Update

Well, with holding a hairdryer over the opened case I was able to get as far as OPTION+6+4+9+8+8+6 but at least twice it died before I could press Confirm! Finally, I just got to the Factory Reset menu and was in such a hurry I assumed the "preserve" was the default and neglected to change it from "erase". But, I pressed it, then YIPE YIPE YIPE it was on erase and as expected when I rebooted, EVERYTHING was gone, including my timers and without IPG entering in Timers is no less than a nightmare! But anyway, here I am, watching my StarChoice with no reboots and no recordings since my Factory Reset and wishing I could have tried "preserve" first! Yo, StarChoice: make "preserve" the default!

Okay, I'm done ranting; it's up and I have a tonne of timers (well, I think we can only have at most 32 timers so that's hardly a tonne) to restore. Aw, and I really wanted to catch up on my Little Mosque and the Tutors. C'est la vie!

 

[TimeHorse]

Spoke too soon

Nope, it just rebooted; much longer life before reboot and NOW all my programmes are gone but there you have it. >sigh<

 

[Vader]

hmmm just noticed something. I only seem to get the resets when I am watching HD, and mostly when I am watching TSN HD. My TV says "Searching for Signal" (TV menu generated - not from the 530) and then the 530 seems to reset itself?

Does the 530 reset itself if it has a weak signal?
In the System Status menu I get:
C. Signal(Tuner1): 94 (ECB/No: 7.6 dB)
E. Signal(Tuner2): 39 (ECB/No: 0.0 dB)
N. Signal Power (Tuner 1): 65
O. Signal Power (Tuner 2): 47

Should I have an installer come back and adjust my dish? Has been a rather windy summer.

 

[Sub Zero]

Vader,

My old unit also seemed to reset more often when I watched HD channels (especially TSN).

I always assumed it was caused by HD channels putting more stress on the flash chips. That is, the rebooting is caused by the flash chips slowly dying (at least according to the consensus on these boards), so more stress more reboots. However, this is just my theory...I never pursued this line of thought.

Sub Zero

 

[Evasion]

hmmm just noticed something. I only seem to get the resets when I am watching HD, and mostly when I am watching TSN HD. My TV says "Searching for Signal" (TV menu generated - not from the 530) and then the 530 seems to reset itself?

Does the 530 reset itself if it has a weak signal?
In the System Status menu I get:
C. Signal(Tuner1): 94 (ECB/No: 7.6 dB)
E. Signal(Tuner2): 39 (ECB/No: 0.0 dB)
N. Signal Power (Tuner 1): 65
O. Signal Power (Tuner 2): 47

Should I have an installer come back and adjust my dish? Has been a rather windy summer.

Signal itself will not cause the receiver to Reset. Otherwise if you had a connection problem (no signal) it would be constantly resetting.

Is the TV actually losing video (signal from receiver) BEFORE the reset is occuring, or does the reset start just before the video is lost? (Which would explain why the video is lost, because the receiver just kicked into a reset).

How long have you had this receiver? The older models of the 530 had lots of issues with resetting (As various threads will attest to), so maybe you have one of the older models? I'd call in and troubleshoot it (maybe even a factory if required).

Who knows, maybe it's a feedback issue on the cables and the receiver is just overly sensitive to it.

 

[simian525]

What is the normal level for Ecb/No in db to have a decent picture? I've seen numbers from as low as 4,5 up to 8,o and the higher the number the better picture i got even the signal level was at around 60-70.

 

[lonnie]

recommended ebno

a receiver will give you a locked in signal with as little an ebno of 3.0 but will start breaking up below there. your picture quality won't change at all with any better signal however an ebno of at least 6.9 is recommended to give you enough headroom for bad weather or minor interference. your receiver will be making use of something called forward error correction to determine if the last batch of data it received is good. if it decides that the last 4 bits of data were no good it will substitute some data it previously got that was good. for example if the last 100 bits of data were all the same ( such as that area of blue sky in the picture ) it will use more of the same data to fill in that missing pixel on the screen. the receivers are so good at this that you can't tell how much bad data it's working with until there's so many errors per second that the screen starts breaking out into checker board squares or the sound starts crackling.

 

[dennism3]

Poor signal may not cause reboots, but I just went through a trouble call because of reboots and the CSR wanted all signal info and if poor would have insisted on a visit before 530 replacemet but due to good signal the 530 replacement is on the way.
Based on that, SC thinks signal might affect reboots.

 

[TheRipper]

.. has anyone done a factory reset in this scenario and did it save the machine?

Nope .. mine is now totally locked up. Can't do another reset either.