[zak88lx]

My old 630 appeared to have gone T up Needed four hard reboots to get going.

Mine was also doing this, rebooting all the time and also having problems recording complete shows.
I replaced the factory HDD with an SSD drive and the unit is now flawless, and a lot snappier.

I used a 1TB Western Digital WD RED SA500 SATA SSD 2.5" (WDS100T1R0A).
CDN$ 173.24 on Amazon.ca

 

[grantb5]

Mine was also doing this, rebooting all the time and also having problems recording complete shows.
I replaced the factory HDD with an SSD drive and the unit is now flawless, and a lot snappier.

I used a 1TB Western Digital WD RED SA500 SATA SSD 2.5" (WDS100T1R0A).
CDN$ 173.24 on Amazon.ca

You replaced the internal drive? Is there a procedure online or some instructions for the setup (formatting, etc).

 

[57]

Upgraded internal HDD for the 630

For those of you wondering if you can upgrade the hard drive the answer is yes. I put a 1TB 2.5" hard drive in one of my 630's today. It is a little taller (12.5mm) than the normal 2.5" hard drives but there is room for it with about 2 mm to spare. For those wondering what drive I put in it was...

www.digitalhome.ca

 

[grantb5]

Upgraded internal HDD for the 630

For those of you wondering if you can upgrade the hard drive the answer is yes. I put a 1TB 2.5" hard drive in one of my 630's today. It is a little taller (12.5mm) than the normal 2.5" hard drives but there is room for it with about 2 mm to spare. For those wondering what drive I put in it was...

www.digitalhome.ca

Thank you. I was not aware of that thread.

 

[bpsmicro]

My last 630 (owned) is finally circling the drain. It's a secondary (bedroom) unit, and the hard drive has been showing signs of failure for a year (mostly hanging/crashing during playback). After a couple of power dips due to thunderstorms recently, it's now saying it doesn't even detect a hard drive, nor a second tuner (which I assume is a direct correlation).

Any tips on how best to get SD to replace it (refurb is fine) at lowest cost? Should I go ahead and try to connect through to Retentions (does that even exist anymore?) or just the usual tech support route. Anyone done this recently and know the replacement cost?

I have two 830s which are doing fine, so I may just swap this out with a non-PVR.

 

[NovaMan]

Replacement should be free. You just pay shipping. We all pay an extra 5 dollars for receiver insurance,

 

[bpsmicro]

Replacement should be free. You just pay shipping. We all pay an extra 5 dollars for receiver insurance,

You're right. $13.99 shipping. Took an hour of "troubleshooting" though. I'd hoped that reporting the error message that said the hard drive wasn't detected would speed that up, but Nooooo. All's well though. ;-)

 

[frenchophile]

After a little over 10 years, it looks like my 630 has died. There really was no warning, it was working fine since I swapped out the hard drive (four years ago, I think?)
The unit powers on and displays the horizontal bars, but then nothing ( ie, STRT, RUND, HOLD) comes on the receiver. Interestingly, when I push remote buttons, the indicator light blinks.

I opened it up to see if I could see anything obvious. I cleaned out the dust and tried to turn it on again, but nothing happened.

Anyway, I'm open to ideas/suggestions to try to repair this

 

[JasperJoe]

Interesting situation last night as the thunderstorms rolled in: our main 630 that I was watching lost sat signal; my wife was watching the same channel on our other 630 and it never once lost signal. Maybe I have a cabling problem, but I've never seen a signal strength much less than 90 (except for weather events).

 

[Jimsathome]

That does sound like a cabling or F connector issue. Good idea to check them.

 

[goalsgo]

Yesterday (Dec. 25) the football game between Colts and Cardinals was carried by Sports Net on 311 and 313. We were tuned in to 311 with picture. We wanted to record the game so I pressed the "record" button on the remote: nothing happened. We switched to 313 with picture. I pressed the "record" button on the remote. This time we got the "Do you want to record this program" message etc. and it started recording. This was on our 630 PVR.

We have never experienced this before. Any "expert" ideas as to what happened there?

 

[goalsgo]

I'm trying a second time to hopefully get some answer on what happened to us a couple of weeks ago. The game between the Colts and Cardinals was carried by TSN on 311 and 313. Since we were going out that afternoon we wanted to record it. We were tuned in on 311 with picture and hit the Record button on the remote: Nothing happened.

We then switched to channel 313 and hit the record button. This time we got the "Do you want to record this program" message etc. and it started recording. This was on our 630 PVR.

We had never experienced this before so any ideas that could explain what happened would be welcome.

 

[k801809]

I'm trying a second time to hopefully get some answer on what happened to us a couple of weeks ago. The game between the Colts and Cardinals was carried by TSN on 311 and 313. Since we were going out that afternoon we wanted to record it. We were tuned in on 311 with picture and hit the Record button on the remote: Nothing happened.

We then switched to channel 313 and hit the record button. This time we got the "Do you want to record this program" message etc. and it started recording. This was on our 630 PVR.

We had never experienced this before so any ideas that could explain what happened would be welcome.

Hello! Sorry I've missed this - I don't totally recall what region of the country you/you're account is located in or if you've mentioned it previously. You should be aiming to use the Sportsnet channel from your region primarily even if the same program is airing across two channels. Is 311 or 313 more applicable to your region? Thinking this might help me understand. Here is the provincial designation:

Sportsnet Pacific for BC/YT
Sportsnet West for AB/SK/MB/NT/NU
Sportsnet Ontario for ON
Sportsnet East for QC/NB/NS/NL

Thanks!

 

[goalsgo]

Hello! Sorry I've missed this - I don't totally recall what region of the country you/you're account is located in or if you've mentioned it previously. You should be aiming to use the Sportsnet channel from your region primarily even if the same program is airing across two channels. Is 311 or 313 more applicable to your region? Thinking this might help me understand. Here is the provincial designation:

Sportsnet Pacific for BC/YT
Sportsnet West for AB/SK/MB/NT/NU
Sportsnet Ontario for ON
Sportsnet East for QC/NB/NS/NL

Thanks!

@k801809 Thank you for the response.

In answer to your question we are in Montreal. FYI the game was not carried by Sportsnet: it was on TSN. I'm assuming your recommendation to use the channel carried in our region is to avoid running into a regional blackout issue. But as mentioned in my message, we had picture on both 311 and 313 so it's not like one channel was blacked out and the other not. Also, we have never experienced this before: we are always able to record a channel that has a picture on it.

We were tuned in on 311 with a live picture and hit the Record button on the remote like we do hundreds of times. But in this case nothing happened. There was no error message or anything to tell us we couldn't record on 311. We then tuned to 313, had the same live picture and hit the Record button on the remote. This time we got the "Do you want to record this program" message etc. and it started recording.

We lucked out because we were home to start the recording but what would have happened if we had programmed the recording in advance on channel 311?

Ah, Sweet Mystery of Satellite TV Life!

 

[JasperJoe]

"We lucked out because we were home to start the recording but what would have happened if we had programmed the recording in advance on channel 311?"

It probably would have worked. OR you'd have to watch CFL.

 

[goalsgo]

It probably would have worked. OR you'd have to watch CFL.

I love the CFL but the Grey Cup was done by then.

 

[ex-egll]

Hi, I unplugged the 630 power to do some cleaning in the area. When I plugged it back in, the boot sequence seemed to start as normal i.e all of the display lit up, then 8888 then the horizontal bars then nothing at all on the screen, I seem to recall it should go to RUN or HOLD or something? Pushing the power button caused the display "dot" to flash, as does using the remote. If I have the TV on during the boot up it goes from "NO SIGNAL" and the background changes slightly (a different shade of black) and the message goes away). The box connects to the local network by ethernet, and I can ping it. I have unplugged the 630 for 10 minutes or so a couple of times, but always the same result. I can hear the disk spinning and what sounds like head movement. I have left it powered on for about 15 minutes but so far nothing has changed. Any ideas as to either what the problem is, or more importantly how to fix it?

 

[junknspam3]

Hi, I unplugged the 630 power to do some cleaning in the area. When I plugged it back in, the boot sequence seemed to start as normal i.e all of the display lit up, then 8888 then the horizontal bars then nothing at all on the screen, I seem to recall it should go to RUN or HOLD or something? Pushing the power button caused the display "dot" to flash, as does using the remote. If I have the TV on during the boot up it goes from "NO SIGNAL" and the background changes slightly (a different shade of black) and the message goes away). The box connects to the local network by ethernet, and I can ping it. I have unplugged the 630 for 10 minutes or so a couple of times, but always the same result. I can hear the disk spinning and what sounds like head movement. I have left it powered on for about 15 minutes but so far nothing has changed. Any ideas as to either what the problem is, or more importantly how to fix it?

Perhaps it is booting back up turned off. Try pushing the power button on the remote after it finishes booting up. Just something to try.

 

[ex-egll]

Perhaps it is booting back up turned off. Try pushing the power button on the remote after it finishes booting up. Just something to try.

Thanks, I had tried that, all that happens is an orange dot flashes on the LCD display showing that there is communication between the Remote and the box.

A few more questions, if anyone can help?

I assume that the PVR will fully boot with just the power plug inserted, the boot is not dependent upon the dish connections or a connection to the TV?

Can a healthy PVR boot and allow access through the TV without the hard drive being connected?

Is there any way to do a factory reset without access to the screen?

I also tried a couple of Receiver Refreshes from the Shaw site but no difference.

At first, I thought the issue may have been the hard drive as there had been almost constant drive activity for some periods recently, even with the PVR switched off. I have taken the drive out and done a surface test on it and all seems well, so that may rule out the drive as being the issue.
I have put in a new drive, but it has not changed the behaviour, so I am now led to the conclusion that the box itself has died.

I believe I purchased this PVR from an outside source (Best Buy I believe, about 12 years ago), so I am guessing Shaw won't want to replace it. Maybe the best answer is to shell out and rent the newer 830?

 

[JasperJoe]

If it's on your account they should replace it. All three of my receivers have second hand for someone other than Shaw Direct - I HOPE they'll replace them if necessary. I'm paying the monthly charge for multiple receivers.