Defective 721 Harddrive?

[Jason]

Has anyone had to have their 721 replaced due to a faulty harddrive?

If so, what were the signs that the harddrive went bad.

My 721 seems to lock up a lot lately and it never did this previously. Also, when I watch some shows that I recorded there are some spots where the picture will pixellate and the sound will skip. When I click back 15 seconds and view the exact same spot, sometimes the picture is perfect and sometimes it remains pixellated.

I am wondering if my harddrive is defective.

Anyone else experiencing this problem as of late?

Do you think I should RA the receiver or just stick with the one I have? I wonder if the refurb unit will be any better.

[the_beaver]

i've had two units go bad with 'disc
failure' error messages...
to make a long story short---dish says
that 721's are very sensitive to static
electricity charges and suggest that
i ground my dish...
earlier today the original dish contractor
installer came back and grounded my
system to the wall outlet...
i certainly hope this puts the end to
the hard drive crash issues...i guess
time will tell...

[Jason]

Anyone else?

[Jacob S]

There are several people having problems with the 721 and its like the same ole thing over and over just like the 501 and 508. Can they ever get it right?

[the_beaver]

ok---here's something interesting regarding grounding issues...
the dish network installers just left and grounded my sat dish to
a water faucet, located on the roof of my condo...

i have had two 721s poop out with disc failures--dish network's
hypothesis was that my system was not grounded when
it was originally installed by an independent dish contractor...
on saturday the contractor came out and said there was nothing
to ground to, up on the roof---instead he placed a ground from my
wall outlet and said everything should be hunky-dory...

today, the dish network installers were shocked to see an inside
ground off the electrical outlet---they said major electrical damage
could occur using this type of installation---

anyways, two things: 1) hopefully now that my system is grounded
according to dish specifications i will not have any more static
electricity spikes that will damage my 721 (i'll keep you posted)
and 2) what's going on with all this inconsistency in how systems should be properly grounded when installed???

[Kagato]

I'm pretty sure mixing grounds like that violates National Electric Codes. They should get a grounding rod, and drive it into the ground. Hell, even the cable company usually does this.

If you have carpet and have static electricity problems I'd suggest taking an old spray bottle, mixing a solution of liquid fabric softener, and water (2:1 Water:Softener), and misting the carpet every now and then. Shouldn't mess the carpet up, but test an out of the way patch first.

[krlauver]

When my unit acts up the hard drive starts making a clonking sound that can be heard throughout the house. It fails to respond to the remote or the front panel buttons leaving me no choice but to pull the power plug. When booting up it detects the problem, reformats the drive (I think) and then reinstalls the Dish software. This has happened twice. My unit appears to function fine afterwards. I called Dish once about this but hung up when I was left on hold for a long period of time.

[kyoo]

krlauver, your drive is dying.. for real.

everyone else that's posted thus far, your drives are fine.. it's just the 721 hitting a wall on performance issues.. it'll get better eventually.. i hope.

[Danbo]

The eventually is what drives me crazy. I keep waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and waiting. How long before it gets better? How long before I can record some movies and watch them in the comfort of home without seeing pixelation? How long before Dish decides to actually communicate with their 721 owners on the true status of these problems?

What I see is L110 coming out with new features, like local weather and such. Oh yeah, some fixes will be in there too. But what about the rest? Why can't there be more focus put on cleaning up the problems BEFORE more enhancements are made? Seems their focus is elsewhere. While I have an HDTV, and would love to get the 921 when it's available, I can't get myself to pre-order it until I see the 721 cleaned up. All I see is the 921 being a high definition version of the same problems, if not worse.

[Jacob S]

I would say that the more advanced the receiver, the more problems to expect, so I expect more problems with the 921 than the 721.

[krlauver]

Originally posted by kyoo
krlauver, your drive is dying.. for real.

everyone else that's posted thus far, your drives are fine.. it's just the 721 hitting a wall on performance issues.. it'll get better eventually.. i hope.

So your suggestion would be to call Dish to get the hard drive replaced? Would they just end up sending me a refurbished unit?

I have not been through this with Dish before so can you tell me if they send a replacement to me first and then I return the faulty unit in the same box or is it that they want my unit first and then send a refurbished one to me? If they want my unit first, typically how long do I have to wait for the replacement to arrive?

Many thanks,
krlauver

[the_beaver]

Here's my experience when dish ok's a
bad receiver return: once you have been
a ReturnAuthorization (RA) # you simply
wait for the new receiver to be shipped,
UPS. Place your defective receiver in the
same box the replacement receiver was
shipped, slap on the pre-paid postage
sticker provided, and ship back to dish
within 10 days---

[Jacob S]

They will not replace just the hard drive but give you a different receiver altogether in which had already been repaired (a.k.a. refurbished)

[TomCat]

Originally posted by Jason
...My 721 seems to lock up a lot lately and it never did this previously. Also, when I watch some shows that I recorded there are some spots where the picture will pixellate and the sound will skip. When I click back 15 seconds and view the exact same spot, sometimes the picture is perfect and sometimes it remains pixellated.

I am wondering if my harddrive is defective.

Anyone else experiencing this problem as of late?...

While you may have a hard drive problem, it is more likely the "2nd tuner" pixellation problem that many of us have reported (L110 is claimed to contain a fix). Most of us have this limited just to tuner 2, although one person has reported it on tuner 1 only.

If you "click back" and the problem remains in the same place, the "event" was likely in the data stream or recorded improperly at that point, which could be either due to corrupt signal issues or hard drive issues. If it is sometimes there and sometimes not, that may point to playback issues only, but does not necessarily eliminate hard drive or corrupt input issues, as a prerecorded pixellation event could be handled slightly differently every time it plays back due to MPEG issues and error correction and concealment routines. My sneaking suspicion is that it is due to problems with the OS handling multiple record streams or possibly with the module that contains the 2nd tuner's MPEG decoder. Probably a bit of both.

Try this:

Turn the 721 off. I think this defaults the unit to tuner 1 when you first turn it on or if a single timer fires with the unit off.

Turn it back on (make sure no timer is currently recording) and put the same channel in the PIP, which will then be tied to the 2nd tuner. If you see the problem consistently only in the PIP, you likely are suffering from this "2nd tuner" problem just like the rest of us.

Until the fix (if ever) there is a workaround. First, never set simultaneous or overlapping timers (I know, I know). Second, either keep the unit off when timers fire, or be sure you are watching tuner 2 (power off, power on, PIP, swap, unpip, which forces viewing to tuner 2 and forces timers back to tuner 1)

Sucks for us, don't it?