Bad SW64 or Bad Dishplayer?

[Scott Greczkowski]

I am having a wierd problem and can not tell if its a bad SW-64 or a bad Dishplayer (yeah I know all Dishplayers are bad)

Over the last few weeks I have had to unplug the power inserter from my SW 64 and plug it back in. (My SW-64 is outside, but its covered so the only thing to hit it is cold air.) :)

Tonight my son's Dishplayer started flipping out it can not get Cartoon Network.

When I go to the Signal Strength Screen and look at 119 Transponder 17 (where Cartoon Network Lives) I get a signal strength of 30 - 40 while on my other receivers get 108 on the signal screen of my 6000) Transponder 14 is also low but all the other transponders seem to be ok. I have hooked up a 3900 in place of the Dishplayer and Cartoon Network comes in. However upon unhooking the 3900 and putting the 7200 back in its place I got a Multi Dish Switch Error on my 6000.

So now my question is, what do you think is wrong? Bad 7200? Bad SW 64? Or both bad? I have hardware protection on all my stuff so getting it replace will only cost me shipping.

Perhaps it is time for me to upgade the Dishplayer to a 50X. My Kid HATES missing Pokemon. :)

[Bob Haller]

Ahh so you DONT live in a world where nothing breaks:)

Swap the DP with another location. If the DP now works its the switch or cable. If it doesnt the DP has died.

Try another receiver at the noirmal DP location. I suspect the cable or switch. SW64s can cause low signal strength. To prove its the switch try swapping outputs at the switch. Remember to keep your 721 either on ports 1&2 or 3&4.

[Chris Blount]

Scott,

I bet it's the switch. If you remember in my other thread I just replaced my SW64 because outputs 3A & 3B were bad. What was happening was that the signals were cutting in and out on those two inputs. Sometimes they would work, sometimes they wouldn't. A couple of times I got low signal strengths just like you are getting. The only thing different is that my problems would show up on all receivers.

I verified it was the switch by bypassing the SW64 with a SW21. If you do that, you might be able to isolate if it's a problem with the SW64 or your Dishplayer.

[TNGTony]

Something must be going round. When my SW64 died last month, at first it looked like it was the power inserter. I was able to unplug and plug the power inserter to get the SW64 to work again for a short while, then I started to drop transponders and then it wouldn't switch. The receivers would not "see" the switch and lock on to one of the three locations randomly. Replacing the PI didn't do squat, so I got a new SW64 from Mark at Dish Depot, and everything is back to normal!

BTW, I also used SW21s to bypass the SW64 while I was waiting and it worked fine right away. The only problem for me is since the dishes have to be on the roof, that is where I have the switch and I had to wait for the snow to melt off the roof, AND have a day off to do this. :-0 Took a week with no Dish! EEEK!

Now, the only thing is that ALL the receivers were doing the same thing. So I knew it was switch related.

See ya
Tony

[Bob Haller]

Tony why dont you have the $2 a month system warranty?

[Mike123abc]

My switch acted strange last month so I took no chances and subscribed to the warrantee. And voila no more switch problems. Of course had I not subscribed it probably would have caught fire and melted. I thought it might be an issue related to the new 777 upgrade on the 6000s. Unplugging the switch for a minute then doing switch test on the 6000s fixed the problems.

[Bob Haller]

:(Scott you have NO IDEA how muchI want to tell you its something about your install:)

But things do break....

[Scott Greczkowski]

Ok this is weird, today everything is fine on the Dishplayer.

I would have taken the Dishplayer out and moved it somewhere else, but my wife had her dad build a cabinet and to get the displayer out would require taking part of it apart. Again when I plugged the 3900 in it worked fine.

Weird.

[DishDude1]

Where is your SW64 located? I would try unscrewing the F connectors and checking for corrosion if it is outside in an unprotected area. But, it does sound like the switch is bad.

[TNGTony]

Bob, I NEVER (and I mean NEVER under any circumstances) buy extended warranties. Overall, I've probably saved an order of magnitude over the repair costs of the few things I've had to pay for. Also I used to sell extended warranties and know that they are over 78% profit for the company selling them. I used to get 28.5% commission when I was forced to sell them. I quit a job over the moral implications. ("you make a lot of money selling these"...""Yeah and bank robbers make a lot of money when they successfully pull off a job. Where is the difference?")

See ya
Tony

[DishDude1]

Depends on the equipment, I rarely buy them either but for a few exceptions such as my drills I use for work...Sears sells a great warranty for 2 years where they will simply replace the drill for you, and with all the wear and tear mine get they usually need replaced every 6-10 months. Also, people who have the SW64 or SW 44, and E* equipment which is generally unreliable, it isn't a bad deal at $1.99...heck look at all the stuff that broke on Bob in the last 2 weeks!

[Bob Haller]

I nearly never buy extended warranties either/ I sell maintenance agreements on the laminators I service.

On E equiptement they are a great deal. Dog chew remote, new one on its waY. For $24 bucks a year anyone with a PVR and no warranty should get their head examined. HDs fail, its a fact of life. I have gotten replacement SW64, a few remotes, a couple 4000 series with blinkout troubles, a 721 nearly twice, I refused the secnd 721 since the continious reboot problem is resolved, and now a 508.

I think E should add the warranty to everyones account who has some minimum programming package, like top 100.

Someone foolish enough to go without the warranty can spend a mint for repairs, they even cover surge lightning damage.

No offense but tony but this should be a exception to your rule

[Chris Blount]

I agree with Bob. Having the E* warranty is a must. I've had the warranty for 8 months now ($16) and it's already proven it's worth (and then some) with a brand new SW64.

However Tony, I also agree with you. I'm not a big believer in extended warranties. The only other time I've bought one is when I purchased my Toshiba HDTV. The TV was an "open box" item from Best Buy and there was no way in hell I was going to risk paying the costs of fixing that monster when it went out of warranty in 30 days.

Foolish times to buy warranties are for things like DVD players, VCR's, A/V receivers and the like. Failure rates on those are very slim. If the thing works for the first 90 days, it will probably work for many years.

[Bob Haller]

Yeah there are fools out there spending $30 to protect a $80 item:( But the dish warranty has real value and is likely underpriced. BTW my list of replaced stuff is for most ofd the time I have had dish. I have been a sub for over 7 years. Gee that time went by fast, and WOW things have changed for the better./

[cnsf]

Originally posted by Scott Greczkowski
Tonight my son's Dishplayer started flipping out it can not get Cartoon Network.


Hey, isn't your son like a month old? What is he doing watching Cartoon Network anyway?