Would you give up HDTV because of the fan in your receiver?

[HTguy]

Yesterday a good customer returned his Dish NW Model 6000u w/8PSK & 8VSB because he could not tolerate the noise from the little whisper fan on the 8VSB module.

A little background: this is a good customer who has purchased various home entertainment products from me. He has a high-end home theater system among other sytems around the house & outside.

A few years ago we put in a Dish Network DP7222 system w/a 2nd rcvr in the bedrooom. Several months ago he was in the store & I found out for the 1st time that he had exchanged the Dishplayer 2 times directly thru E* and that at some point he had bought a big screen Sony HD-ready TV.

I recommended that he upgrade to the PVR508 via the PVR UPG Promo & get a Model 6000u for the HDTV. We installed the 2 new rcvrs, replaced his TWIN w/a QUAD, put up a UHF antenna for OTA digitals & put the 8VSB module for them in the 6000. We put the PVR in his LR where he had little "HT in a box" system he picked up somewhere & backfed it to the HDTV so he could watch the PVR there, too. The DP wound up in the BR and the 2800 in the office.

After a few days learning how to see & hear what he wanted the new way everything seemed OK & he expressed his happiness & satisfaction.

But a couple of months ago he called up complaining about a noise in the 6000 that he was finding to be quite annoying. He sits 10-15' away from it at the dining table & the unit is exposed on or near the TV.

Knowing that a few 8PSB users have had defective fans & that E* might even have had a bad lot of them early on I assumed that the fan noise was excessive & exchanged the module for him. However I "tested" the old module by spinning the fan with some canned air before RAing it back to E* & it didn't seem excessively noisy.

Yesterday my cust surprised me by walking into the store with his 6000u stating that he wanted to exchange it for another PVR. It turns out that when he put in the new 8PSB a couple of months ago it was no different from the original. He promptly unplugged it & unsubscribed from DHDT and hasn't used it since.

I plugged it in on my test bench & once the fan sped up it was totally inaudible from a couple of feet away with the normal environmental noise there. We took it into one of my demo rooms, closed the door, turned everything else off and plugged it in. Sure enough, with "dead silence" everywhere else in the room you could just barely detect the fan noise if you concentrated on it - certainly not enough to bother me but it was obviously an annoyance to him. (BTW, my demo 6000 was in the same room but it is in an eqmt cabinet that muffles the sound perfectly. However, if you put your ear right up on it it is noisier than my cust's unit!)

Well, now that I knew we where dealing with the normal low noise of a small whisper fan I explained why it was on the 8PSK module and why there was one in every HD receiver or Digital TV tuner.

I suggested that all he had to do was unplug the unit when he wanted piece & quiet or plug it into a switched outlet (it turns out he has a switched wall outlet in the room & I offered to give him an extension cord.) I also offered to give him a switched power strip he could position next to the unit.

But he was having none of it. He feels that I did him a major dis-service by selling him the unit without warning him about the fan noise.

I admit that in having sold easily around 100 HD Sat Rcvrs over the past few years I have never thought of prewarning anybody about the fan because...well, it's just never been an "issue" for me before. The overwhelming majority of them have been E* 6000s w/8PSBs but there have also been a few RCAs, a Mitsubichi, and several Sony SAT HD100s & recently a couple of SAT HD200s. I think the Sony's are the best DirecTV HD units but, if anything, their fan's are louder than the 6000s'.

Actually, I did have one other cust who complained about the fan noise. His media room is very small and closed in & he sits right by the unit. I suggested he replace the unit, too, just in case but I didn't have any in stock at the time (they were on back-order) so he did an advanced-exchange w/DISH. I never heard another complaint from him so I figure either the new one was better or he learned to unplug it or live with it.

Keep in mind that my cust already has a bad taste in his mouth with E* because of the DP. He feels that they made a "defective" product here also if he has to "get up & switch it off" to have piece & quiet.

Well, I want this guy to be happy but I don't want him to give up on HDTV over this issue. I even suggested we could remove the 8VSB completely & he could still get HBO, SHO, DHDT, KCBS & the new upcoming sat HD channels w/o the fan.

I even told him about a post I read here or in one of the other forums from a guy who actually did have a broken fan who simply removed or disabled it rather than exchanging the module. I gather he did it out of curiousity rather than frustration and it turns out it worked OK anyway & he hasn't experienced any overheating problems anyway.

Well, there you have it. I am just so surprised that anyone would give up HDTV over a very minor fan noise that could be switched off if he happened to be sensitive to it that I thought I would post this story here & ask for opinions.

While this is about a 1% situation for me which is statistically insignificant it concerns a real person I know & like who has been a good customer.

I invite anyone to post their experience & opinion over this issue. Do you or anybody you know sensitive enough to a whisper fan that they would discontinue HDTV or decide not to get it in the 1st place?

I wil also invite my cust to check out this forum & this thread and post his own comments if he wants to. So please don't post any remarks that might be construed as insulting.

[Ken_F]

I invite anyone to post their experience & opinion over this issue. Do you or anybody you know sensitive enough to a whisper fan that they would discontinue HDTV or decide not to get it in the 1st place?Do I know any guys like that? No. Do I know women that would complain if they could hear a fan from their dining room? Hell yes!

I personally can't hear the 6000 in my living room from 10 feet, regardless of whether I have the TV on. But the acoustics of every room are different...

[mbart0656]

Wow, 10 to 15 feet and he complains. Maybe he just watches the pictures and never listens to the audio. I sit 7 feet away from the equipment and I can't hear it when the sound is on!

[dbuffington]

Actually, I do understand your customer. I have an RCA F38310 HDTV with an integrated DirecTV receiver, and in a quiet living room, it is noticable and bothersome. For me, it was acceptable to rig a power switch to turn the set entirely off, but others might not agree.

[Mike123abc]

I can hear the 6000 fan all the time, it is pretty annoying. But, I put it in a cabinate to hide the noise. I have seen others put a resistor in the fan to cut down the rotational speed. This fan is in no way "whisper quite".

I can hear the one in my office when I come down the stairs and am a good 20 feet away from it. The only reason it does not bother me in the office is that my computers are noisier when they come out of standby. But, once the computers go into standby the fan becomes very noticeable.

The noise levels in some houses are very low. My house is a few hundred feet from a quite street to start with and I have 2' brick walls, and my heating/AC are down in the basement. Needless to say it is extreamly quite in the house when I do not have any electronics running.

I have done extensive work on my computers to quite them down with special fans and cooling solutions.

There is really no excuse for this, the fans could be made larger and run slower.

[Chris Blount]

Hmm, maybe I have a loud fan. It is definitely NOT whisper quiet. You can hear it 10 feet away in a quiet room very easily. Maybe I should exchange that puppy.

[Phil T]

My 6000 is behind a glass door cabinet. The noise is noticeable but not bothersome.

Now here are some reasons I may consider giving up on HDTV.

1. My wife and teenagers (15 year old twins) do not like my 6000 receiver. They much prefer the 501 and Dishplayer and watch almost everything time shifted. They do not like the 6000 guide and always watch on the other recorders, even if a show is in HDTV!! (they did watch the Superbowl and Grammy's in HD but not the Academy awards or other network HD programming). They gripe if they cannot pause or rewind or record any show!

2. If dish starts charging me $10.00 am month for the Dishplayer in June (I m on the 3 year 99.00 deal) I may consider selling the 6000 8VSB, 8PSK and getting a 721 to replace it. I would save $15.00 per month. ($10.00 PTV fee and $5.00 extra receiver fee) since my 501 and 6000 are both connected to a single TV (61" Sony HD monitor.

3. The HD OTA situation in Denver will likely not get resolved for years. All stations are low power from the top of downtown buildings requiring a huge uhf antenna to get anything even 20 miles away. (another sore spot for my wife)

The key is what happens in June with the Dishplayer fee. My hope would be to get a new or near new 721 in trade for a one year old 6000 with both modules.

[CoriBright]

We have an 6000 receiver with 8VSB and my 2003 Server PC (with three fans in it) in the bedroom. I noticed the receiver fan for about a week, when we added the PC (it's a lot nearer the bed!) I noticed the noise for about two weeks. My husband never noticed either.

Nearly a year later, don't notice either.

Never notice the receiver fan in the living room.... the pump for the aquarium makes a LOT more noise.

No, we'd never give up the receiver(s) just for the fan noise! Perhaps living in Las Vegas, the air conditioning in summer (and the ceiling fans) acclimitize us to permanent noise.

[Cyclone]

My 6000 makes noise and I don't like it. But it works.

[Mark Lamutt]

I can't hear my 6000 fan at all behind my glass front audio rack. But that's probably because the HTPC fans overpower all of the other fans running. They don't bother me, or my wife because of the results that we get out of them. So, to each their own I guess. Can't please everyone.

[tampa8]

After feeling my hearing was not what it should be I went to have it checked and found it was fine, but learned something that may apply here. It is not unusual for a sound to bother one person while another pays it no mind. That is kind of obvious, but when water is runing - as from a faucet, I cannot hear the phone ring, or hear the TV very well, or even what someone is saying. Yet, a loud part of a movie can be on TV and I can hear people with no problem, or the phone ring, while my family cannot. You will notice some people can hear you with the TV blaring, others have to immediately turn down the sound. There are those that can hear any kind of "hiss" and it really bothers them, while others cannot even hear it. I would imagine the sound of the fan falls into this. The Doctor said in these kind of cases, it is more of what the brain is receiving rather than what you are actually hearing.
On this same theme, with older TV sets, I and some others could occasionally hear a very high pitch sound, almost piercing, while others in the room heard nothing.

[alv]

Depending on the situation, a cheap solution I have used both for fan noise and hard drive noise is to partially enclose the units in acoustic ceiling tiles with fabric coverings, just glue the fabric. I put one under and over with enough space for heat loss. Also have them on the sides and in front with enough space left for the IR to get in. These are just jammed into my rack with wood spaces for the top one. Works great. Total cost ~$10

[JStanton]

"Whisper Quiet"

ROTFL

That's the funniest thing I've heard all day.

- Jim

[ibglowin]

We have (2) 6000's and (2) PVR's in the house. It seems like at times, the fans make an Incredible amount of noise and then at times almost dead silent. I think the hard drives spinning on the PVR's make as much noise if not more than the fans at times! I guess this is part of the cost of all this technology. You either learn to live with it or you dump it.

I myself am more than willing to put up with a bit of noise at times in exchange for that big, beautiful 16x9 1080i picture that comes into our house everynight.
:)

[Cyclone]

Down boy!

[angiodan]

I don't seem to hear the fan noise from my 6000 and I'm sitting pretty close to it. Unfortunately, I do hear the noise from my Powerware 9125 UPS, which probably covers the noise of the other. However, with all the lightning storms and power spikes we have in Florida, I wasn't going to take any chances with my HT gear. So I live with the noise, and no I wouldn't give up HD for it!

[DarrellP]

I wouldn't give up on HD because of the noise, I just removed my fan. I removed it almost 1 year ago and it has not been harmed it at all, but I do live in a cool climate.

My fan was extremely noisey, it could be heard when the volume was at a "talking" level. When the system was off, the noise was really bad.

[davhol]

It sounds as if this was "the straw that broke the camel's back." It's not that the straw was so heavy, but when it added to all the other "baggage" that was being carried, the blame went there. As a business man, you want to keep your customers happy and satisfied, but it sounds like this was just the last in a line of problems. I would say learn what you can from the situation. If you can identify similar behaviors in other customers, do what you can (within reason) as early as possible to short-circuit a worse problem down the line. You can't make EVERYBODY happy, although you do try. Sad! I'm sorry! :(

[Nick]

Toss HDTV because of minor cooling fan noise? NO WAY!!!! That is literally throwing out the baby with the bath water.

There are many ways to reduce cooling fan noise. IMO, your customer has a bug up his a** about something else.

Who in his right mind would give up HDTV?

[Mike123abc]

Originally posted by Nick
Toss HDTV because of minor cooling fan noise? NO WAY!!!! That is literally throwing out the baby with the bath water.

There are many ways to reduce cooling fan noise. IMO, your customer has a bug up his a** about something else.

Who in his right mind would give up HDTV?

Obviously Dish Network 6000 is too noisy. I would not call the fan noise minor, I would describe it as moderate. Quite frankly it is way too noisy for any piece of equipment that wants to be known as high end. A dollar more for a larger slower running fan would take care of this problem. When the fan is the only source of noise in a room it is very annoying and sounds 10x louder than you would expect.

If Dish was used to making high end equipment they would never have released this fan. Any quality A/V system manufacturer would have had a heart attack releasing that fan. Just because it puts out a good HDTV picture does not give it license to use cheap noisy components.

A large concern of Plasma televisions has been the fan noise and they go to great lengths to minimize it.

[Big D]

I performed the in-line resister trick to my 8VSB right after I got it because the fan noise really bugged me. It made the fan noise go (almost) completely away and for those who are going to ask, I am not worried that the unit is going to burn up or have it's life shorten. Actually I do not expect to keep my 6000 after the 921 comes out anyway. Adding the resister was very easy to do and took care of the noise issue for me.

That is, until I got my 721. Now I have HD noise that never goes away, although it is not bad and I have the fan noise which is much louder than the 8VSB ever was. I guess I could do a tweak on the 721 fan, but I don't want to be the first one. I can live with it for now, but I do wish it had a better designed fan that was quieter and firmware that called for the fan to be on when necessary and that is not at 115 degrees or there abouts. If the fan would be off more than on and the HD would spin down when idle for extended periods, the 721 would be a better product.

[OKCrew]

I also would not call the fan noise minor. I too think that is dependent on the individual and the pitch that might bother them.

For me, the high pitched sound which is continuous was unacceptable. I had to disconnect the fan. If I had to live with the sound I would have switched providers and manufacturers to get my HD.

[Nick]

I'm confused.

For clarity, let's use "HDD" for 'Hard Disk Drive" and "HD" for High Definition".

[normang]

I have a 6000 and a 501. Currently the noise from the 501 dwarfs the sound of the 8VSB module. The noise from the hard drive is very loud, its gotton louder as it gets older, which isn't a surprise.

While some people's sensativities of course vary widely, if the description of the noise coming from this 6000 is relatively quiet as far as the fan noise goes, then this guy is overly sensative. In most homes there are other things that can cause more noise then those fans cause. Things like your air/heating system, depending on the area, traffic outside, etc etc. Plus when you are watching TV, you can't hear the 6000 fan unless your sitting right next to the receiver. I can hear my 501 HD over the sound of the TV in that room easily.

I would make changes to my setup before giving up HD to minimize the noise, not toss away the technology. Even if the guy gets a 921 if and when they appear, they are more than likely going to have a fan and the HD making noise. So there is no panacea in regards to a perfectly quiet setup..

[HTguy]

"Whisper Quiet" ...That's the funniest thing I've heard all day.
Obviously Dish Network 6000 is too noisy. I would not call the fan noise minor, I would describe it as moderate. Quite frankly it is way too noisy for any piece of equipment that wants to be known as high end. For me, the high pitched sound which is continuous was unacceptable.
Sounds like some of you have had defective fans with bad bearings or broken blades or something and really had excessive noise. But my cust's unit was really quiet - barely noticable to me in a very quiet room.

Has anyone had a chance to compare the fan noise of the E* 8VSB to that of other HD rcvr models?

And don't forget, the unit can be powered off when not in use and, if that's unacceptable, the module can be removed (unlike other models).

Keep your comments coming!

[Wunderhund]

6000 fan noise is noticeable, annoying, and an engineering embarassment. I recently removed the module, pressed down on the fan, and it seemed to click into place. Fan noise is now less than it was, but still the only component in my setup that needs a fan. Why, especially, must this thing continue to cool when the STB is turned off?

Request to E*: please allow and encourage the Sonys and Panasonics of the world to engineer and manufacture your equipment!

[JStanton]

I've had two different 8VSB modules that exhibited the exact same noise level. Is it totally unacceptable - no. Would I be embarassed if I was an engineer on that project - yes.

- Jim

[HTguy]

Originally posted by tampa8
After feeling my hearing was not what it should be I went to have it checked and found it was fine, but learned something that may apply here. It is not unusual for a sound to bother one person while another pays it no mind. That is kind of obvious, but when water is runing - as from a faucet, I cannot hear the phone ring, or hear the TV very well, or even what someone is saying. Yet, a loud part of a movie can be on TV and I can hear people with no problem, or the phone ring, while my family cannot. You will notice some people can hear you with the TV blaring, others have to immediately turn down the sound. There are those that can hear any kind of "hiss" and it really bothers them, while others cannot even hear it. I would imagine the sound of the fan falls into this. The Doctor said in these kind of cases, it is more of what the brain is receiving rather than what you are actually hearing.
On this same theme, with older TV sets, I and some others could occasionally hear a very high pitch sound, almost piercing, while others in the room heard nothing.
I believe tampa8 is absolutely right. It didn't shock me that my cust found the fan annoying. It bothers him that there is a fan on the module period! Evidently a couple of you agree.

But the question before the board is would you give up HDTV altogether because of the fan? Or know anybody who would or did?

Several posters have offered work-arounds including removing it altogether.

[normang]

Originally posted by Wunderhund
Why, especially, must this thing continue to cool when the STB is turned off?

Because the 6000 is NEVER off unless you pull the plug.

I had a 8VSB that was heat sensative, channels signals would actually disappear after it was on for a while, remove the module for a while, and re-install, worked fine.

Now granted this module was defective, but the people who designed it realized that in some cases if the module got too warm, problems would result, thus they installed a fan.

Most of these mini-fans, such as those in this module are made by the thousands, some will be quieter than others. They also have a tendancy to get noiser after they run for a while.

If the noise from these modules is so annoying, take your chances and disable it or slow it down like Big D.. Perhaps you'll have no problems as some others have. Maybe not..

I think its unrealistic to second guess why something was designed the way is is, unless you have the technical skill to show in detail why the design is wrong. The component selection for the fan is of course chosen probably on price.. They aren't going to install a slightly quieter fan for perhaps dollars more per unit unless their is a significant failure rate. And noise doesn't constitute failure, just annoyance..

[normang]

Originally posted by Big D
I performed the in-line resistor trick to my 8VSB right after I got it because the fan noise really bugged me. It made the fan noise go (almost) completely away

Out of curiousity, what size resistor (ohms/wattage?) did you install to slow down the fan. Did you insert in the wiring to the fan or elsewhere?

Thanks

[Big D]

normang: I used a 33 ohm resister in-line with the power lead of the fan. I believe this produced about a 50% slow down of the fan speed and about ~60-70% noise reduction.

[dishmark]

I have a 6000 in the bedroom and my wife was complaining that the fan noise kept her awake at night. I put it on a switch and now shut it off at night (unwilling to give up HDTV or the wife). Most of the time the noise is tolerable but at times it increases significantly and even interferes with dialog. Is this a sign of a defective fan or does the fan speed vary with the temperature?

[Big D]

Unless the fan noise is very noticeable, it probably is not defective. The quality of the fan used in the 8VSB module is not the best out there, it is going to be noisy in a quite environment. The fan speed and therefore it's noise level, does not vary with temperature, the fan is on all the time, period. Using a switch to completely shut the fan off and on it better than disconnecting it all together, however I felt that using a resister to slow it down to the point that the noise was not heard, yet still providing some air movement and cooling was a better way to go.

[DarrellP]

I'm going to build a cooling box for my 6000. Basically it will be just big enough for the 6000 to sit in with a foam seal all around the edge of the 6000 with a big, slow fan housed in the box. The box will only be about 1/2 the thickness of the 6000.

[Martyva]

I pump up the volume and ussually can't here no stinking fan anyway.

[Tomsoundman]

Thought you were deaf

[durl]

I own a Sony SAT-HD200 and the noise from the fan is virtually nonexistent. It's extremely quiet. I had heard the "buzz" that some receivers were distractingly loud so I was wondering what it would be like but it's been a non-issue with my Sony.

[HTguy]

It turns out that the new Sony SAT-HD200 (which is almost the same as the Zenith SAT-HD50) doesn't have a fan. Evidently Zenith has developed a new 8VSB chip that doesn't require one.

However, according to at least one reviewer's test, it is less sensitive than the one in the Sony SAT-HD100 which has a fan that is louder than the one on the Model 6000 8VSB module.

[Martyva]

Good Hearing Aids still don't allow me to hear some frequencies. Used to be a good way to tune out the wife, but now taking the aids off pretty much tunes out the world. But i'm a very good listener:D