501 Uh Oh

[sorahl]

My 501 is making noises while recording or playing back now... It's a low grinding/rumbling sound :) Is this a precursor to imminent failure? Am I about to lose 22 hours of recorded gems????

john

[scooper]

I wouldn't waste any time in getting them copied off to VHS or some other recorded medium, if I was you... It sounds like imminent hard drive failure to me..

[Mark Lamutt]

Definitely doesn't sound good, sorahl. If there's stuff on there that you really want to keep, I'd start transferring now. And if you're not covered under warrenty, get on the $1.99/month extended warrenty plan NOW.

[sorahl]

i'm copying the 2 24 episodes i have on there. I'll warn my wife to get moving on watching stuff!
We are on the warrantee plan. That shipping fee really bites tho.. especially when it's their equipment that keeps breaking!

John

[boba]

Sorahl you can get free shipping the trade off is time without a receiver. Instead of doing the advanced exchange you can do a standard return authorization and send DISH your failed receiver when they receive it they will return a replacement with free shipping. I think $14.95 for advanced exchange is a reasonable fee.

[firephoto]

You might look at the back of it and see what the fan is doing. It could be some dust build up in there.

[Jacob S]

Your receiver will still work after the hard drive failure, you will just have no pvr functionality. 501 hard drives ARE known to fail, trust me! I should know going through 3 or 4 of them because of problems. I finally just sold mine cheap when I got the next replacement because I knew it would happen again.

[sorahl]

I know! this is my 'third' pvr since buying it 2 years ago (18 mos maybe). It seems to be not be making as much noise as it was right now. I am experiencing no other issues with it. No playback problems, screen noise, etc. I dunno. I have 24, Manor House, and Taken all transfered to that ancient storage media (VHS) so we should be set. nothing that is on there now we would really miss. I'll keep using it until it just croaks.
what are the chances of it being a 508 when i do get the replacement sent??

[Jacob S]

That may be a while still yet as I am sure they have spare 501's just to use for replacements for those that have 501's that fail. I have never heard any make any loud noises.