DP or 508 Which hardwre was more reliable?

[Bob Haller]

Ahh I am seeing comments like my own. I never replaced my now departed DPs, and other than software bugs just replaced a few HDs.

But I have been thru perhaps 7 of the newer PVRs 508s and 721s.. Admittely we are heavy users but that hasnt changed since the DP days.

Does this mean the newer models are actually not as good reability wise as the beta dishplayers?

Maybe thats why they want the fee? To help cover the bleeding $$ of their boxes?

I think their statement alluded to that. About PVRs costing more for support.

[Jacob S]

I have not experienced any problems with the dishplayer I had hardwarewise and neither have any customers I sold the dishplayers too. Then the 501 came out and thats another story. The software may not have been as bug free on the dishplayer though as the 501 was so one thing got better, one thing got worse.

[Bill R]

Bob,

Your high amount of receiver failures is VERY abnormal. I'm wondering if it is being caused by some electrical problem in your home (or more likely your neighborhood) that is causing that many receivers to fail.

As a engineer, I ran into several situations like yours. In several cases we traced the high failure rate of equipment to power line sags (voltage drops below the nominal 117 volt level, sometimes to 100 volts or so) or power line spikes. Once we found the problem (and often the power line voltage had to be monitored for months) a call went to the local utility company and they repaired the problem (usually by replacing the neighborhood stepdown transformer).

I would see if you can borrow equipment that allows you to monitor your power line voltage. Some of the newer ones can monitor (and record) the peak high and low voltages and the time they occurred and how often they occurred. Your local utility may be able to supply one if you tell you tell them about your high receiver failure rate.

[Bob Haller]

I have my receivers on UPS. Originally all the PVRs were on the APC 700 UPS. With the upgrade beloew I put the 2 508s on a 500 UPS from office max I forget the brand. So its not a power issue. System grounded dishes at low level for easy service upgrade away from lightening issues.

Failures

1 721 had tuner two failure

1 721 we maxed out the number of timers and locked up the box in endless reboot

1 508 hard drive noisey failed

1 508 hard drive failed

1 508 intermittent searching for sat appeared tuner failure

1 508 searching for sat along with intermittent non repetive skips on replay and finally lights froze all on.

1 508 arrived with bad modem new, I forget what took this out I believe it just didnt power up one day.

I upgraded recently to dishpro, and moved all but my 721 to the basement. Jen was tired of the HD noise. I keep spacers under my receivers so they run cooler.

Our home is a bit dusty from our dogs tracking in mud. The basement is a bit cleaner so that might help. But our home isnt a dustbowl or anything like that.

I believe this list is complete, when you have had so many failures it gets confusing:(

BTW we are now all PVR, with one 721 and two 508s.

Dealer services told metro I had the most changed receivers they had ever seen on any account. I bought a 508 from him great service BTW and when it failed they sent him a charge back. E should update warranty replacements automatically....

Of course I started with a 4000 7 years ago, upgraded to a 5000, added some 4700s, bought 2 DPs, then upgraded to a 721 and 508s and sold the DPs and when I get some time I will sell off the entire pile of leftovers. My I must of spent av fortune on upgrades:(

[Phil T]

Wow Bob!

I have been with Dish since 3-97 and have only had to replace one lnb. I never had any receiver problems (although I have been tempted to throw my Dishplayer through the window a time or two). :(

I have had a 3000, 7100, 501 and 6000 and all are still working. The 3000 was given to my brother in law to replace a 1000 he owned that did go bad.

[Bill R]

Wow from me too Bob. You must just have really bad luck with DISH hardware. Maybe putting all your equipment in a different location will help. I sure hope so.

[JBKing]

Bad karma?

[Bob Haller]

Ahh, I hope I am not a typical customer. But the failure rate is unreal:(

All those years my dippy DPs only had hard drive failures. I never replaced them once, although the buggy software:(:(:(

I had just a few standard receiver failures. Not many for all those years. A couple 4000s for blinkouts.. Stuff like that.

Had a SW64 switch get low signal strength after many years, the old SW44 switch was too much of a hassle I tossed it, never had a LNB failure, although a severe storm moved my dish once. Fixing it fast didnt matter, since we had no elecric for 3 DAYS:( ME I bought a emergency generator after that. The occasional cable failure, I rewired twice in all these years once to clear a growing tree across the street, just lately to relocate the boxes to the basement, I left the option of putting the 721 down there too.

But nothing unusual. My bad run began with the current boxes, another reason to suspect they arent as good of a design, as the old dishplayer:(

[Neil Derryberry]

I'd be interested to see what temperature your 721 says it is running at...

[Jacob S]

I have had three 501 failures and one 721 failures. Two out of three 501 failures were tuner failures, one was a hard drive failure. One 721 second tuner failure. I have had no other receivers fail here.

[Bob Haller]

721 temperature is 98 degrees, I dont believe I have ever seen it over 110. It sits on spacers for better airflow in a open tv cabinet bottom. Without spacers I was getting 115. Made that change a long time ago when I added the UPS right about the time of purchase..

The 4 minute reboot time was a serious issue for my wife. The user manual says it will be shorter in the future I wonder if thats still planned?

[Neil Derryberry]

The 721 is linux at the core, that's why the reboot takes a while.

[Jacob S]

Could they make the reboot faster with a software upgrade? I think they did a software upgrade to the dishplayer a long time ago in which allowed it to boot up quicker, if I am not mistaken.

[Unthinkable]

Could they make the reboot faster with a software upgrade? I think they did a software upgrade to the dishplayer a long time ago in which allowed it to boot up quicker, if I am not mistaken.

That is the plan from what I understand.

[Unthinkable]

Bad karma?

LOL! All the constant witch-hunting, crusading, venting, bashing, empty threats to join the competition and attempts to make every trivial Dish decision appear to be the one that sealed the companies fate may have earned him the fastest one-way ticket to the worst possible equipment replacements known to mankind!!!!! Either that or someone is constantly recording 24 hours worth of cooking shows and other tv programs on any given day! :lol:

[Jacob S]

Or maybe UPS does something to them durng shipment when they bump them or throw them around but I would say its more likely a problem with some Dish parts in the receiver since people over the U.S. are having the same issues with the same parts such as the second tuner. Either that or its more prone to have problems because of its location in the receiver.

[Bob Haller]

LOL! All the constant witch-hunting, crusading, venting, bashing, empty threats to join the competition and attempts to make every trivial Dish decision appear to be the one that sealed the companies fate may have earned him the fastest one-way ticket to the worst possible equipment replacements known to mankind!!!!! Either that or someone is constantly recording 24 hours worth of cooking shows and other tv programs on any given day! :lol:

My wife records cooking and other stuff constantly. At any given time most HDs are near full. I dont know when she watches all that stuff. Well actually I do, when she SHOULD be doing housework:(

On the dish bashing I grant you I riipped them new body parts for dishplayer fees (we won a reprieve at least on that), and now this DVR fee. I have posted about my various all to frequent receiver failures. But other than that wheres my ranting you talk about?

Overall I am pleased, but tired of bugs and pissed about the DVR issue for existing subs

[Bob Haller]

the 721 tuners are a hardware issue ands sadly not nearly as good as the 301 tuners which hardly ever fail.

[Bob Haller]

I wanted to add normally most of the time I keep my receivers plugged in the phone line. So as a experiment relocated I havent plugged in one on the off chance its something phone related. Although I had protection on that.

[Jacob S]

I do not keep my receivers plugged into the phone line because phone lines are how you are most likely to get a surge through your receiver from a storm. I had a dishplayer modem fry because of that and thats why I got a computer after that in the first place to replace the webtv service. The satellite service part of the receiver still worked. I never had any problems since I never hooked up a phone line.