Problems with my 721

[Aereque]

I've had my 721 about a year or so. It seems like a decent product, but it recently started misbehaving.

Every so often the screen gets very weird. I'd call it pixelated, but I'm not sure that term means the same thing to everyone. The image sort of freezes, and then parts of the screen go into something like a super lo-res mode. It looks like individual pixels of about a half-inch in size (on my 32 inch screen).

Sometimes when this happens the image disappears completely and I get the black screen which says acquiring signal.

This doesn't happen all the time. It comes and goes.

The problem seems to have no correlation with the weather. It's happening this evening, but the weather is clear, with no storms or anything like that.

Signal strength is strong. No problems there.

I have another receiver on the same LNBF. It's not a PVR, I believe it's a 301. Anyway, it has no such problems.

The dish is a Dish Pro 500 with a quad LNBF.

My apologies if I have messed up any of the terminology here. I'm not a Dish technology fanatic -- I just like watching TV.

BTW, my 721 has been replaced once before, late last summer. The original unit died a horrible death and Dish sent me a new one without much hassle.

Does anyone have any idea what this problem could be? Any suggestions would be welcomed. Thanks in advance!

[Bob Haller]

Try switching your receiver to different LNB feeds. But honestly it sounds like your tuner is going bad. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THE SYSTEM WARRANTY NOW! $2 a month

Mine did this tuner failure, its fairly common, eventually it will quit altogether.

If you have lots in PVR stock using them up now.

[dj5]

Does the DishPvr 721 support 720P and 1080i resolution?

I picked up a Dish Network flyer at Sears that compares all the equipment and it says the 721 supports the 720p and 1080i resolution.

I know the JVC 6023 supports HDTV resolution.

I have not seen the resolution statement anywhere else for the 721.

Thanks

[Danbo]

The 721 is NOT a HD device. That answer it?

[Inaba]

I had a similar problem when I had a grounding issue with my Quad LNB. Make sure it's not grounding out somewhere inappropriate.

Otherwise, as has been said, the tuner may be going bad... a cold solder joint may be coming loose (and grounding!) inside the unit.

[Jacob S]

Dish advanced technical support has saying that it MUST be grounded at the electrical ground rod and not any other place, not the phone ground, not a seperate ground, or it will make some type of loop or something. This goes for the PVR receivers with hard drives only. Has anyone else been told any such information?

[Aereque]

Bob Haller's response is quite promising. A failing tuner seems consistent with the other data.

In fact, I tried another experiment today to verify the theory: If it's a bad tuner, then it seems likely that only one of the two tuners in the 721 is experiencing a problem. Sure enough, that seems to be the case. I brought up the PIP so I could see both tuners at one time. One of them shows the trouble quite often, and the other tuner is rock solid, no trouble at all.

Thanks!

[Scott Greczkowski]

One of the nice things about the upcoming software release is when you lose signal on a tuner it tells you what tuner lost signal, this way you can indeed see if its a tuner problem or not. :) (ie tuner 1 always goes out, but tuner 2 is rock solid)

[boba]

AS Bob SAID GET THE EXTENDED WARRANTY!!!! For $1.99/ mo. it is the only way to view a PVR unless you are on DHP where you automatically have a service contract.

[Jacob S]

Dang 721 is getting pretty buggy I may add. It said there was over 300 minutes left on a show that was only 120 minutes in length. Also at LEAST two timers will NOT fire and it will NOT let you delete them. I am fed up with Dish Network and their lack of software and hardware qualities. I am about to rid of their PVR/DVR products for good, this may be the last straw.

[TomCat]

One of the nice things about the upcoming software release is when you lose signal on a tuner it tells you what tuner lost signal...


Uh... You're the one guy who I would expect should know that the 721 has already had this ability for at least 10 months. Those of us who also suffer from Jacob's problem are visually reminded of that far too often. The only thing "nice" about features in an upcoming software release that are not actually new to that release is that they will still be there, unlike the screen saver, which isn't.

As for Jacob, there is beaucoup info in this well-known problem on other threads. Just search for "pixellation".

Jacob's contribution shows that this problem can be absent for some time and then suddenly appear, making one suspect a hardware failure (most theories to date are software-based).

[Jacob S]

I fixed the problem. I had rebooted the 721 for another reason at a date after the timers quit firing although I did not know that they were not firing at the time so I figured it would not help again. I rebooted it again and it did let me delete the two timers this time and then I went back to the program guide and selected the shows again to create a timer. It worked so far.

It was also indicating the signal strength on the first port on the lnbf on port two on the signal strength screen. You could not even change the transponders correctly on that screen as the numbers would bounce around all over when you tried to change it if it would even let you.

[Inaba]

My 721 crashed again last night. Fortunately, none of the recorded programs were lost... but damn, that's twice in less than a month an a half (that I *know* of) that it's happened.

Not exactly great uptime for a Linux system.

[Jacob S]

I pressed BROWSE and all the banners come up blank. Sometimes the thing is so slow where you have to wait on it especially at the signal strength screen, among other things. What the heck is going on? I thought they had the software decent on these things. I guess the hardware AND software is no good when it comes to these things. If its not one thing, its another, or BOTH!

[jerryyyyy]

A series of questions from a desperate 721 user..... no way will I get a 921.

I am struggling with the same problem. I do not have the $2 repair feature. Can I just call them up and get it anticipating my 721 will die or was this something I have to have gotten at the start (13 months ago)?

There is unfortunately too much information out there on how to troubleshoot this (in itself an indication of major trouble here). Is the definitive diagnostic step to do the tuner swap off of the remote control or is it just to watch PIP, which uses the two tuners?

One other question, as I have been looking a signal strength I seem to have most of the problem on the dish 300 lead, but the signal generally runs about 90-91. Nonetheless, seems like it flakes out on me and that is associated with the pixilation (tuner or signal????). This may be a bogus observation confused with my inability to isolate the problem, but I am wondering if there is any alternative to the satellite at 61.5 deg longitude, which is not so much fun to find from California (14 deg elevation...). What is the one at 148 deg longitude good for? I do not seem tuned into that one. I have been told I need the 61.5 to get TV5.

[BobMurdoch]

I would call them up as I heard they're replacing the 721s that have the bad tuner problem. (You might want to buy the extended warranty and then wait 30 days if you are worried they will say no and mark your account with the event )