What's your opinion about the Dish warranties?

[SteveS]

With the $1.99 monthly warranty no longer available for purchase (unless grandfathered) and the rumor of the complete end of the $1.99 warranty down the road I'm wondering how people feel about the $4.99 and $5.99 warranties?

Are most Dish customers willing to shell out $60 or $72 extra per year for extended warranties?

Even considering the problems the 5xx, 7xx, and 9xx receivers have had, how many actually needed to RMA a receiver and how many times and over what length of time?

Sure, $60 for a replacement of an out of warranty receiver is a deal but based on Dish's apparent inability to put reliable hardware in the box in the first place how do you feel about it?

There's no real magic to these STB's. No earthshaking advance in technology. It seems odd that larger (than Dish) mass producing computer manufacturers can sell cheap reliable CPUs that run 24/7 for 5 or 6 years with VERY FEW problems (other than Windows) and yet Dish can't do it with their receivers. Computers have motherboards, CPUs, and hard drives yet even the lowest quality CPUs have proven more reliable than Dish PVRs.

I don't mind paying the price for the box, and then adding a reasonable price for extended warranty IF Dish is actually supplying first line hardware with solid software to the consumer.

I'm leaning toward leaving Dish when the $1.99 warranty expires. What do you all think?

[Mike D-CO5]

When and If the 1.99 extended warrenty expires , I will drop the extra warrenty. I will only add it if I need to rma a receiver with a problem and then drop it again. From what I have read, Dish doesn't seem to care if you keep it for a month ,like the old warrenty before you use it. Then I will only use it when I need it.

Unless Dish changes the rules. Then I will probably keep the extended warrenty. With 4 dvrs on my account including a 1000.00 921 dvr , and the frequent hard drive failures , it would be sucide not to have it.

[pjmrt]

all I can say is that I got my money's worth out of it last year - replacing a couple 721s and my old 7200.

[finniganps]

I've had two RMA's this year (508 and 4700), no others since I started with Dish in 1999. I didn't carry a warranty until I purchased the 508 (January 2004). Started with a 7100 and 4700 in 1999, now I own a 721, 508 and 4900.

I also will discontinue the $1.99 warranty when it ends early next year. I agree $60-$72 per year seems excessive and as long as I can add the warranty before I get a RMA, I'll do that in the future.

[larrystotler]

What irriates me is that I am an installer, and it's not like I would EVER need a tech to come out and check my stuff out. So, a lot of the parts of the DHPP are useless to me. And as for the people who add it and then drop it, I don't forsee that continuing much longer. Quite frankly, even with some of the small problems I have had with my 2 DVRs, I seriously doubt I would ever have adelphia's crappy cable unless they do a major overhall, or swithc to DTV as long as they keep using TiVo boxes since I am not impressed with a lot of what they do. I really don't need name based recording. I usually look for what's on, and having to deal with the SLOWWWW TiVo guide setup is not something I would put up with. And considering that the main problems with the DVRs are the drive, since I am also a computer tech, replacing it doesn't look like too much of a challenge. Now, for a lot of other people who are used to buying warrenties from Sears and Circuit City, I can see why they do so. Of course most of those customers don't hang out at this site....................

[Bahnzo]

And considering that the main problems with the DVRs are the drive, since I am also a computer tech, replacing it doesn't look like too much of a challenge.

I've been wondering....how many people with the hard drive failures leave the unit on all the time? Because if the DVR is left on, then the hard drive is always running, recording whatever channel it's on all the time. The excessive use of a hard drive like this would surely account for failures as it's always writing and accessing the drive 24/7.

Not pointing fingers or anything, just curious.

[SteveS]

And considering that the main problems with the DVRs are the drive, since I am also a computer tech, replacing it doesn't look like too much of a challenge.

As I understand it ... there will be no changing hard drives on Dish DVRs. Physically changing drives is one thing but Dish seems to have taken steps to preclude getting a replacement drive up and running.

Am I right or wrong on this?

[SteveS]

I've been wondering....how many people with the hard drive failures leave the unit on all the time? Because if the DVR is left on, then the hard drive is always running, recording whatever channel it's on all the time. The excessive use of a hard drive like this would surely account for failures as it's always writing and accessing the drive 24/7.

I turn off my 721 (latest SW) when it's not being watched. It lives on a UPS with the coaxes surge-spike protected by Panamax. The hard drive still seems to spin when the unit is off. The "spin-down" feature seems to be more of a menu item then a reality. The 508 in the bedroom is rarely on or watched and yet I walk by and hear the drive spinning most of the time.

MTBF on hard drives is in the xxx,xxx hours (15 years @ 24 hours/day=131,400 hours) and yet Dish PVRs kill drives in months or a year. Either the drives are running too hot, the power isn't properly regulated, or they are simply the cheapest drives available (most likely). I venture to guess that since Dish is in Colorado they are in bed with Maxtor (also in Colorado) for drives and Maxtor re-wrote the book on premature IDE drive failures. They simply SUCK. The incidence of drive failures in Dish PVRs is laughable and the fact that customers will be paying for those failures when the reasonably priced warranty vaporizes is REAL cause for concern to me.

[SimpleSimon]

I've had Maxtor drives run for as much as 8 years without failure. I've also had Seagate drives fail in 6 months. Ya just never know. However, Maxtor has drives (used in at least the 921) that are specifically designed for use in PVRs.

As for swapping out a drive yourself, the dihsmod group over at Yahoo knows how to do it for the 50x series. Not sure if anyoe is working on the other boxes HDDs.

[SteveS]

I've had Maxtor drives run for as much as 8 years without failure. I've also had Seagate drives fail in 6 months. Ya just never know. However, Maxtor has drives (used in at least the 921) that are specifically designed for use in PVRs.

I won't debate your experience, my experience, or anyone else's experience with a particular brand of hard drive.

The point is that drives die way too soon in Dish PVRs and we can't help ourselves with drive replacement as Tivo owner's can.

Seems to me that Dish will wake up to the "sell me the $5.99 warranty, wait 2 weeks then RMA my 5xx/721/921 under warranty, and then wait 2 weeks and cancel the warranty" game and when Dish does we'll all be screwed.

[SimpleSimon]

Duly noted - and my good experience with Maxtor IS from the "old days". :)

And you are correct about the operating temp, but not the spindle speed, on the PVR IDE drives - at least when I read up on them. RPM was either 5400 or 7200 - I forget which - but it was definitely "standard".

Anyway, then, which brand of HDD do you recommend?

[SteveS]

Anyway, then, which brand of HDD do you recommend?

I actually track drive failure rate and over the last 15 years here is my experience (and I'm talking a LOT of IDE drives here) ...

lowest failure rate of IDE drives in order are:

Western Digital, IBM, Fujitsu, and Quantum (before Maxtor bought them out) A caveat here is that a bad production run from a specific FAB doesn't enter into the data.

worst failure rate of IDE drives in order are: Maxtor and Seagate

But remember ... REAL men and women run SCSI

[larrystotler]

I've ran drives for years with them on almost all the time. Even in servers. I do PREFER SCSI, and if there was a way to fake out my 501 and put in a better quality SCSI drive, I would in a heart beat. However, that isn't gonna happen anytime soon. Even when the box is off, it is still on, and it still looks for updats and runs the drive for guide updates and stuff.

Now, as for changing the HD, it CAN be done, and I plan on doing so fairly soon on my 501. The 721 looks a great deal more complicated, but since it is based on linux, it may not be too bad. I would love to get a bad 721 to play around with to see whether I can get it to see a different drive, especially since it seems like almost all of the stuff is on the HD.

[Cholly]

Getting back on topic (although HD failures are relevant) --extended warranties for items prone to problems make a certain amount of sense. Having an 811, 721 and 311 and being older than dirt, I'll probably succumb.
That being said, extended warranties are usually a big revenue producer. Radio Shack, Sears and Circuit City among other retailers, recognize this and push them aggresively. Most car manufacturers want you to sign up for them. In the appliance business, General Electric pushes extended warranties big time. I constantly get mailings from GE promoting extended warranties on my microwave and countertop range. Interestingly, the cost of some of those warranties fast approaches the replacement cost of the product.

[SteveS]

Interestingly, the cost of some of those warranties fast approaches the replacement cost of the product.

EXACTLY my point for starting this thread. While I'm not happy about paying $1.99 per month for an extended warranty it was a reasonable and bearable cost.

When the $1.99 warranty vaporizes down the road and Dish forces me to pay $5.99 per month for an extended warranty and $29 for a house call from a tech who knows less about their hardware then I do I'll be done as a Dish customer.

Extended warranties are insurance against the chance that a product will fail after it's initial warranty expires but within it's expected service life. With a Dish PVR product, repeated failures in and out of warranty have proven to be a certainty and that makes buying the extended warranty an act of self defense.

I'm tired of paying to be a Dish beta tester. I'm tired of paying for product QC that I don't get. I'm tired of paying for customer service that isn't.

If a slim-margin, high volume manufacturer like Dell can sell a complete PC that will run 24/7 for years for $499 then Dish can sell us a PVR that will work as advertised out of the box and run reliably for a reasonable length of time but they don't or won't.

As a long time Dish customer I really wish they would get their act together. I'd really rather just mail them a check every month. I'm tired of CSRs who have little or no idea of what they are doing, of having to file "uncommon trend reports" when we all see that the problems are "common trends", of having to RMA receivers too often, and of software "upgrades" that are (too) often "downgrades".

After years of us customers bitching about Dish not offering hardware upgrade deals to it's existing customers they woke up and took care of us ... maybe if we politely bitch Dish will re-evaluate their plans to eliminate the $1.99 per month warranty.

It's only TV and I can live without it.

[SimpleSimon]

What SteveS said - in spades!

[MaintMan]

The problem is heat, and being computer people, we should know how to get the heat out. Read on another site that units are getting hot enough to melt solder on surface mount devices, and that is what is causing failure. What I did was replace the small fan with a cpu fan, with the connector placed on the HD power wires, hence that little fan runs continually. I put a 4 inch fan on top of the receiver and placed the wires on the motherboard connector, so it comes on when necessary. Works fine.

[SteveS]

The problem is heat, and being computer people, we should know how to get the heat out. Read on another site that units are getting hot enough to melt solder on surface mount devices, and that is what is causing failure. What I did was replace the small fan with a cpu fan, with the connector placed on the HD power wires, hence that little fan runs continually. I put a 4 inch fan on top of the receiver and placed the wires on the motherboard connector, so it comes on when necessary. Works fine.

Heat, really? You think?

Of course the problem is heat and you're right on the money. As soon as Dish starts sending me receivers for free I'll invest my time and money finishing the engineering job they botched. I've got lots of fans and the thermocouples for my Fluke test equipment told me long ago that these drives run too hot in chassis but it's not the customer's job to fix Dish's bad (or sloppy) engineering!

You'd think Dish knows exactly how hot these drives run ... wait a minute, Dish does know. There used to be a temp reading in the setup of a 721 but where'd it go? You think Dish removed the temp reading so we'd all buy the $5.99 warranty and they could make some money RMAing receivers?

It has to be more cost effective for Dish to do the job right than to hire more CSRs, to open more phone centers, to replace many STBs under warranty, and then charge us $5.99 per month and lose customers.

Come on Charlie, fair is fair and right is right. Give us the quality that you've been telling us for years that we were getting or give back all your J.D. Power awards cause Dish doesn't deserve them!