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Does DTV *ever* repair and return a DVR?

7K views 64 replies 18 participants last post by  Rich 
#1 ·
At 11:59 last night, my HR23 converted itself from a DVR into a paperweight. No lights, no sound, nothing. Seems pretty likely a case of a power supply dying. (Happy birthday!)

When I call for service, they will presumably offer to replace it, at which point a couple hundred hours of movies, TV shows, and football games on external drives become relics from the past never to be seen again.

Given the likely simplicity of the repair, I'm wondering if anyone has ever known of DTV repairing a DVR and returning it to the customer.

Thanks for any input here.

ETA - The DTV CSR is sending me out a replacement power cord. (See below.) That raises the question - is there any reason for me not to get a cord at the local electronics store rather than wait until Tuesday or Wednesday? Or is there something special and mystically magic about the cords that come with the DVRs? Thanks.
 
#28 ·
cigar95 said:
Since it's a leased unit, there's no fixing the PS - regrettably.
Yeah, that's true, but I've got a friend with what I think is a bad power supply in his 24-500 and he owns it and likes it and has a bunch of content he doesn't want to lose, so he'd like to fix it and we just can't find any 24-500 power supplies anywhere.

Rich
 
#29 ·
Rich said:
If he wanted to fix it, where would he get the proper power supply? I can't find them anywhere. Weaknees has them for TiVos, but not HRs.

Rich
Since you own receivers I can give you some ideas. To the OP though since it's leased you would violate the lease agreement and could be subject to fees.

A good place to get replacement parts are leased receivers that people abandon or sell to pawn shops that don't know any better. If you can find one that should be returned but the people clearly indicate they never will then you can use those for parts.

I have a friend who cleans out houses that are foreclosed and he probably gets at least 2 houses a month with TV providers equipment in it. So if you know anyone who does things like that you might be able to find some that way as well.

I know you're partial to the HR20 -700 and since they're no longer recoverable these will be good parts machines after people are done with them as they are not required to be returned.
 
#30 ·
Shades228 said:
Since you own receivers I can give you some ideas. To the OP though since it's leased you would violate the lease agreement and could be subject to fees.

A good place to get replacement parts are leased receivers that people abandon or sell to pawn shops that don't know any better. If you can find one that should be returned but the people clearly indicate they never will then you can use those for parts.
I guess I'll tell him to keep an eye on his local Craigslist. I'll do the same here. We don't have any pawn shops in our area. At least none such as I've seen in other states. I just Googled it and came up with a bunch of thrift stores and another bunch of gold buyers. Shame, I really like browsing in a good pawn shop. Maybe I'll take a ride to the City.

I have a friend who cleans out houses that are foreclosed and he probably gets at least 2 houses a month with TV providers equipment in it. So if you know anyone who does things like that you might be able to find some that way as well.
Don't know anyone who does that, but I'll look for someone.

I know you're partial to the HR20 -700 and since they're no longer recoverable these will be good parts machines after people are done with them as they are not required to be returned.
Good point, doesn't help my friend, tho. I kinda doubt a PS for a 20-700 would work in a 24. Don't really know, just an assumption.

Rich
 
#31 ·
Rich said:
I guess I'll tell him to keep an eye on his local Craigslist. I'll do the same here. We don't have any pawn shops in our area. At least none such as I've seen in other states. I just Googled it and came up with a bunch of thrift stores and another bunch of gold buyers. Shame, I really like browsing in a good pawn shop. Maybe I'll take a ride to the City.

Don't know anyone who does that, but I'll look for someone.

Good point, doesn't help my friend, tho. I kinda doubt a PS for a 20-700 would work in a 24. Don't really know, just an assumption.

Rich
It wouldn't but it was more of a side comment for you since I know they hold a special place in your entertainment center.
 
#32 ·
While we're out of rescue mode and recovery mode and now into replace mode, I'll just add that they've confirmed that a 23-700 is headed my way. At least it's the exact model I'm used to.

And the frustrating thing is that I would have within my grasp the very power supply I need to get my old machine operational again.

Some of you might remember that last summer I had a lengthy thread that led to my discovery of how to transfer individual recordings between a pair of HDDs. When the new machine arrives, I may do a couple of experiments to see about transferring recordings from the old drive to the new drive. (Both external)

While I realize that everything we know says this is not possible because recordings are tied to the individual unit, I'll see if it's possible that the encoding is part of the meta-data rather than the recorded data itself. If that were the case, I might be able to make a recording of Oprah at 2pm on a Monday afternoon, then replace the underlying recording data with the same data from USC-Oregon 2011. If my long-shot hypothesis were true, that day's Oprah show would look a lot like a 38-35 football game decided on a game-ending missed field goal.

And I also realize it's more likely that it will look a lot like an error message.
 
#33 ·
Shades228 said:
It wouldn't but it was more of a side comment for you since I know they hold a special place in your entertainment center.
Figures. He has a lot of content that was recorded on that one HR and it's gonna be lost if he can't fix the PS, which we just think is the problem. Sometimes I wonder how I get involved in these things. I told him a year ago that he needed a couple more HRs instead of putting it all on one HR, but he was convinced the 24s would last forever.

Yes, I do like and trust the 20-700s, but I use them mostly as servers now. They seem to do that very dependably. After buying six of them to use as replacements, I've only had to replace a couple HRs and got new 24s. My plans and D*'s plans never seem to work in my favor. As soon as I bought the six 20-700s, D* finally got them stabilized and I spent all that money (including 2TB HDDs for each one) and I could have saved a good portion of that money.

Rich
 
#34 ·
cigar95 said:
While we're out of rescue mode and recovery mode and now into replace mode, I'll just add that they've confirmed that a 23-700 is headed my way. At least it's the exact model I'm used to.

And the frustrating thing is that I would have within my grasp the very power supply I need to get my old machine operational again.

Some of you might remember that last summer I had a lengthy thread that led to my discovery of how to transfer individual recordings between a pair of HDDs. When the new machine arrives, I may do a couple of experiments to see about transferring recordings from the old drive to the new drive. (Both external)

While I realize that everything we know says this is not possible because recordings are tied to the individual unit, I'll see if it's possible that the encoding is part of the meta-data rather than the recorded data itself. If that were the case, I might be able to make a recording of Oprah at 2pm on a Monday afternoon, then replace the underlying recording data with the same data from USC-Oregon 2011. If my long-shot hypothesis were true, that day's Oprah show would look a lot like a 38-35 football game decided on a game-ending missed field goal.

And I also realize it's more likely that it will look a lot like an error message.
Never hurts to try something no one else thinks will work. You sound like you know what you're doing, I wish you luck. Not that I really understood a word of your penultimate (damn, I've been waiting for years to use that word) paragraph..... :lol:

Rich
 
#35 ·
Rich, your next goal should be to work in the word "ante-penultimate".

(The rest of my post had to be removed - it had drifted into unallowed territory.)

Oh, forgot to add - DTV offered me three free months of HBO for my trouble. No doubt they're hoping I'll forget to cancel when my free time runs out.
 
#36 ·
cigar95 said:
Rich, your next goal should be to work in the word "ante-penultimate".

(The rest of my post had to be removed - it had drifted into unallowed territory.)

Oh, forgot to add - DTV offered me three free months of HBO for my trouble. No doubt they're hoping I'll forget to cancel when my free time runs out.
Can't find a definition of that. Now I'm curious. Found it, "second to last". Didn't know that, thanx.

Rich
 
#37 ·
cigar95 said:
But now I wonder if the power supply may not be the whole issue either. If I look in through the grate, I can see that about once per second, the fan makes a small pulse, like it's trying to turn. This stops when I unplug the cord.

So the unit is getting *some* power. The PS may indeed be fatally wounded, but it isn't dead. (For those of you who were fans of '24', this may bring to memory the famous line "You're either dead, or you're not dead. there's no such thing as 'sorta dead'."
My HR23-700 is doing the same thing now...no lights, no HD noise, but the fan stutters every so slightly...

When I called for a replacement, they told me I don't have to send the broken one back, so I might try to repair it

Did you ever "fix" yours?
 
#38 ·
loveshockey said:
My HR23-700 is doing the same thing now...no lights, no HD noise, but the fan stutters every so slightly...

When I called for a replacement, they told me I don't have to send the broken one back, so I might try to repair it

Did you ever "fix" yours?
Wow, zombie thread!

Nope, my unit had to be returned, so there was no way to try going Frankenstein on it. Maybe your replacement will be my old unit with a new power supply - wouldn't THAT be a weird one.

I still have a bunch of content on my HDDs that can't play, but I can't bear to delete. I hang on to this vague fantasy that somehow I'll figure out a way to get it to play, even though everything we know says that's not possible.
 
#39 ·
loveshockey said:
My HR23-700 is doing the same thing now...no lights, no HD noise, but the fan stutters every so slightly...

When I called for a replacement, they told me I don't have to send the broken one back, so I might try to repair it

Did you ever "fix" yours?
I've actually replaced several power supply boards in 24s. I think the 23s have the same setup as the 24s in regard to the power supplies and they can be replaced. But why bother? I'd get rid of that dreadful 23 and step up to a 24 or a Genie.

Rich
 
#40 ·
cigar95 said:
Wow, zombie thread!

Nope, my unit had to be returned, so there was no way to try going Frankenstein on it. Maybe your replacement will be my old unit with a new power supply - wouldn't THAT be a weird one.

I still have a bunch of content on my HDDs that can't play, but I can't bear to delete. I hang on to this vague fantasy that somehow I'll figure out a way to get it to play, even though everything we know says that's not possible.
A lot of us have been hanging on to the idea that someday D* will allow us to use any HDD on any HR within an account. Seems so simple, yet we've been ignored for years. Meanwhile, we've suffered thru some terrible periods because people wanted changes made for other reasons. For instance, the DLB issue was discussed for a very long time in a sticky thread and all the people that wanted them got them. And the rest of us suffered. I can't begin to imagine what kind of problems the HDD issue would cause or how long it would take D* to get that working correctly. We really have to be careful what we wish for.

Rich
 
#41 ·
Rich said:
A lot of us have been hanging on to the idea that someday D* will allow us to use any HDD on any HR within an account. Seems so simple, yet we've been ignored for years. Meanwhile, we've suffered thru some terrible periods because people wanted changes made for other reasons. For instance, the DLB issue was discussed for a very long time in a sticky thread and all the people that wanted them got them. And the rest of us suffered. I can't begin to imagine what kind of problems the HDD issue would cause or how long it would take D* to get that working correctly. We really have to be careful what we wish for.

Rich
Rich, I wasn't part of that detailed discussion, although I remember the longing for DLB.

Are you saying that the implementation of DLB messed up other things that already worked, or that the time and effort that went into that feature took away from work that could have been done on other aspects of the system that were of more interest to other customers?

It seems odd that DTV has left the external HDD hanging as a working-but-unsupported feature for so many years without doing anything about it.
 
#42 ·
Rich said:
I've actually replaced several power supply boards in 24s. I think the 23s have the same setup as the 24s in regard to the power supplies and they can be replaced. But why bother? I'd get rid of that dreadful 23 and step up to a 24 or a Genie.

Rich
cause I cant remember what series links i have on it or what shows are on it

hoping to repair and get access to all of it as long as it doesn't reformat once I repair
 
#43 ·
cigar95 said:
Rich, I wasn't part of that detailed discussion, although I remember the longing for DLB.

Are you saying that the implementation of DLB messed up other things that already worked, or that the time and effort that went into that feature took away from work that could have been done on other aspects of the system that were of more interest to other customers?

It seems odd that DTV has left the external HDD hanging as a working-but-unsupported feature for so many years without doing anything about it.
The implementation of DLBs really screwed things up, much as the HD Guide did.

I think we are better off with the eSATA feature being unsupported. We know what works now and I don't think we want D* telling us or suggesting what we have to use. They've already made suggestions that I disagree with.

Rich
 
#44 ·
loveshockey said:
cause I cant remember what series links i have on it or what shows are on it

hoping to repair and get access to all of it as long as it doesn't reformat once I repair
If you change out power supplies the 23 shouldn't reformat. Check out 23s on eBay and find one that's for parts and if the price is right and the seller says it works or at least the front panel comes on, you should find a working PS inside it. Swapping out a 24's is actually quite simple, never tried it with a 23. I should also comment on the 24-100s: I don't see how to easily swap out PSs on them. The 24-500s are quite simple to fix. I've had a couple 24-200s open and it looks like an easy swap there too. Even putting a 2TB drive in a 24-100 is hard.

Rich
 
#45 ·
Rich said:
If you change out power supplies the 23 shouldn't reformat. Check out 23s on eBay and find one that's for parts and if the price is right and the seller says it works or at least the front panel comes on, you should find a working PS inside it. Swapping out a 24's is actually quite simple, never tried it with a 23. I should also comment on the 24-100s: I don't see how to easily swap out PSs on them. The 24-500s are quite simple to fix. I've had a couple 24-200s open and it looks like an easy swap there too. Even putting a 2TB drive in a 24-100 is hard.

Rich
located one, but the guy says the fan works, but thats about it...

what's your opinion on the viability of the PS?
 
#46 ·
loveshockey said:
located one, but the guy says the fan works, but thats about it...

what's your opinion on the viability of the PS?
Ask him if the front panel lights come on when it's powered up. If not, don't buy it. The fan gets it's power from a connection on the motherboard, not the PS.

Rich
 
#47 ·
Ask him if the front panel lights come on when it's powered up. If not, don't buy it. The fan gets it's power from a connection on the motherboard, not the PS.

Rich
Right, but that only indicates the motherboard is bad, not the power supply. The fan still has to get the power from the PS, it just goes though the MB. Otherwise the fan wouldn't work either.
 
#48 ·
LOL, just occurred to me in regards to the OP, that if a (if they still did it) Plutonium level customer wanted an HDDDVR fixed instead of replaced, DirecTV might find a way to do it, especially if they are already doing it for the top officers and stockholders of the company.


RHIP
 
#49 ·
I have "repaired" several DirecTV receivers with just such symptoms. As it turned out, there was nothing wrong with the power supply BUT the plastic connector that the power cord plugs into came loose from the circuit board due to poor soldering and also poor anchoring of the connector. A few solder tracks on a circuit board are no match for someone forcefully shoving in a power cord or yanking it out. Both of these scenarios were with "reconditioned" receivers I got from DirecTV. That was probably the reason they were returned. On the test bench for just a few minutes the connector probably made contact so out the door they went.

If you are handy with a soldering iron and working with circuit boards it's possible your problem can be fixed. To see if this is the issue, wiggle the power cord with the unit on and see if it fails. If it does and you do not want to tackle it yourself a local fixit shop can probably patch it up.
 
#50 ·
harperhometheater said:
Right, but that only indicates the motherboard is bad, not the power supply. The fan still has to get the power from the PS, it just goes though the MB. Otherwise the fan wouldn't work either.
You'd think so, but I've seen things differently. The HDDs will also spin with a bad PS. I don't pretend to know why, I just know what I've seen and I've seen both the fan spin (they won't come fully up to speed, but they do spin a bit) and the HDD spin and the front panel lights were out. Replacing the PS made the HR work properly again. In other words, there was nothing wrong with the motherboard.

Rich
 
#51 ·
gov said:
LOL, just occurred to me in regards to the OP, that if a (if they still did it) Plutonium level customer wanted an HDDDVR fixed instead of replaced, DirecTV might find a way to do it, especially if they are already doing it for the top officers and stockholders of the company.

RHIP
Dream on.

Rich
 
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