[greenwave]

Bought and installed Netgear powerline ethernet adapters last Friday, and networked the HR20 to my Viiv enabled Dell PC. The PC "saw" the HR20, and the HR20 was connected to the network and the internet, but it never showed that it was accessing my music and photo files.

Left town the following morning (Sat) for the Xmas holiday, and returned last night (Tues 12/26) only to find that my HR20 was off and could not be powered up. When I unplugged and let sit for a while and replugged the blue power light would come on, albeit very faintly, I could hear faint whining and whirring of the hard drive, but after 5-10 seconds the power light went out and the hard drive stopped trying to get going. Tried disconnecting power and reconnecting (without the network cable connected) several times to no avail. We had a house/dog sitter who was staying in the house, she says the DVR didn't work when she arrived at the house Sat afternoon, we had no bad storms and there were no power outages (and all clocks and other elec devices were still set and unblinking when we got home last night).

To its credit D* customer service immediately offered to send me a new HR20, which supposedly will arrive tomorrow (can't ask for better than 2-day service for a replacement).

So here is the key question: did having the network cable connected through the powerline adapter fry my HR20? The timing is awfully coincidental. I would like to avail myself of the networking capability, but am afraid that even if I hardwire the connection that I could trigger this problem again.

Anybody else having this problem? Earl, is this a known issue for D*?

I searched last night and saw a couple of posts that seemed like similar problems but there was little follow up. One of the posts was from lamontcranston, who supposedly was getting a replacement. LC, did you get your replacement? Is it networked and working? Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[Earl Bonovich]

I have had my network port connected since August.
And the jack has always been "powered", and detected traffic (you can see that by the lights on the jack on the HR20).

It may not have been "communicating" with anything, but the RJ45 was live and getting the "voltage" on the ethernet connection.

So I don't think it was your network connection that "fried" your unit.

At worst, "maybe" some how some way, a spike when through and it would fry your network "port" on the HR20, but I can't see enough power comming over the connection to fry the whole box... but then again, I don't know the spects on those powerline adapters, but I would highly expect them to be designed in a way to not pass a voltage spike over the RJ-45 connection.

 

[greenwave]

Thanks for responding Earl. And I know you know this, but your time and energy spent helping others here is much appreciated.

Do you think this was likely just a freak defect, then?

 

[Earl Bonovich]

Thanks for responding Earl. And I know you know this, but your time and energy spent helping others here is much appreciated.

Do you think this was likely just a freak defect, then?

No problem.

Not sure what could have caused (or the other "rash" of suddenly can't boot issues). Not sure if it is software related, hardware, or just a really bad coincidence of events.

 

[Stuart Sweet]

Good morning, greenwave.

I had a very similar experience to yours, but the network line wasn't run yet. The good news for you is that D* was true to their word. I got my replacement which even included a new remote (the RC34, so new that no one seems to know about it but people here) and an HDMI cable. The new DVR has been up 9 days. There was one Black Screen Bug but it was quickly dispatched.

As far as power surges through a network line, whether or not it is through a powerline adapter: well, I'd say anything is possible, but I'd say you are more likely to have problems through your power cable than through your network line. Right now there's another thread open about possible lightning strikes through the antenna line, but I'd say that's a negligible concern as well.

At this point I'm not so sure what did in my first HR20. There seemed to be an increase in defective units on this forum in the week after version 0x10b went active, but there's no definite link to the software. Here are some theories which have been floating around in my head:

-Original manufacturing run had some defects manifest themselves in 4-5 months of average use

-Turning on the ATSC tuners and networking caused devices which were already failing to crash the system, since they were now being tested by the OS

-Increase in the number of failures could be simply because more HR20s are being put in. Maybe it's a common Christmas gift, and if there are more out there, and the failure rate is the same, that means more bricks. This site's google ranking means that if someone searches for HR20, they will get this site in the first couple hits. So problems will be reported here.

-Change in the humidity and barometric pressure in many parts of the country mean that there's more static and more power surges.

-Plain dumb luck. Don't discount it.

I spent the first couple of days afraid to do anything with my new HR20, because I didn't want it failing over the long weekend. I'm beginning to trust it, and I may even run the network line this weekend.

I was treated fairly and honestly by D*, they solved the problem to my satisfaction thus far and I can't complain.

 

[greenwave]

Thanks lamontcranston. In the 3 months I've had the box I have never had the BSOD bug, fortunately, only had one partial (and I'm not even sure of that!), and two trick play freeze up/reboot issues, so I am sad to see the box go, it has been good to me. But I am very glad to hear that your replacement has served you well (knocking on wood for you). I'll dutifully report back on mine, and would appreciate it, if you decide to run the network cable this weekend, if you'll let me know how it works out for you.

Best regards, and happy holidays to you, and Earl too.

 

[Starrbuck]

My HR20 has been connected to a powerline ethernet since the new update arrived and it continues to work fine.