Death of a Sky+ Box

[Narnia]

Just wondering what the symptons are? My one appears to have problems on particular channels.At the moment Ch5 and Sky Sports. Is the end nigh?

[Huguenot]

I don't know about Sky+ boxes in particular, but TV channels are broadcast on 'carrier' frequencies.

Sometimes if a connection becomes loose (even fractionally so), it can resonate at the same frequency as the carrier wave of a particular channel. Hence you can lose the odd channel, but not the whole lot.

My first check would be that all the connections twixt box and dish are nice and tight.

[Narnia]

Haven't lost any channels but picture/sound stutters on the two mentioned, some of the time.

[pebbles]

Hi Narnia

Hate to say this but exactly the same happened to us a few months ago. Ch5, fiver and skysports. We asked them to come out to look at it and they said they could do nothing about it and would replace it. They took the original box away.

So basically what i'm saying is ours definitely had died and to warn you that if you have lots of stuff sky plussed - download it onto dvds now before they come out (i had got rid of both the kids for the first day in over a year and literally had my day planned to be spent lying on the sofa all day. Sky arrived at 8am and by 8.45 i was still at home without anything on my sky plus - utterly mortified!!!!)

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news

[ratty]

Google it. There is a simple reset that fixes this problem often. Sky will not tell you it because they prefer to make call out money off you. Have had to do this twice now worked both times!

[Loz]

First reboot the box - turn it off at the mains. wait 30 secs and turn it back on. Sky+ boxes take 3 to 5 mins to reboot. That fixes an amazing amount of problems. (Cue: Roy from the IT Crowd... "Have yer tried turnin' it off and back on yet?")

If that doesn't work you can try a system reset (google it), but you will lose everything on the planner. It essentially reformats the hard disk.

[ratty]

That's the one!

[SeanMacGabhann]

entering that full reset code can take a bit of practice if I recall, but I've done it a few times now

Let us know how you get on Narnia

[Narnia]

Won't try that till the Mrs catches up with recorded tv. You mention a reset 'code' Sean. Where does the code come from?

[Huguenot]

Found this for you Narnia.

For its provenance, please check 'Is there a God' thread... ;-)

So far as I can tell this wouldn't resolve issues with signal interference, but it would resolve a fragmented hard drive (which can cause jumping and skipping in playback).

Check you haven't got an unshielded loudspeaker next to it that could cause interference on particular frequencies (a TV speaker will be shielded, but a hifi speaker may not be).

[wildlife+punk]

does anyone know of anything l can do re a sony vcr and sky+ hd box disagreement, my previous vcr (bush) died and l replaced it with a sony, but although l have changed no wires etc l cannot get any sound from the vcr only picture, l set the sony up with a potable on its own and can get clear picture and sound but when connected back to the set up with sky+ hd box no sound??? thx in hope

[Loz]

Are you connecting with a SCART cable? There might be a bent pin or loose wire. Try a different cable.

[wildlife+punk]

hi loz just tried changing the scart and single pin leads to the ones l used when connecting it to the potable but still no sound?

[ratty]

This happened to me with a JVC VCR. Turned out that it was defaulting to external speakers on the VCR, so check that. Took me weeks to sort it!

[wildlife+punk]

Hi Ratty how do l find out if thats what its doing? wouldn't it have been done the same thing when plugged in the portable? cos it worked fine then but just wont do sound when plugged into the main set up. the other things in the set up are a panasonic dvd recorder, bush dvd player which has now separated itself from the panasonic so l now cant copy disc to disc but that stopped b4 change of vcr, there is also a selector box, the previous vcr worked gr8 till it went into standby now it seems to have hibernated as it wont come out of standby :-( l just want to transfer some tapes to disc so l can clear some of them out.

[kford]

Some channels going slightly blocky and pixellated can mean the dish has been knocked out of kilter by the wind or a bird, for example. This happened to me and I delicately realigned it by hitting it with a plank of wood.

Failing that, reboot it.

Failing that, get Sky to replace it, even if it's out of warranty. The Sale of Goods Act should cover you if it's less than five years' old.

[wildlife+punk]

still no joy with sound on the vcr and l really dont want to have to separate the dvd rec +vcr from the rest as l wouldn't know how to change the main set up again. cant seem to find any other branded cheap vcr's, how l hate technology sometimes.

[Narnia]

Thanks for the link H.

[Narnia]

SeanMacGabhann Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> entering that full reset code can take a bit of

> practice if I recall, but I've done it a few times

> now

>

> Let us know how you get on Narnia

Before this thread was highjacked by someone with a different problem I got some ideas as to what to try. Well I've tried resetting the box but the problem remains. However I still don't understand what you are referring to Sean as what I did was quite simple. What is the reset code please?