Sky Digital freezing

Dublin's Finest · 03-05-2005 7:04pm #1

Ahoy.

My sky digital has been freezing alot over the last week or so. The screen becomes pixelated and occasionally it blacks out completely and won't respond to any button pressing at all.

Plugging it out and in again can bring it back (sometimes) but then it usually goes again. Any advice? Is it just screwed?

weehamster · 03-05-2005 7:15pm

it could be one of 2 things, either the machine has a fault or your dish has moved.

The best thing to do is borrow a sky box from somebody you know and connect it to your dish.
If its fine then your box needs a repair or be replaced.
If the same thing happens to the borrowed sky box, then your dish has moved.

eoinm1 · 03-05-2005 7:15pm

Which Brand of digibox do you have?

Grundig are noted for this type picture problems when the power unit fails.
The best thing to do is check your Signal strength and then get the loan of a friends digibox and see if there is any differance or if you get the pixelation.

See ya,
Eóin

Tony · 03-05-2005 7:55pm

eh 4 things actually could be the LNB or the cable, but your right easiest way is to get another box and try it

weehamster wrote:

it could be one of 2 things, either the machine has a fault or your dish has moved.

The best thing to do is borrow a sky box from somebody you know and connect it to your dish.
If its fine then your box needs a repair or be replaced.
If the same thing happens to the borrowed sky box, then your dish has moved.

quaalude · 26-05-2005 4:17pm

Hi -
I'm having a similar problem to the OP - except with my box it's just Paramount Comedy and E4 that are affected. My signal strength and quality are both over 3 quarters. Is it most likely that my box is knackered? It's a Panasonic, maybe 2 years old. If it is my box, will Sky replace it cheaply, or for free?
Thanks in advance.
q

snaps · 27-05-2005 9:45am

From experience I would say most of those problems are caused by either the dish, lnb or cable.
1st) Try a second reciever first, if that doesn't cure it,
2nd) Try connecting a new piece of cable from the dish to the reciever (If you have some spare, Just fit it loose through windows etc), Then if that doesn't cure it
3rd) check your lnb is clean (Spiders cause a major problem when they set up home in the lnb, Also give the lnb a twist left and right)
4th) Then lastly try moving the dish left and right(Very slowly) and then up and down. I would say the cable may be the problem. Most of the picture breakups I have seen here in the west is due to water getting in cables, Bad kinks, or broken cables, Sometimes the connections into the F Connectors are bad.

Paul007 · 28-05-2005 9:02pm

I've had the exact same problem lately and it seems to be getting worse.
At first some of the music channels went but I wasn't too concern about them.
Now E4 won't work and with the heavy rain the other day all the channels froze and I had to keep rebooting the box.
Now anytime it rains the picture goes bad.

My neighbour has some tall trees in his back garden that are directly in the dishes path, would this be the problem?

Signal strength is about 60% but quality is only about 10%.

Tony · 29-05-2005 12:58pm

Paul007 wrote:

My neighbour has some tall trees in his back garden that are directly in the dishes path, would this be the problem?

Signal strength is about 60% but quality is only about 10%.

Could well be the problem

MyPerfectCousin · 30-05-2005 3:27pm

Tony wrote:

Could well be the problem

Any ideas on my similar problem?

1) New dish install in winter with no leaves on trees; springtime comes and signal quality goes down gradually to nothing and horrible to zero reception, due apparently to leaves on trees
2) Dish is moved after 2nd installer finds (with difficulty) a spot where a good enough signal is poking through the leaves.
3) After three weeks, picture gradually degrades to to useless again and signal quality is 0-10%
4) Remove nearest branch, quaility improves for 12 hours then goes bad again
5) Remove several large branches, quality improves to 25-65% range for about 6 hours, then returns to 0-10% with only a few channels watchable

All this time, the signal strength is 75-90%. Just the quality is impossible to maintain.

Why the temporary improvements, only to revert? The branches/leaves are not re-attching themselves to the trees!!

Zaphod · 30-05-2005 3:57pm

Signal strength is often irrelevant. If you point a dish at the ground or place your hand in front of an LNBF, a standard sat signal strength meter will go crazy. It's just a measure of noise. That's why the quality level is so important.

It's strange that you're seeing the quality fall to zero over the space of a few hours. Have you tried unplugging the receiver for 24 hours and then plugging it in again?

MyPerfectCousin · 30-05-2005 4:58pm

Zaphod wrote:

It's strange that you're seeing the quality fall to zero over the space of a few hours. Have you tried unplugging the receiver for 24 hours and then plugging it in again?

No, only for a couple of minutes. (THe Sky FAQ said after signal degradation due to poor weather, unplug and reset after one minute). I'll try the 24 hours.

Sky Digital freezing

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