Sky Satellite probs

-Toppy-

Alright,
My dad is having a problem with a sky box/setup that he inherited when I moved out from home.

Basically he can be watching any channel, and all of a sudden the channel looses its quality etc for a spilt second, its almost like lag/latency loss on the the picture. It looks like a tearing of the picture on screen would be the best way to describe it,

The sky box should be alright but I have the sys details anyway
Manufacture: Pace
Model : 2.1.13
Version : 9f0402
Serial : 0037146014
Viewing Card (i dont think ya need that (could be wrong))
OS Version : 1.254f1
EGP Soft ver. 3.2.11

That tell anything to anyone?
Check his satellite strenght as well, it seems fine,

Any thoughts before he dumps sky?

-Toppy-

Greenman

Is the box well ventilated?

-Toppy-

in a word
Yup!
-Toppy-

Greenman

Well Toppy,
It sounds like the tuner is on the way out, how old is the box? is it happening alot? If it dies ring $ky and tell them you are cancelling because the box died and hope you get a new box.
Is that any good???

watty

Could be dish alignment or a rook perching on the LNB arm too.

Check your signal and quality bargraphs. Though this is not a foolproof guide.

-Toppy-

I might try my own box, I have the newer PACE and if the same happens we can pretty much rule out the box, How can I check the alignment properly??
-Toppy-

carrolls

does it happen on all channels or just on a particular channel?

-Toppy-

All channels,
Going to try the other box over the weekend, Ill try and take a pic of it too but I dont know I will catch it
-Toppy-

-Toppy-

Well it looks like its his box/card
I plugged in my box and it worked away fine.
So whats my next step? Do I have to go away and buy a new box? Or could it be the card thats in trouble?

Any suggestions?
-Toppy-

watty

the boxes can be repaired. Ususually either with a new tuner or a PSU reliability upgrade kit.

It won't be a card problem, unless it is saying "Please insert viewing card"

-Toppy-

Ok so its not a card prob and its not a reciever prob
So just into a decent tv repair shop, describe the problem and ask them how much? Or is there any other methods?
-Toppy-

IrishRover

If it only happens some times, how can you say conclusively that it's the box by swapping it for another unless you test it over an extended period of time?

The picture breaking up like that (is it freezing and/or becoming pixellated with boxes of mostly solid colour appearing?) would be caused by a weakness of signal I would have thought. Do you know whether the problem happens more often when there is wind or rain? If so, the dish is most likely out of alignment or the brackets holding it in place could be loose.

halkar

-Toppy- try opening the box and get the dust out of it. You be surprised how much dust gets in these boxes. I cleaned out some of my friends boxes and many problems they had disapeared, mostly the heat problems. Might not work but worth trying.