Sky box knackered?

Johnny Storm

The red light is on, on my old sky box and the other red light will light in response to the remote control but the first red light will not go to green.
Are there any steps a home bodger like myself can take? If not is it economical to try to get it professionally fixed?
I am using this with an old UK card to get UK non-sub channels.
Any help appreciated.

byte

Have you tried unplugging from the mains for a while, then rebooting again?

What make is the box. If above procedure doesn't work, the box has a fault. If it's a Pace 2500, chances are the tuner or a PSU fault.

Johnny Storm

byte wrote:

Have you tried unplugging from the mains for a while, then rebooting again?

What make is the box. If above procedure doesn't work, the box has a fault. If it's a Pace 2500, chances are the tuner or a PSU fault.

Thanks. I have unplugged many times. It is a Pace BSkyB 2500S3. Last night it decided to start working again and worked fine for a few hours with the signal strength about 40% and the quality around 70%. After a while it began freezing/unfreezing and finally stopped altogether showing "No satellite signal is being received".

Is there any way to positively identify a PSU or tuner fault? And if so is it economical to repair them?

This box is connected to the same LNB as my Sky+ box which works perfectly. I connected this older box to one of the aerial leads going to the Sky + and it worked reasonably well but still froze up occasionally.


The cable leading to the old box is very old (at least 10 years, possibly much older). I'm wondering would new cabling improve the situation?

byte

If the cabling is 10 years old, it would be no harm to change it, as it will probably have degraded over that period.

As the box is freezing up and so on, I'm pretty sure it's the tuner that's gone. It was too common a fault with those boxes. Due to the box's age now, I'd personally not bother fixing it, and instead get a newer digibox, which would be faster at EPG and channel navigation.

You could get a newer Skybox second hand. I'd recommend the Pace DS430N, which is pretty reliable, unlike the dire 2200/2500 series.

steveon

If its an old box thats been disconnected for a while have you tried a forced software upgrade??

If not then try the following


1. Unplug the box (the box only) from the mains
2. Wait about a minute
3. Plug back in, while holding the BACKUP button on the FRONT OF THE BOX.
Many people have held the button on the remote, therefore the update will not succeed
4. Wait about 20 seconds, until all 4/5 lights come on the front of the box, then release the backup button.

When the upgrade is complete the box will reset into standby mode, wait a minute and switch on to a more stable software version and hopefully that will solve your problem.

byte

Hmm, not sure if that's sound advice. IF the box is losing signal, it won't do the forced download properly and can do more harm than good.

Johnny Storm

Thanks for all the input.

Actually I did do that forced download a few days ago and it didn't seem to have any effect.

I'll keep an eye on EvilBay for one of those Pace DS430N boxes.
The existing cable has silver coloured braid (aluminium?) not copper so it probably wasn't the best quality to begin with. Also I'd say its about 25-30 metres long so I'd imagine there could be a lot of signal loss.
Could anyone please recommend a good place in south Dublin to get good quality cable, connectors, self-amalgamating tape etc?

byte

Has the cable got a foil of some sort, along with the braid? I'd imagine it's RG6 cable. Not really ideal for satellite signals, though for the most part, it should work.

What's the signal Quality levels like on your Sky+ box out of interest?

Johnny Storm

Yes, it has silvery foil and braid.

On the Sky Plus, Signal strength is 60% on 1 and 2 and signal quality is 90% on 1 and 70-80% on 2. (different cabling and shorter cable run)

Johnny Storm

Just an update: For whatever reason my old box with its old cabling has decided to work 100% perfectly for the last week or so. :rolleyes:
Whaddayagonnado?:D

steveon

Nice1 ....