Sky Plus & Technical Problems

queencakes

Just wondering if there are any other people having problems with sky plus? I bought a sky plus box last Christmas. Happy days for about six months when it started freezing intermittently - very annoying. Eventually it go so bad it was freezing every few seconds and would have to be turned off. Guy from the shop where we got the box came out checked signal etc everything okay so that box was returned to the shop. I was told that the normal procedure was that it had to be returned to sky for repair and we had to wait with nothing in the meantime. I knew the manager quiet well so she agreed to replace it immediately. Fast forward two months and the bloody thing wont record now. If you try to go into the menu where the recorded programmes are "please wait" comes up and nothing else happens. Same thing when you try to pause or record on the menu. Rang sky twice who have rebooted the box works for about one day (badly - wont record properly) and its gone again. I have a feeling this sky plus box is knackered as well and if thats the case I wont be getting a replacement straight away this time.

Anyone else having the same problems? Surely sky dont expect customers to wait months for a repair for a box that is under warranty with nowt and still pay the monthly subscription?

byte

Have you tried Planner Rebuild?

Press Services button, then 4, 0, 1, Select. This should bring you to Installer Menu. Near the bottom are two options - Planner Rebuild and Full Master Reset (or words to that effect).

Choose Planner Rebuild, this trys to defrag the harddrive and can make it more reliable.

THe bottom option, Full Reset, is similar to formatting your hardrive, deleting everything. Don't use this option unless you don't mind losing ALL recordings!

queencakes

Yea, tried all that - housekeeping comes up on the screen and if it was working properly it should go into standby after a few minutes but it just freezes on the screen and you have to plug the box out to get it to start up. I did it yesterday and actually left it for an hour and nothing happened - just housekeeping frozen on the screen.

We can watch sky but cant record anything.

byte

Sounds like harddrive might be on the way out.

Have you tried forced sofware download, whereby you disconnect power from receiver, then hold in Backup button on front of receiver. While holding this button, reconnect power to receiver, and continue to hold Backup button until a line of LED's light up (black "software download" screen will appear on TV screen if connected via Scart).

If that fails, then box (most likely harddrive within) is faulty.

steveon

This isn't the ideal solution to the Sky + box freezing issue but I have found it helps a great deal.

Press services
Press 4
the option 5 Sky + Setup

Switch instant rewind to the off position save..

Now enter the housekeeping ,menu ...do not turn back on instant rewind....any1 I have done this 4 has been delighted...I know the instant rewind feature is handy but I'd rather a more reliable box myself.

queencakes

Thanks Byte, i'll try that.
Just got a feeling the sky plus box is fooked - good thing Prison Break wasn't on last night.
Its gas how dependant we are on it. Normal sky is rubbish after having sky plus. All you can see on the menu are all the programmes you want to record.

A mate of mine told me about turning off the instant rewind to stop the box freezing. Apparently it is effective. If only that was my problem.....................

byte

steveon wrote: »

This isn't the ideal solution to the Sky + box freezing issue but I have found it helps a great deal.

Press services
Press 4
the option 5 Sky + Setup

Switch instant rewind to the off position save..

Now enter the housekeeping ,menu ...do not turn back on instant rewind....any1 I have done this 4 has been delighted...I know the instant rewind feature is handy but I'd rather a more reliable box myself.

Yes, good advice that. I've done that with my own in the past after a few problems. It seemed to help alright. I still ended up having to change the HDD though.

steveon

Wouldnt it be great if the Hard-Drives were in the expansion slots so they could be easily upgraded ....I wonder if the Instant rewind is making the drive's cache memory full all the time which causes the picture to freeze, really getting tired of callbacks due to freezing issues..

MACHEAD

I just upgraded to Sky+ about 2 months ago, as part of the initial set up I canceled instant rewind. I've had to to do this for a number of friends/ colegues, it seems to cause problems after a while. And it seems the occaisional defrag is needed also. Does anybody know of simelar problems with other PVR's or is it just the Sky+ boxes ?

batman2000

In a similar vain to the subject of this thread. How easy is it to repalce the HDD.??

steveon

Its a relatively easy process but do at your own peril, and I wouldnt recommend doing it to a box thats still covered under warranty.


Heres a handy guide to get you started..

http://www.morlocks.co.uk/

byte

Yeah, it's very easy. But you'd need to make sure that the HDD you buy will be compatible with the Sky+ box.

There is a big thread on teh Sky+ forum on DigitalSpy, related to compatible HDD's for various Sky+ makes and revisions.

I have put in a 250GB Samsung V120CE HDD into my Pace PVR3, working great. Just do your research first!

Another good link (though maybe dated now)
http://www.geocities.com/skypluswss/hdd.htm

batman2000

Just to ressurect this thread. I'm trying to find out what HDD my Sky+ will accept box as I reckon it may be on the way out. It's a Pace V6.3.16 and Version 9F2211, EPG 5.07.U. I tried the Planner rebuild but reckon the HDD is knackered, may as well replace the HDD. I found this on Digital Spy but the Pace version is not listed. Can anyone help me out.? Also trying to find a list of suitable HDD

Cheers