9241 Receiver Issue

ChrisB3127

Member
Original poster
Dec 24, 2011
14
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NJ
I have a HD PVR, 9241. I was receiving the dreaded error 311 the other night where it would prompt to unplug and replug the receiver in after 1 minute. I decided to do a quick hard drive diagnostics on it. The result said "NO_HARD_DRIVE_FOUND" and then I rebooted the receiver by holding down the power button on the panel. Now, the receiver won't come back up. It looks like it starts to boot normal, the blue & green lights come on. Then, the screen flickers, and the record light lights up and then blinks about once every 3 seconds. The receiver is only passing a black video screen, and the receiver doesn't respond to any button commands. I also tried rebooting it with a USB stick (read this might work on a forum), but it didn't help. Is the hard drive bad preventing the box from coming up or is it toast? I'm hoping I can fix this, since the receiver was fine until the quick HDD diag was run.


Chris
 
Update to my post, I let the receiver sit with the blinking light and black screen for about 6 hours. It magically came back to life with the screensaver screen showing. The box is working fine again.
 
Now would be a good time to subscribe to "Dish Care".......lol

$7 per month and they will replace your 9241 if it fails.
 
Sorry to revive an old thread, I have the same problem after last night, but I haven't been lucky enough to have it come back. Anyone know of a way to clear the NVRAM by grounding out any pins on the circuit board or anything?
 
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I have a Dish ViP612 with a failing hard drive. Playback of some recorded shows would freeze making the receiver unresponsive to any remote or front panel buttons. I found a hidden DST-1, short HDD SMART diagnostics tool. It's accessed via super secret remote codes. No error detected. Yeah! Well maybe my HDD is okay after all and its some other software bug causing the receiver to freeze upon playback.

Remote Buttons to Access Memory Dump Screen and from there the HDD DST-1 and DST-2 diagnostics tools:
Press Menu, 6 (System Setup), 3 (Diagnostics). (but on the ViP612 Diagnostics is 2 not 3)
Within 5 seconds press Info, Browse, Theme.

Google search "Secret Squire DISH receiver master reset" for more codes.

The memory dump screen shows up, a 7x4 grid most filled with numbers and a box on the bottom of the screen with 00000000 and a "Done" button.

After displaying the Memory Dump screen, DST-1 (HDD Short SMART diagnostics) is accessed from here by pressing Pause, 1; and DST-2 (HDD Long SMART Diagnostics) by pressing Pause, 2.

First I ran the short diagnostics without a problem, diagnostics on the HDD showed no error after 2 minutes. Next, I ran the Long diagnostics for 145 minutes, which resulted in an HDD_READ_ERROR . I had to do a hard reset via the power plug, guessing a front panel reset would have done the same thing by holding the power button until it reset. My hard drive must in fact bad. Oh, no!

Therein, my problems started after running DST-2, a flashing RED record light (only 1 TV output not 2 as on a ViP622, etc. thus no TV1 and TV2 red flashing here), a blank screen and an unresponsive remote and front panel buttons.

Some users said to wait 12 hours while still connected (streaming data from you dish) and powered on and it'll stop flashing on its own. Well I did that, waited and waited, it did finally stop one time <12 hours and another >12 hours then I was able to watch TV until the system rebooted for system updates. Back to the red flashing record light, wait again. 12 hours passes still flashing, others suggested sticking a USB stick in front panel port - nothing happened for me, so i continue to wait. Finally, at the nightly download time, the TV screen shows the popup stating that the receiver is about to shutdown for nightly downloads. Asking if you want to do so by selecting Yes or cancelling with Cancel or No. I exited that screen. I'm not sure if used Cancel or No, but I pressed the remote's Menu button and was finally back to seeing the receiver's menu screen and had video playing.

I'd read a post that stated to clear the NVRAM to fix the problem. Thereby, you'd not have to wait forever watching a blank screen and a red flashing record light(s). I went to the Memory Dump screen (Menu, 6, 2 (maybe 3 for you to get to diagnostics), Info, Browse, Theme then I pressed Input aka TV/Video button on the remote to clear my receiver's NVRAM. A popup window shows up indicating that the NVRAM is corrupted and will be cleared on front panel reset (holding power button) or hard reset (remove power plug and wait a minute).

Voila, no more flashing red record light. After the acquiring signal screen was display a different problem arose.

The receiver displayed popup windows indicating partial signal loss and complete signal loss that alternate over and over again. Another reset (via power button hold), once the Acquiring Signal screen showed up I pressed Menu on the remote, nada no response just back to the signal loss screen cycling

Reset again but instead of the using the remote's menu button, I pressed the System Info button on the front panel. I noticed the remote status showing as 'ir' and Rem Addr 1, but didn't think anything about it.

I did a Menu, System Configuration (6), Installation (1), Point Dish (1), Switch test by using the front panel buttons to scroll up and down to the correct menu item then pressing the Select button.. I'm not sure if this setup step was required but as the NVRAM settings had been cleared and signal loss errors showed, it seemed to be the logical thing to do. After the next RESET, a signal was received -- no more signal loss error screens.

No working remote!

Back to the System Info screen, it shows the remote is IR on Rem Addr 1. Hmm, my remote's a UHF remote not IR. I had to reconfigure the receiver to use the UHF remote. (Clearing NVRAM had reset the receiver to an IR remote!)

Configure receiver to use UHF remote:
Press and hold the SAT button on the remote until all lights flash red for the device selects across the top and the SAT button flashes. Press RECORD button 3 times, I was on the System Info screen and see that box 'i' displaying the remote type changes to IR/UHF Pro Band B/Rem Addr 14. The remote now works. Yeah!

Hopefully this will help someone with a stuck, RED flashing front panel indicator, on their Dish ViP612/622/722 DVR or equivalent Bell DVR receiver.

First, wait till receiver's nightly download time arrives to see the blank screen change to display the system shutdown notice. Exit/cancel then using the secret command codes go to the memory dump screen and clear the NVRAM followed by a hard reset.

KaosEngineer

P.S. All my timers were still present as were my old recordings along with, to my amazement, new recordings scheduled during all the time of seeing a RED flashing record light and a blank screen.
 
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