Voomless for the weekend??

[MattP-bgsu]

Strange thing happened today. My box froze up on me while scanning the program guide. So I rebooted, and when I did it will only acknoledge the local channels, and none of the satellite channels. I tried rebooting a couple times but nothing changed, so I called voom. They had me disconnect the satellite cable, and unplug box, then rehook everything up, but nothing changed. So now I have a service call for monday afternoon to try a new box. I really don't care much, except for sunday night tv which at my house is six feet under and dead like me. I hope this works so monday things can get back to normal, and I can catch replays of the shows that I am missing. Any other ideas, please let me know.

 

[Ilya]

So, what happens when you tune to channel 100 or 999?

 

[Sean Mota]

Ilya,

if his satellite channels do not show up at all, couldn't he try to reset the box to factory default to see if the mapping gets corrected.

 

[Ilya]

I was about to suggest that, but first we need to make sure (somehow) that there is a satellite signal coming from the dish. Factory Reset without a satellite signal can messup everything even more! On the other hand, if there is nothing to lose, why not?

 

[devildogg]

This is the same thing that happened to one of my boxes the other day. I'm also waiting on a replacement Monday. It appears the the power supply from the stb is not powering the LNB. That would account for the zero signal strength. When you punch in channel 100, it comes up "100 unavailable". I was changing the channels quickly when this occured. Use caution, 6.20 did not solve lockups due to quick channel changes.

Regards

 

[devildogg]

This is the same thing that happened to one of my boxes the other day. I'm also waiting on a replacement Monday. It appears the the power supply from the stb is not powering the LNB. That would account for the zero signal strength. When you punch in channel 100, it comes up "100 unavailable". I was changing the channels quickly when this occured. Use caution, 6.20 did not solve lockups due to quick channel changes.

Regards

 

[Ilya]

It appears the the power supply from the stb is not powering the LNB.

That's easy to check if you have a tester. Just connect a short coax cable to the satellite input of the STB and check the voltage between the center wire and the surface of the plug. It should be between 13 and 18 volts DC.

If you have given up on the box anyway, try the Factory Reset. What do you have to lose?

 

[tdillon]

I also can get my STB to lock up still using 6.20. It happens usually when jumping quickly over 252 to 261, just letting it tune and then quickly jumping to 262. My box will freeze and I require a reboot.

Could my LNB be having problems switching from Left to Right or vice versa?

EDITOR NOTE:
Two of the most often misused words on message forums are LOOSE and LOSE.

LOOSE is used when tying a rope, you may want the knot to be LOOSE.

LOSE is used when something becomes lost.

I would appreciate it if people could learn the difference.

 

[Ilya]

Two of the most often misused words on message forums are LOOSE and LOSE.

Thanks tdillon! This is one of those mistakes that I make all the time and spell-checkers never catch...

As for rapid channel switching, at which rate do you need to switch channels to get a lockup?

 

[tdillon]

My guess is about 2 channels per second. If you switch faster than this then the box isn't really changing the channels yet, it is waiting for you to quit hitting the channel change button. If you switch slower than this then the box does change channels, and you really should let it "settle" on the channel before moving on. In case this matters, I am using the STB DVI output to my Sony Grand Wega. Using the DVI connection there may be more "handshaking" going on that contributes to the problem. It seems to always happen around the magic channel 261. I think that there is another channel that has the opposite polarity also, but I can't recall what channel that is.