510 keeps resetting itself

[Purogamer]

When I got home this morning (I work nights) I walked past the tv and heard the hard drive spinning like a madman. Now it was 7am so I thought it was a bit late to be downloading the guide, but thought nothing of it. Turned on the box and it hasn't worked right since. It goes through the "Acquiring satellite signal" process, and after a minute gets through the 5th one no matter what satelllite/transponder it decides to look at. After that it does the "Downloading program guide" popup for about 2 seconds, pops up a banner for a tv show (whatever's currently on) and then turns itself off...

It's been doing this all morning. It keeps turning itself back on and trying again. I've pulled the plug multiple times (once for half an hour just because I was sick of it) and it keeps doing it. I've held the power button to reset it (multiple times), that didn't work. I've gone into the menu and run the diagnostics, but it always resets itself when it gets to stage 3 of 8 (Check switches, i believe that's the test i'm thinking of, it's unplugged right now), nothing works.

So it won't give me a picture since it doesn't have any guide info, which i've run across before. However I can't get it to stay off to download it, or keep resetting, or just keep it still for a while to download and have no idea what to do. The hdd works (I can hear it spinning at varied speeds), the fan works, bill is auto-paid, etc...

Doesn't make any sense to me. The new dish tech site says to let it sit but i don't know if letting it reset itself every minute is the same as letting it sit.

I should mention that a storm rolled through last night for about half an hour max, not even a bad storm at all (Of course I lost the signal multiple times, but that's another issue). It was fine when I left it at 10pm to go to work, and the power did NOT go out, and nothing else is acting up.

I just don't know what to do, anyone have any suggestions? I'm going to unplug it all afternoon while I sleep. Plug it back in, let it sit for a while and hopefully it'll download the guide without needing to turn itself on for attention and everything will be back to normal, but I wanted to post this in case that doesn't work. By time I'm at that point, hopefully someone will have some suggestions...

Directv and cable aren't suggestions btw, although i'm considering it...My parents had directv back when it first came out and we never had these problems...and you could tell it where to get it's signal, or change it on the fly and it would actually stay there, something dish still doesn't have...

Thanks, sorry for the rambling but I missed a lot of stuff this morning that I DVR'd the night before.

I believe the software version is 301 but i'm having a hell of a time trying to check it just now...It just downloaded about a week ago...

 

[Frank Jr.]

See if you can get into your recorded events menu. If you can then I don't believe it's your hard drive. Check your signal strength as well, may have gotten water into a connection.

 

[Purogamer]

Still doesn't work...

There is no EPG info, and it refuses to download it, so the DVR menu won't work.

I have a hard time checking the strength, since it takes multiple button presses to enter that part of the menu (don't know why), but at 119, transponder 19 I had 118 signal strength for about 4 seconds before the receiver reset itself

It's got a signal, as it goes through the 5 of 5, but there's got to be something wrong with the hdd...

 

[Purogamer]

I got it to stay off last night and when I came home this morning, the power light was on. Screen was black so I switched the channel and it works again. DVR menu is back, EPG finally downloaded, etc...No local channels for some reason, but everything is fine.

Guess it just needed to sit in recovery mode once I finally got it to actually sit still for a while. Thanks to anyone who looked in and to byrdwatcher for offering some advice.

 

[Purogamer]

07/21/05 - 7am (EST)

It's doing the exact same thing again. Gah. What is this, I get to watch every other day? I guess my bill will be cut in half right charlie?

This is the weirdest thing, and it's doing the "power light on/off" every 30 seconds again. Dish swears this is normal behavior but it can't be. What could it possibly be doing? I know it's not WORKING, that's for sure...

 

[Purogamer]

Ok, after 2.5 days of not working again, it decided to stay off and download the EPG and now it's freaking working again...

I'm going to start cleaning up some of my 380 DVR events and hope the problem stays away. Wonder why it keeps changing it's mind on working or not, very strange how it just needs time to itself. It's like a teenager this thing...

GAH...and to think, 12 hours ago at 3:30am the CSR told me it was hard drive failure...Ha, I knew it wasn't.

This receiver isn't getting turned off at least until the new 510 arrives in 4 days. Then i'll test it by turning it off.

PS: I've seen this problem more since I first posted, but didn't get them from doing searches for anything like my problem. Odd...

 

[KKlare]

How could you get 380 events on a 100-hour disk (510?) unless they average 15 minutes each? Maybe a smiley is needed. Just an : and a ).
I have noticed my son resetting the 501 several times since version 301. I don't remember doing this ever before it.
-Ken

 

[Purogamer]

Well I think the software has something to do with it but dish says of course not...

I record a lot of commercials and smaller things, 1-2 minutes, that's how. I'm just too lazy to clean them off after i'm done with them. I'm taking care of that...

Maybe if the DVR timed this correctly we wouldn't have this problem. Delete a 3 minute event and it adds 7 minutes...Delete something that's 2h16m, it adds 4+ hours...etc...

 

[Matthew M.]

I am having the same exact problem. I originally got my first 510 back in October for my birthday and all was great until it started going out last May with the same problem. They said the hard drive was effectively fried, so (and I lost 100 hours) to replace it with a brand new one. Then last month, it started doing the same thing again. And consistantly since then it's been doing it. Because of that, I don't like turning it off, because that's when the problem seems to happen. One time our power went out and the damn thing didn't work again for another 2 days. Now it's not working again and it's going on 3 days. I am fed up with this. This DVR is only 2 months old, it shouldn't be doing this. I have no idea what to do. I've unplugged it, done everything, but nothing. This is extremely frustrating and if this is going to be the case, well, I will take my business elsewhere.

 

[Purogamer]

I forgot to mention that while i was hooking up other cables to the tv, I pushed the 510 and not realizing it was on the edge, it dropped about 2 feet to the floor, onto it's side. It was in the middle of trying to get a signal, but obviously stopped because it pulled the power cord out of the wall when it went. I thought "who cares, new unit arrives on tuesday"...

Hour later I plugged it back in and it stayed off...I could hear the hdd purring so I left it for a while, turned it on and OMG it was working again!

The only difference (besides the huge jolt it took from the floor, don't repeat that) was that instead of unplugging it when the power was off, it suddenly lost power while it was in the middle of doing something. I think when it got power again, it did some sort of "super" reset and stopped trying to do what it was doing.

I've done so many things to it over the past week that maybe i'm missing what i'm actually doing to fix it, but I just remembered that it lost power suddenly and then worked and wanted to share.

I have no idea what i'm going to do when the new unit arrives since it's refurbished...Replace a now-working unit with one that's failed already...Toss up, ya know...