My 721 is going nuts, and I was pretty sure it was not recoverable.
So I called Dish, expecting to have to buy a new receiver and argue with them.
The tech said that for a 721 with this problem, they do an out of warranty advance exchange for $20 plus shipping and tax, for a total of $38 or so. I made him repeat it because I couldn't believe that. I was expecting to have to argue and fight and tell them I would cancel if they tried to charge me $500 or something like that.
It's a refurbed unit, but so what? It will be newer than mine and work.
I'm a computer guy and we talked about how these units are put together. He said the 721 and other dish PVRs have an issue where over time the power supply goes bad due to overuse. They don't use server class power supplies, just AT class supplies, and he said that over time, the PS is overloaded by constantly drawing max power, eventually burning it out depending on the quality of the power coming into the unit. I know my house now has horrible power coming from the street, often down at 105v, and very dirty. My old house had hospital grade balanced power for electronics.
Makes sense.
I asked him about going to a 622, and he said that would be $299 and over 30 day wait. He said they don't discount it below that because the demand is too high right now. He also suggested that I not get one at this time anyway, and follow my original plan which was to wait until the fall.
I asked him about the major software problems on the 622 and he was as coy as possible about what he thinks about it, but steered me away from it for a while, calling it a "brand new computer, and you know what that means." He said the vast majority of the problems have shown up on installation, but the other problems were real and hard to fix.
I won't say his name, as honesty might get him reprimanded...
So I called Dish, expecting to have to buy a new receiver and argue with them.
The tech said that for a 721 with this problem, they do an out of warranty advance exchange for $20 plus shipping and tax, for a total of $38 or so. I made him repeat it because I couldn't believe that. I was expecting to have to argue and fight and tell them I would cancel if they tried to charge me $500 or something like that.
It's a refurbed unit, but so what? It will be newer than mine and work.
I'm a computer guy and we talked about how these units are put together. He said the 721 and other dish PVRs have an issue where over time the power supply goes bad due to overuse. They don't use server class power supplies, just AT class supplies, and he said that over time, the PS is overloaded by constantly drawing max power, eventually burning it out depending on the quality of the power coming into the unit. I know my house now has horrible power coming from the street, often down at 105v, and very dirty. My old house had hospital grade balanced power for electronics.
Makes sense.
I asked him about going to a 622, and he said that would be $299 and over 30 day wait. He said they don't discount it below that because the demand is too high right now. He also suggested that I not get one at this time anyway, and follow my original plan which was to wait until the fall.
I asked him about the major software problems on the 622 and he was as coy as possible about what he thinks about it, but steered me away from it for a while, calling it a "brand new computer, and you know what that means." He said the vast majority of the problems have shown up on installation, but the other problems were real and hard to fix.
I won't say his name, as honesty might get him reprimanded...