722, keep it or send it back ... ?

wormil

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Aug 30, 2008
522
259
North Carolina
The other day our 722 receiver was making noise, sounded like the hard drive running constantly, and the next morning it was DOA. I tried rebooting and unplugging for a minute, didn't work. Called tech support, they had me do some troubleshooting, no-go. They ship me a replacement. My wife comes home, plugs it in and for 3 days now it's working fine and quieter than it's ever been. Considering what a PITA it is reprogram the DVR, I'm thinking I'll keep it and send the replacement back. Thoughts or advice?
 
I doubt it'll be good for long. But the replacement may not be much better. Those HDDs are aging. I expect their supply of new ones ran out years ago.

Whichever one you keep, once it goes- look at a Hopper. Or whatever is new on the street then.
 
My 722 was always noisy but it worked perfectly for years until I bought a new Sony Bravia 4K TV. The 722 did not behave well with the new TV. Constantly rebooting and resetting itself. I ended up having to downgrade to a 612, which due to different software than the 722, works fine with my Bravia.
 
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The other day our 722 receiver was making noise, sounded like the hard drive running constantly, and the next morning it was DOA. I tried rebooting and unplugging for a minute, didn't work. Called tech support, they had me do some troubleshooting, no-go. They ship me a replacement. My wife comes home, plugs it in and for 3 days now it's working fine and quieter than it's ever been. Considering what a PITA it is reprogram the DVR, I'm thinking I'll keep it and send the replacement back. Thoughts or advice?

I had the fan fail on my 1st 722. It sporadically put up a plain screen saying it was too hot, and refused to do anything. Have you seen any of those messages? I went to Micro Center, bought a suitable fan for $9, and (since I own this receiver) fixed that problem myself. That fix lasted for 3 or 4 more years and then it developed a bizarre channel authorization problem. DIRT replaced the receiver for me, and the 2nd 722 has been good for years more.

If you do decide to replace it, which I recommend, I'd suggest doing these two things:
  1. Get an EHD and move all the programs on the internal disk to external so that you'll have them to watch on your replacement receiver.
  2. Go to http://dishanywhere.com and make a paper copy of your timers so that you'll know what you had before.
 
And when the next failure occurs, the Hopper may well be cheaper. Or DIRT might help lower the price.
 
No error messages at all. The 722 has always been noisy, but it got extra noisy for about 24 hours and I woke up to a black screen no error message. I rebooted, unplugged, etc. But it's quieter now than it's ever been.

Sent from my KFGIWI using Tapatalk
 
According to the email I have 30 days to return the defective unit so I'm going to wait a few more days and see what happens. In the meantime I'll back recordings up to an external drive and print out a list of dvr timers.
 
The other day our 722 receiver was making noise, sounded like the hard drive running constantly, and the next morning it was DOA. I tried rebooting and unplugging for a minute, didn't work. Called tech support, they had me do some troubleshooting, no-go. They ship me a replacement. My wife comes home, plugs it in and for 3 days now it's working fine and quieter than it's ever been. Considering what a PITA it is reprogram the DVR, I'm thinking I'll keep it and send the replacement back. Thoughts or advice?
I have had this happen several times before. (The old receiver started working again before I got the replacement.) Each time, I sent the replacement back to Dish and kept using the old receiver. I agree with you about it being a pain to set up a new receiver from scratch.

If you keep using the old receiver until it completely dies, Dish may be offering a better replacement receiver by then. I had a ViP211 (non-k) die and start working again, so I sent the replacement ViP211 (non-k) back. When this ViP211 died the second time, many years later, I got a ViP211k as the replacement. :)
 
My 722 was always noisy but it worked perfectly for years until I bought a new Sony Bravia 4K TV. The 722 did not behave well with the new TV. Constantly rebooting and resetting itself. I ended up having to downgrade to a 612, which due to different software than the 722, works fine with my Bravia.
My sister had the opposite experience with her TV. After I switched her from a Hopper to a ViP612 to save money, she had so many problems with the ViP612 (I tried more than one.) that I got Dish to give her a free upgrade to a ViP722k, which does not have any of the problems she experienced with the ViP612.
 
My sister had the opposite experience with her TV. After I switched her from a Hopper to a ViP612 to save money, she had so many problems with the ViP612 (I tried more than one.) that I got Dish to give her a free upgrade to a ViP722k, which does not have any of the problems she experienced with the ViP612.

Mine was the VIP722, not the 722k. For some reason. Dish could not guarantee that they'd send me a 722k as a replacement, even though the 722k has been confirmed not to have the problems with Sony Bravias. No matter. The 612 has worked great.
 
Update. I returned the replacement and kept the old 722. I don't want to go through the trouble of reprogramming timers into old technology. If I'm going to do that it will be into something newer that can do HD on more than one TV. But I think more and more about cutting the cord.

Sent from my Moto G (4) using Tapatalk
 
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Good to hear that your original 722 has continued to operate for these last 2 months. I'll probably be cutting the cord too when my 722 finally dies.
 
My 722 was always noisy but it worked perfectly for years until I bought a new Sony Bravia 4K TV. The 722 did not behave well with the new TV. Constantly rebooting and resetting itself. I ended up having to downgrade to a 612, which due to different software than the 722, works fine with my Bravia.
Not such an uncommon problem. The Sony 4K TVs seem to have some sort of HDMI or HDCP issue with the 722, after upgrading to Marshmallow every time I would turn on the Sony my 722 would reboot and go through the whole searching for satellites routine. Interrupted many of a recording when I turned on the TV. Finally bit the bullet and upgraded to a Hopper 3. Happy camper with the 16 tuners.
 
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One other thing, I've found that if I keep my free space at 35+ HD hours the 722 stays quiet. At 30 hours it whines about once a day, always during the evening (go figure) when we are watching television. At 25 hours free it whines frequently and below 25 hours free it makes noise almost constantly.
 
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Not such an uncommon problem. The Sony 4K TVs seem to have some sort of HDMI or HDCP issue with the 722, after upgrading to Marshmallow every time I would turn on the Sony my 722 would reboot and go through the whole searching for satellites routine. Interrupted many of a recording when I turned on the TV. Finally bit the bullet and upgraded to a Hopper 3. Happy camper with the 16 tuners.

Well, after only a month the VIP 612 crapped out. Video on most channels was jittery and pausing a lot. Tech support said it was probably HDD failure. I switched to a VIP 722k and haven't had any issues with the Sony Bravia.
 
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