Coolsat 8000 blinking red light?

[gdavisloop]

Hello,
I wanted to give the Coolsat 8000/8100 one more try on DVB-S2, but when I found them in short supply at dealers (what's with all the Yahoo links for Coolsat being hijacked by a Canadian FTA dealer that doesn't sell Coolsat?), I decided to buy a used one from someone local. (Big mistake?)

Although the Coolsat gets points, as always, for locking up easily and correctly on DVB-S2 channels, the rest was pretty much a disaster: interference on the analog video (only when an -S2 channel was being received), random block errors in the picture, and rebooting that became more frequent as the night went on.

Within about 8 hours after I first connected it, it was rebooting constantly. After an overnight cooldown, it worked again for a few hours, but then the rebooting failed and now it's just a dead box.

There is a red light in the front marked "standby" that sometimes blinks and sometimes just flickers.

Anyone else run into this? P.s. it's the 8000, so there's no USB port... just the RS-232.

thanks!
--Gary

 

[Mr Tony]

check out this thread
http://www.satelliteguys.us/free-air-fta-discussion/178734-cs8000-woes.html

 

[Mr Tony]

did you do anything to the receiver or did you just hook it up and away ya went?

 

[gdavisloop]

No, I didn't "do" anything to the receiver!
As you can see from my previous post, I was trying to get NBC-Ku-S2 with a small dish.

The Coolsat got 12000 pretty well from either my BUD or small dish, but interestingly, it worked best if I put the LNB wire "near" a wire carrying my big dish signal - worked better than actually connecting it! It appears that the analog intereference is stronger when you have a stronger signal, the weaker signal meant less intf. - but the Quality was also higher! By NOT connecting the Coolsat to the LNB, I got quality of 97-99 (on 12000-AMC1). I think it was in the 80's when it was actually connected. (I was going to get an exact number but then in stopped booting). With the small dish, I was only getting quality of 50-53 and it rebooted more frequently. I felt there was probably still room to fine-tune the small dish and make it better.

The Coolsat I bought already has a fan in it (at least it sounds like there's a fan), but there are no ventalation holes for the fan... I wonder how well that works.

Iceberg: was there anything in that "Coolsat Woes" post about failure to boot? It looked like it was mostly about adding a fan.

thanks
--Gary

 

[Mr Tony]

yep the reason it was rebooting was due to heat

this part I am confused about

The Coolsat got 12000 pretty well from either my BUD or small dish, but interestingly, it worked best if I put the LNB wire "near" a wire carrying my big dish signal - worked better than actually connecting it!

I dont get that part

 

[oldford]

Wierd. Is it possible you have a shorted cable or connector? I know some receivers will sit and continously reboot with a shorted line hooked up.

GL, E

 

[gdavisloop]

I don't think heat is the reason or the sole reason for the CS8000 rebooting.
There's a theory that it has to do with too much error correction; ie, if your signal has too many errors the Coolsat gets a stack overflow or otherwise gives up. Although heat may crash it too!

I was going to explain in more detail in the other post, why this Coolsat works better when it's not connected to a dish. I know that sounds crazy, but I've seen it happen before. I think my satellite finder (meter) leaks a great deal of signal into the air.

Of course, the dish (LNB) has to be connected to something, so that the LNB gets power.

--Gary

 

[GreatFTA]

Is the fan blowing toward the motherboard? If the previous owner installed the fan, he may have it blowing away from the board. I don't think pulling the air from the motherboard will help it at all. Is the fan over the motherboard processor?
When I installed my fan, I hot glued it on the box floor, making sure the air will blow straight to the processor area. The vents on the receiver top lid will let the air flow out.
When I had my problems my receiver was so hot to the touch! After installing my fan, it has been warm to the touch. I can feel the breeze coming thru the top vents.
I hope this will help you. See my thread on how it is done.
Let us know how you're doing.

 

[GreatFTA]

Also, you may need to install the 2025a firmware into your receiver. Kinda wonder if your 8000may have the hackware in it? Iceberg has the files on one of his threads and he would be happy to walk you thru the installation.
Good luck!

 

[GreatFTA]

Try this: unplug your receiver. Take off the RG-6 cable, and leave the video cables to your tv like it is. Plug your box back on. While the tv is on, turn on your receiver and see if it reboot.
If it does, go to menu on your recever.
If you see all that, then you may have a bad RG-6 cable. I am thinking of that from what Oldford is saying.
If all this fail, I would be contacting that guy who sold you the receiver and see about getting your money back.

 

[gdavisloop]

Fixed!... for now...

To the last two suggestions, thanks, but I did already try disconnecting the satellite dish cable, and the box came with the newest factory s/w (that was one of the selling points) which I confirmed ... not hackware.

SO I opened the box up and sure enough, there was a small, customer-installed fan pointed towards the motherboard, not at anything in particular.

The soldering wasn't very good, but I didn't see anything seriously wrong.

Just for the heck of it, I wiggled the ribbon cables at both ends. I did NOT expect this to fix it.

And then I plugged it in, and I was just shocked that the front panel responded!

So I took it back to my satellite system, hooked up the 39" dish, plugged it in, and it booted but started rebooting over and over... but only 2 or 3 times, and then magically, it stayed on. In fact, it seems to have stayed on 3 or 4 hours now without rebooting!

So is it possible, that all this time we've been chasing a software problem (errors=stack overflow?) or an overheating problem, that the problem all along has been a loose ribbon cable? And that this can be fixed merely by wiggling it?

I'm certainly skeptical, but if anyone is still having rebooting problems, and especially if you've already broken the seal on your box, you certainly should try wiggling the ribbon cables!

In retrospect, the one clue that this was a loose wire was the front panel light: during the time the Coolsat wouldn't boot, sometimes it blinked, other times it was on steady and other times it flickered... the flickering, in particular, didn't look like a software message.

--Gary
Sadly, all I have to watch on AMC1-DVB-S2 this morning is the death of Michael Jackson, interrupted only by the death of Farrah Fawcett... at least NASA is still launching a rocket at 4pm ET today (on NASA-HD and other NASA channels), do you think MJ will be on it?

 

[GreatFTA]

Certainly, both the ribbon cable and overheating. Was the fan connected to the ribbon cable, at the plug socket? Look at the pictures Pro posted on my thread.
I had to use hot melt glue to help hold it in place where the red and black wires connect. I don't like soldering, not good at it.
When I started having problems with my receiver, I notice that the ribbon cable was up high enough to be pressing on the receiver's lid. I pressed it down enough to keep it from resting there again. The reason I did that at first was that I thought I saw sparks when I was putting the lid back on. The cable was rubbing on the lid while I was putting it back on. So I just pressed it down. Then I found a computer processor fan and installed it to cut down on the heat. No more problems.

 

[GreatFTA]

When I refer to the ribbon cable, I am refering to the one from the power supply to the motherboard.

 

[gdavisloop]

Perhaps it's just me, but I expect the manufacturer to fix these bugs before they sell the product! Don't they always say it will void your warranty if you open the box, nevermind making hardware modifications!

 

[Mr Tony]

Perhaps it's just me, but I expect the manufacturer to fix these bugs before they sell the product!

could be worse. When I goty my 8000 (part of the 1st shipment) they forgot one minor thing in the software

...the satellite software

I had a 400 buck OTA tuner and that was it

 

[GreatFTA]

OUCH!

 

[Mr Tony]

from my review 2/4/07

Turned the box on and was greeted with an option for auto scan or manual scan. When I select auto scan, it is going to scan OTA. Apparently the original boxes they forgot a minor thing and that is the software for the DVB portion. I think the newest batch has this built in.

 

[GreatFTA]

Unfortunely, Gdavisloop, whenever you buy anything used from anybody, the risk of getting someone's else POS is there. I had my share of 'em in my life. Maybe the 8000 need to have some kinks worked out. I bought my 8000 on Ebay and it had a hackware loaded. I loaded the factory firmware and had a fan put in. I am happy with it.