Hopper dying?

[dsh]

We took our Hopper & Joey with us to our 2nd home. Started the Hopper up & ran a check switch. All is good. Message says "Your program guide & DVR are being updated. Please wait to create timers or access DVR events." System status says everything is good.This process takes 20 minutes +/- and tv works fine while updating. Once it completes updating it restarts & then tv comes back on. From then on every 2 minutes or so it goes black & then restarts.
Dish tech support says the Hopper is bad & they will replace, but we really don't want to be without tv for 5 days. Anything I can check? We do get an additional satellite here (61.5, 72 & 77) but that shouldn't matter should it?
Any help would be appreciated!

 

[lucky86]

The satellite orbitals shouldn't matter. I would try another outlet and bypass any surge protectors.

 

[dsh]

Thanks, I will give that a try. A new twist, the update has been hung @ 95% for probably an hour. Tv works fine during that time (just has the little progress bar on the bottom.)

 

[Ziptied]

Might take a look at all the fittings between the Hopper and the Dish. Check closely for any wire braid strands wrapped around the center conductor. I've seen this cause constant reboots in the past.

 

[bookworm370]

The 95% is a known bug. When it gets stuck just reset the Hopper and it will then complete.

As for the constant rebooting, Ziptied is probably close to the problem. If it reboots every 2 minutes try disconnecting the Coax and see if it keeps rebooting. If it stops rebooting, just complains that it lost signal, that definitely points to maybe a short in the coax.

 

[Bobby]

Another thing you might try is to do a Factory Defaults. Menu, Settings, Diagnostics, Factory Defaults. Before you do this save your timers on the remote. You'll lose everything else but you'll do that with a new Hopper as well....

 

[dsh]

I tried plugging into another outlet with no surge suppressor. No Difference.
Disconnected the coax & it doesn't do the continual reboots any more. Only restarts when watching a channel when it is not updating the guide & DVR.
Coax connector appears good at the back of the Hopper. I will check connections at the node & dish tomorrow.
Did try the reset to factory defaults & no difference.
FYI, I did the installation for the Hopper here. The house previously had Dish & the dish was still installed. It seemed simple. I just hooked up two of the satellite feeds to the node & ran the lines to the the Hopper & Joey & it worked immediately. All the cable terminations were already made. Is there anything I could have screwed up? It worked great the last time we were here which was the 1st time with the Hopper.
Thanks all for the input.

 

[dsh]

Further update. Coax unhooked on Hopper, just watching DVR & it still does reboot. Made it 40 minutes into recording before it died this time.

 

[dsh]

Two more quick questions.
1) Does it matter which 2 of the 3 dish ports the node is connected to? I saw in one dish installation guide that you should connect to port 1 1st then, ports 2 & 3 if needed.
2) The 3rd port to the dish is connected to a coax that runs to the basement and is not connected to anything else. It does not have a 75 ohm terminator. Any possibility that could cause problems?
Thanks for any input.

 

[Scherrman]

If it really is a bad Hopper and needs to be replaced, try finding a retailer and see if they can swap it out. You should have to pay a fee for it but it would be the quickest way. If you want it done for free just have Dish ship you one but be prepared to wait 3-5 days.

 

[dsh]

In case this may help someone in the future, we found the problem. The Hopper seems to be overheating. The internal fan never runs and the Hopper starts rebooting before it feels very hot. We put a small floor fan blowing at the Hopper & it runs perfectly without rebooting. The most puzzling thing is if you watch live tv without the floor fan on the Hopper reboots every couple minutes. If you are watching recordings with the coax disconnected it only reboots every 40 minutes - 2 hours. The temperature sensor must be bad since it says the hottest it has been is 114 degrees.

 

[thomasjk]

You still need to replace the Hopper if its overheating.

 

[upsss]

In case this may help someone in the future, we found the problem. The Hopper seems to be overheating. The internal fan never runs and the Hopper starts rebooting before it feels very hot. We put a small floor fan blowing at the Hopper & it runs perfectly without rebooting. The most puzzling thing is if you watch live tv without the floor fan on the Hopper reboots every couple minutes. If you are watching recordings with the coax disconnected it only reboots every 40 minutes - 2 hours. The temperature sensor must be bad since it says the hottest it has been is 114 degrees.

The temperature sensor is built into the HD and basically it reflects the ambient temperature. If the CPU or a power regulator heatsink becomes loose it would not increase much the HD temperature but it would definitely cause the problems you described.