Pansat 9500HDX FW running in S9!

[yankee495]

I came home tonight to find my S9 dead! Put new FW in it the day before and played with it all day....so, hmmm...

Pulled it out, it had beer spilled in it...wife and I went out to eat and daughter-in-law was here. Claims she didn't do it but she has a 2 year old.

Tested all voltages, looks good. It will flash and says success. Still stuck with "On" on the display. I flashed with several flashers and FW's and one caused it to say on, boot, then -- on the display. So, I can get it to act different, meaning it is taking a flash. It was not much beer...but the box was on...spilled right on a RAM chip (hynix).

I have been working on it for several hours...Any ideas?

I know, screwed the RAM, and me outta $140!

Still open to ideas as it has been a solid box with no bad flashes and seems like it takes a flash. The on (4-5 secs), boot (1-2 secs), then -- (never goes away) has been reported and I tried what they did...no good. The boot makes me think it is in the main code...

UPDATE: What the hell...I flashed it to the new Pansat 9500HDX and guess what?

It comes on and says on and that is it. But a picture fades in, or should I say the menu fades in as the background fades out!!!!

I'll post pics. The FW is useless but it is alive, though crippled it may be, but it is the first life I have seen! No remote and buttons on front do not work either.

WOW! Gonna try S9 FW now!

 

[yankee495]

I'm on the 3rd attempt at S9 FW...But here is a pic of the 9500 FW!

Power/standby light has not worked since I found it dead.

All S9 FW goes on, boot, --

So far.

 

[Jim S.]

What exactly does the Pansat firmware allow you to do? I take it that it isn't much, like when you load S10 firmware on an S9?

 

[yankee495]

Right Jim, I got a crapped out S9, so I did it...I did get the S9 fw to load and boot once after that...Beer is not good for a box. I just found it very interesting the PS FW ran when I couldn't get any S9 to run. Back to working on the S9 FW...

 

[yankee495]

And since it is probably shot, I loaded that megasat hd800 FW into it...it does the same thing the S9 FW does, stuck at on, or on, boot, --

Well, I don't think the megasat ever said boot. The PS never says boot but it does display a pic.

 

[brentb636]

I came home tonight to find my S9 dead! Put new FW in it the day before and played with it all day....so, hmmm...

Pulled it out, it had beer spilled in it...wife and I went out to eat and daughter-in-law was here. Claims she didn't do it but she has a 2 year old.

Tested all voltages, looks good. It will flash and says success. Still stuck with "On" on the display. I flashed with several flashers and FW's and one caused it to say on, boot, then -- on the display. So, I can get it to act different, meaning it is taking a flash. It was not much beer...but the box was on...spilled right on a RAM chip (hynix).

I have been working on it for several hours...Any ideas?

I know, screwed the RAM, and me outta $140!

Still open to ideas as it has been a solid box with no bad flashes and seems like it takes a flash. The on (4-5 secs), boot (1-2 secs), then -- (never goes away) has been reported and I tried what they did...no good. The boot makes me think it is in the main code...

UPDATE: What the hell...I flashed it to the new Pansat 9500HDX and guess what?

It comes on and says on and that is it. But a picture fades in, or should I say the menu fades in as the background fades out!!!!

I'll post pics. The FW is useless but it is alive, though crippled it may be, but it is the first life I have seen! No remote and buttons on front do not work either.

WOW! Gonna try S9 FW now!

You might take out the main board, rinse it well in the bathtub , blow it dry, and then give it another day to dry out, and try it again. We used to clean up boards this way and dry them in a heated cabinet for a day or so, before trying them out. Sometimes it cleans up just fine.

 

[T4Runner]

I'm not getting the point here? Why not just clean and dry the receiver board and flash it with the S9 receiver original factory firmware?

And another question if you don't mind? How does anyone spill beer on a satellite receiver?? I'm still tryig to figure that one out??

 

[yankee495]

I don't know, I think the grandson done it....it was under the TV in the entertainment center, with a stand alone DRV under it and a Pioneer AV receiver below that all on separate shelf's. The beer was on top of the S9 only and dried inside...the heat I guess what little there is in there...I did clean it and blow dry it...the most heat it has ever seen. I don't think it's gonna go...just flashed it with S9 again, it goes on, boot, --

What it was doing when I started.

Why don't you get it? If you have nothing to loose, give it a shot! So I did...I was about to give up before I seen that and it'll do it every time...S9 has only booted once, and froze. PS FW may run in a good box!

 

[yankee495]

BY the way, the PS FW is not froze up...the : in the time is blinking and counting time, see pic above, time starts at 1:00 AM...you just can't navigate with the buttons or the remote.

Very similar hardware.

 

[pwrsurge]

Would be interesting if it takes the Manhattan RS-1933 firmware as well. Probably not though as the Manhattan has a 4MB board while the Opensat only has 2MB.

 

[FaT Air]

If/when a liquid is spilled into electronics, if it doesn't just "burn up" immediately, unplug ASAP. If the spill is water based- submerge in denatured alcohol - ASAP, agitate. air dry. That is - after unpluging the 110. IF your remote ends up in the sink, leave it there while you get a pan/bucket of denatured alcohol ready. The corrosion is slow while submerged in the water, it really accelerates the moment air gets to it. Just air drying isn't going to help.
I think you'll find some corrosion on around the area that got wet. Thorough cleaning may get it going. Denatured alcohol and a flux brush [cut the bristles short to stiffen them up] has brought a lot of equipment back to life. A bucket of DN alcohol was usually in the back of our work van years ago.

 

[yankee495]

Thanks Fat Air, everyone. It has been sitting under a ceiling fan with no cover for hours. Unfortunately it sat with beer in it for an unknown amount of time, enough to dry! I know about the alcohol thing and drying thing. Most things water will not hurt much...it is water, time and electricity mixed. So, I just turned it on, same thing, on, boot, --

My wife is upset I stayed up all night working on it, but she can't be as upset as me! That dinner ended up costing me about $175! Hey, it was quiet to work on it and I need to know, because I am going to buy another one but I was going to wait and see how the MH and PS turned out and have two...

I guess I'll gut it and clean it, and we'll see. Fat Air, it was not a lot of beer, from the front a small pool on the left RAM chip and around the CPU, the one with the heat sink (CPU right). CPU seems to operate...boots the PS FW. Leaves me thinking RAM which we all know is very touchy. Also we had storms, lots of lightning , but no power outages. It could be something else but to be beer+STB=no picture! Also it didn't check out as a clone.

 

[yankee495]

OK, you guys can laugh and take it for what it is worth! I told my wife sorry for staying up all night and showed her how the PS FW let me know it was not dead...yes, I loaded the PS FW again then the S9 and went to get coffee. It now shows NoCH with S9 FW!

Have not touched it...will let ya know. It is 7-31-11 S9 FW.

 

[brentb636]

Worst case , keep it for parts.. I've had a few of those.. Best case, as it continues to dry, whatever line was grounded out or shorted, has been cleared. Get a Manhattan , anyway, they'd like the business.

 

[yankee495]

Worst case , keep it for parts.. I've had a few of those.. Best case, as it continues to dry, whatever line was grounded out or shorted, has been cleared. Get a Manhattan , anyway, they'd like the business.

I plan to Brent, as a second box...no remote except power down by front button...then it would turn on by remote. No HDMI or USB but I did factory default twice before flashing again. Now stuck at on with nothing.

 

[yankee495]

It is back up...USB, HDMI, remote, TP_prog flashed from USB...No Dish hooked up yet but it is my guess it will run 9500HDX FW. I will test it. I know it recovers from a flash to it just fine. I cleaned it really good with alcohol and took a 1970's cook you brain hair drier to it. First boot no remote...second was good. Where I payed the closest attention was around the CPU with heat sink. I really got the edges at an angle so as to get under the little lip. It was fading in, like the PS FW which is not a feature of the PS FW but a result of BEER! Was cool while it lasted.

So don't go trying to make fading backgrounds with longer .m2v's! It was my guess they had done this. This appears to be one tough box...and I will report the results of 9500HDX FW on a working S9 if it works when hooked to the dish. The skew obviously is not there but if it will 22KHz switch with clock! and everything else? Good HD & recording with motor and AC3...hummm...I see a lot of people...well....

I for one am very happy and I was sure I cleaned it good enough...guess not...bits of data don't take much for it to change from 1 to 0.

 

[brentb636]

Sounds like an adventure ! Wishing you good luck !

 

[Jim S.]

How are you flashing it, via the rs232 port? I'm always game for trying new firmware, but I'm curious as to whether, if you flash it with the Pansat firmware, you can get back to the Openbox firmware via USB, since I don't have a serial cable. If you flash an S9 with S10 firmware, the only menu item that works is Upgrade By USB, so you can go back, but you said something about your remote not working and I didn't know whether it was a symptom of the firmware or a symptom of the beer spill.

 

[yankee495]

Flashing with RS232 and everything is working except:

Will not decode any video or audio. That is, it has 85S & 70Q but no icon for type of A/V. PID's are right loaded from TP Prog. Flashed again and same thing. Will not pick up anything on scan as it can't lock any A/V. Moves the dish...everything perfect except for decoding.

I say dry it a bit more, maybe scrub it again...Jim, it may work with that PS FW. It does display 6A if you hold both volumes like the S9 FW. Everything that didn't work on the PS FW also didn't work on the S9 FW. In fact the PS FW was the only one to boot, see above. I believe that was because its code is at a different address and was able to run, and it did run and keep time when the S9 done nothing. It was stuck on the menu with a clock. S9 has no clock on the menu. I'll be sure and post but I DO NOT want to be the cause of someone loosing a box. This all started with a otherwise dead box or I wouldn't have done it.

As soon as (if) I get it back decoding, I'll flash the PS FW...after all...I had already made the decision to buy another one no matter what. I'd like for this to turn out ok for all the others who may have problems and alternate FW would just be icing on the cake...it needs it...this cake sucked rocks!

 

[brentb636]

It may be rather painful for you, being personally involved, but it looks like an interesting project to us. We might get some interesting information out of this thread.