Unpluging 522

[Nitehawk]

My 522 is in the bedroom. Every night before I goto bed I unplug it. The reason is the sound of the hard drive keeps me awake. I have been doing this since last summer. I plug it in again in the morning. And everything seems to be fine. My updates are done each evening before I do this. Lately the DVR is more buggy then ever, even with the L233 version of the software. Could this be because of unpluging it? Or is it just the same old bugs that were all used too? Any insight on this would be appreciated.

 

[Stargazer]

The bad part about unplugging it and then plugging it back in is that these receivers are not made to be unplugged so constantly. Another thing is that you may not get updated EPG data (or get the 9 day EPG data). Also if you have timers that are set to fire during the time that you have it unplugged then those shows will not get recorded.

You could just put the receiver in a room that you do not sleep in and buy yourself another UHF Pro remote for the 522 for tuner 1 as well so that you can turn it from the other room.

 

[phat_bastard]

My 522 is in the bedroom. Every night before I goto bed I unplug it. The reason is the sound of the hard drive keeps me awake.

And I thought my wife was a light sleeper. If it's loud enough to keep you awake, I'd venture a guess that the drive's about to roll over and die, or you have it in a spot that doesn't get good air circulation and the fan has to run at high-speed all the time. I have mine in a component rack in my home theater room, but really the only sounds I've ever heard from it have been when I reboot it and the fan kicks on at high speed during the bootup.

I have been doing this since last summer. I plug it in again in the morning. And everything seems to be fine. My updates are done each evening before I do this. Lately the DVR is more buggy then ever, even with the L233 version of the software. Could this be because of unpluging it? Or is it just the same old bugs that were all used too? Any insight on this would be appreciated.

If you're getting updates regularly then the only bad thing about this practice is that it may cause your hard drive to die prematurely from the thermal cycling. From the sound of things you probably need a new hard drive anyway.

Since you don't elaborate on the bugginess it's hard to say exactly, but giving you the benefit of the doubt it is likely the same thing everyone else is seeing. I watched an especially 'enjoyable' recording with my wife last night. It was a 15 minute episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force where there were at least 30 audio dropouts, 15-20 of which were accompanied by video glitches. This was the 11:00-11:15 airing, and there were no other timers or updates going on at this time. Oddly enough, the next episode that aired from 11:15-11:30 was of pristine quality. Go figure...

 

[Randy_B]

You also hamper the ability of NBR to do its job.

 

[Nitehawk]

The bugs I have are the same as everyone else.Audio video sync issues,sound drop outs, and pixels.It just seems worse since L233 but I thought also it might be from unpluging it every night.I'll contact E* again to see if they can replace it.If the hard drive is starting to fail.I appreciate all the good input.

Thanks

 

[caesar gdi]

I have a 510 and it loud enough to keep me from sleeping too. There is nothing wrong with it, it's not louder than any other hard drive. I can't sleep with a computer or laptop in the same room either so I don't think that your 522 has a bad hard drive.

I have noticed that the 510 harddrive goes crazy after about 10-15 minutes after you turn it off. This last for about 5 minutes and then it really shuts down and does not make a sound. If I was you I would just wait it out and then go to sleep.

 

[phat_bastard]

I suppose I should clarify my statement about his drive getting ready to die. If the drive spindle is making enough noise to be clearly audible when you pick the dvr up off the shelf or whatever it's sitting on, then I think I'd RMA the unit in hopes of getting one with a less noisy drive. I have four Maxtor 4R120L0 drives not counting the ones in my two 522s, and none of them are loud enough to be heard (platter rotation or head noise) unless you have your ear within 8-10 inches of the drive. Comparatively, I also have two WD 40 gig drives that are loud enough to be heard in the next room.

It's also possible that he has the dvr on a shelf or some other material that's acting as a sound board and resonating; in effect amplifying the noise. Another possibility is that you're both extremely light sleepers. I can sleep through a relatively mild thunderstorm whereas my wife wakes me up to check the house when she hears a mouse fart in the far corner of the basement.

 

[TuxCoder]

Not to mention the unplugging could corrupt any disk writing or flushing that might be going on at that particular time. If at least one tuner is "on", not watching a pre-recorded event, the disk is of course always writing. If both tuners are "off" (bouncing Dish logo), there still may be occasional writes for various recordkeeping things, etc.

 

[Nitehawk]

For the last couple of days I have not unplugged my 522. And everything seems to be a lot better now. I also wiped the hard drive clean and did a soft boot. Thanks everyone for the input it helped. Not to say the 522 is perfect it will always have it's problems. But for me it's less frustrating now. I almost changed over to D* I'm glad I waited it out.

C-ya,
Jimmy

 

[reddice]

Trust me you would not want to switch to D*.

 

[CopyChief]

I have never unplugged my 522. And, in fact, I don't even turn it off at night - I let it go into Standby mode. Not sure if this is "bad" for it... but I noticed that if I turned it off at night, I was having A LOT more problems with sync and dropouts.

 

[TuxCoder]

Turning it off and putting it in standby mode are the same thing. But by "let it go into standby mode" are you referring to its auto-updates feature which enters standby mode when finished? Both methods, though, should be equally good (or bad) for it.

 

[Stargazer]

I fall asleep watching tv so I am glad that it goes into standby mode on its own. I guess that saves the hard drive some wear and tear but others say its better to just let the hard drives run since spinning them up causes just as much wear and tear as leaving it on for an x number of hours.

 

[phat_bastard]

I fall asleep watching tv so I am glad that it goes into standby mode on its own. I guess that saves the hard drive some wear and tear but others say its better to just let the hard drives run since spinning them up causes just as much wear and tear as leaving it on for an x number of hours.

As far as I can tell, any time the receiver is plugged into AC power the drive is spinning regardless of whether it's in standby mode or not.

 

[TuxCoder]

Right, the drive stays spinning in standby mode (it's not quite "standby" as in the PC sense). But by at least minimizing read and write accesses, you minimize seeks (heads moving back and fourth, the "crunching" sound made by hard disks). The head actuators are more likely to wear out than the spindle motor, in my opinion.