Upgraded to Multi Room Now High Pitched Noise

[BoxerGirl]

Heard this is a friendly forum. Sorry for the crazy sounding questions. We upgraded to DirectTV multi room DVR. Now I'm hearing a high pitched DVR like sound all night in the room below where the satellite dish is installed. I cannot figure out where it is coming from. I don't hear the sound except at home.

The sound is actually less severe in the room with the DVR which is farthest from the dish. Unplugging everything and turning off the power at the breaker does nothing. It becomes super loud at 2 am. I'm not positive it has anything to do with DirectTV but I wanted to check with some experts to remove this possibility. The Cable Guy came on our property and adjusted something with our internet, too. Something about changing a two way switch to a one way. We had our smart meter removed already.

Does the dish emit any type of noise? Is the problem the DVR? I hear the DVR at the same time as this high pitched noise. The DVR gets louder when something is recording and wanted to see if that is normal too? Thanks.

 

[Broe67]

Electronics do not make high screeching noises, but bad hard drives do. If I had to guess, your hard drive is ready to go out, and you need to contact DirecTV support for them to ship you a new DVR.

 

[sean427812]

No the kaki has no moving parts


Posted Via The SatelliteGuys Reader App!

 

[raoul5788]

to Satelliteguys BoxerGirl!

It could be the hard drive in the dvr, but it almost sounds like you have a bad capacitor in the dvr. They do make a distinct squealing noise. Either way, you should schedule a service call.

 

[SolidSignal]

I think there's another possibility. Vibration within the DVR could cause a squealing noise when two parts vibrating against each other. This is especially common with the older HR21 and HR22 DVRs. Try pressing on the case gently to see if it stops. If it does, try putting felt pads under the DVR's feet.

 

[. Raine]

The sound is actually less severe in the room with the DVR which is farthest from the dish. Unplugging everything and turning off the power at the breaker does nothing. It becomes super loud at 2 am.
.

to SatelliteGuys!

BoxerGirl, when you say that you're turning off the power at the breaker, is that your main breaker for your house, or on a power strip, etc? If it's the main house breaker then I would think that would probably eliminate a bad hard drive, vibrations or bad caps in the DVR as suspects. I don't think any DVR'S have battery back-up's built into them, maybe someone else here on the forum could positively confirm this. Maybe you can go outside when it's super loud at 2 am and see if you can hear the noise loud outside, maybe it's not even in the house?

What's right above that room below the dish, is there any attic space? This might sound crazy, but maybe a few squirrels have moved into your attic, they make high pitched noises and usually get real noisy late at night. Had that happen here at my house with flying squirrels, when I first heard the noise, it was like, what the....is that?

You could check your cable modem for your internet, most of them now have a battery back-up inside them so they will stay on in a power failure, so shutting off the breaker wouldn't shut that off. If a capacitator or something in that is failing it could be causing the noise.

 

[Lanarian]

There are no battery backups in Directv equipment.
Suggestion would be to go to the room where its the loudest and unplug everything.. If the noise goes away, whatevers causing it is in that room. plug things in one at a time until the noise comes back.. there's your problem.
If the noise doesnt go away, try and figure what direction its coming from, go to that room and start unplugging...
Locating odd noises can be tough, but being systematic (and stubborn) will usually find the culprit.

Edit: because power supplies can cause noise once they warm up, if you have time, wait about 5 minutes after plugging something in before you plug anything else in. That'll give whatevers causing it time to warm up.

 

[BoxerGirl]

Thanks everyone! My house was built in the 50s, no attic and has wood floors. The wood floors make everything sound louder. Great tips. I shut off the power at the side of my house just to see if anything changed. I appreciate the explanations, too. Now I won't sound totally bonkers when I call for a service call.