HD100 power supply repair

[sic0048]

Originally Posted by bastafidli

Sage repaired it 9 months ago and I guess they put in new power supply which failed the same exact way. Since this time I cannot affort to wait 2 weeks to get it fixed I just fixed it myself. Couldnt find 5V/3A power brick which would be my preferred way so I have soldered on new caps. It worked like a charm

I'm glad you where able to fix it without any problem. Still, it is disappointing to see Sage simply swap out defective power supplies with old stock defective power supplies. If we can fix the problem with $5 worth of new capacitors, certainly Sage should be able to really fix it for that or less (not including labor or shipping) rather than simply swapping defective power supplies. I'm certainly leaning towards the reality that 90% of the units (or more) are going to fail. I'm at 75% myself (3 out of 4). Thank goodness for the article on Cocoontech and this forum of users.

I'm still glad that Sage is willing to do something with these units, even past the warranty. But since there is a clear and easy fix to the problem, it is disappointing to see them only swap boards out that are just as likely to fail in the future than the originial boards.

[bastafidli]

I have a mixed feelings about this whole situation. I do like Sage a lot. I said multiple times I consider it to be the best ~200 I ever spent on electronics, best satisfaction factor for the entire family. It does what it is suppose to fairly well and the price was reasonable so I cannot complain too much. I have hit many rouch patches and would love to see improvements to some of them (photo/music/online media) sooner than later but I learnt to be patient.

I understand failure like this is can happen, especially first time around they produce hw units. Sage being a small company, going into new venture like this represents a risk. On the other hand I have mixed feelings about Sage being fairly quiet and reactive about this whole situation. It seems to be their preferred way of doing business, and that is fine when it comes to future enhancements and business plans but I think when it comes to hw problem like this being more active about problem resolution would go a long way. I do appreciate them offerring a way how to fix the defective units and I took advantage of it, but the unit failing the same exact way again is a disappotment. They let users on this forum help themselves rather than proactively having somebody to monitor this and work with users to resolve their issues.

I dont know what is the best way to go about this and obviously I didnt wait for Sage to do anything for me, but for example gesture such as offer to send for free 3 correct caps to anybody who purchased HD100 would be nice and would be fairly low cost and would go a long way. This way user would have a choice of either wait for failure and let Sage fix it or proactively get ready for when the unit fails to fix it by itself.

In any case, Sage is working again in our household so we are back to our routine :-)

[simonen]

My second HD100 just bit the farm. At least I still a mediaMVP to use until the new caps come in.

[dotheDVDeed]

Well one of my two HD100s bit the dust. Replaced the caps myself.

I figured I might as well do it myself, just in case if the other one might go down.

Tim

[garmpe]

Mine just died. I live in Australia so getting it back for repair would be fairly costly. I don't begrudge Sage charging for out of repair fixes but given that I still find the HD100 too slow for scrolling through movies and music I think I'll just move back to a HTPC and we'll all be happy

Still, when things like this happen to soo many users it kind of makes you question the quality of the product on offer.

[photon]

One of my Media extenders power supplies died just before the warranty expired and Sage Repaired it. It just died again today so I'm repairing it myself. My other one died outside of warranty and I repaired it successfully.

[Karride]

I just bought a used HD100 off eBay and about a 4 days after I hooked it up I heard the whining buzz sound. Cracked it open and sure enough the caps were popped. An hour, a trip to Radio Shack and a burn later the caps are swapped and its running great.

[simonen]

I found this guy on the net.

http://www.thecapking.com/nich35v1000.html

It cost me $1.50 for 3 capacitors, no shipping or tax either.

[KJake]

My most used HD100 started hissing this weekend. Ordered 6 high quality caps from digikey (UHE1V102MHD6) with 2 day shipping for $11 delivered.

They are definitely bigger

[KJake]

Originally Posted by simonen

I found this guy on the net.

http://www.thecapking.com/nich35v1000.html

It cost me $1.50 for 3 capacitors, no shipping or tax either.

lol, I think those are what I got for .93 each...oh well

[djseto]

Mine went bye-bye after working well since May of 2008. Got a claim out to Amex but I'll probably go hit the Radio Shack

[dadams]

And the 4th of 4 has died. My failure is complete.

[electron]

Has anyone noticed their extender getting way slower while booting up, and crashing more often right before the caps went bad? Mine has been acting like this for a while now, but the caps look fine. Thinking about just replacing them anyways, but if it's a server issue, I don't want to waste my time on this just yet.

[corwiniii]

Bah, my HD100 wouldn't fire up today and I found this thread and it sounds like the same issue. I opened up the case and found 2/3 capacitors bloated and leaking so that's that I guess. I've never soldered and don't have the tools so I'm not looking forward to going that route. I'm not up for altering the power supply I don't think. And $40+shipping for something I could do if I had the tools/patience turns my stomach.

My wife actually suggested I upgrade to the HD200, so I just bought that tonight. I'll hunt down someone with the soldering tools and experience to get the caps fixed and move the HD100 to the kids' room I guess. I really wish SageTV would just ship me a new power supply for the $40 so I could install it.

[sungod]

Originally Posted by corwiniii

My wife actually suggested I upgrade to the HD200, so I just bought that tonight. I'll hunt down someone with the soldering tools and experience to get the caps fixed and move the HD100 to the kids' room I guess. I really wish SageTV would just ship me a new power supply for the $40 so I could install it.

I think you will be happy with the HD200, I bought mine under the same circumstances. It basically is the same thing, only faster. I didn't notice how much faster it was until I used the 100 series again.

A new power supply would not do the trick because it would still have to be wired into it. The 200, however, has a transformer with it, negating the need for the caps (although I never opened it to verify this).

[DigitalMan]

My HD100 died yesterday (I got it in the original batch). I picked up the caps and fixed it today without any trouble. It's had a lot of use over the years and has probably paid for itself a couple times over.

[sic0048]

Originally Posted by sic0048

I'm at 75% myself (3 out of 4).

Well I came home to a dead HD-100 today. That makes me 4 for 4 to have the bad cap issue. 100% failure and I bought the HD-100s at different times, so they are definitely from different manufacturing runs.

Oddly enough, it was my original HD-100 that lasted the longest. Go figure....

[rsagetv99]

MY HD100 died last week. I ordered mine in March of 2008, so I guess I am lucky it did not fail sooner. When I first heard the now infamous whine of the failing capacitors I thought dust had gotten into the fan, or the fan motor was going out. Then I realized, the unit does not have a fan.

The capacitor fix was very easy thanks to the great instructions linked earlier in this thread.

Here it is again for those that need it.

http://www.cocoontech.com/portal/art...hd100-extender

[toricred]

My last HD100 died last night. Somehow I've misplaced the extra capacitors I bought for that one and the various links in this thread all seem to be sold out. I found the following that I think would work. How do they look?

http://cgi.ebay.com/6-Rubycon-YXG-se...#ht_2637wt_939

[KJake]

Originally Posted by toricred

My last HD100 died last night. Somehow I've misplaced the extra capacitors I bought for that one and the various links in this thread all seem to be sold out. I found the following that I think would work. How do they look?

http://cgi.ebay.com/6-Rubycon-YXG-se...#ht_2637wt_939

Should be fine since the originals were 10v 1000uF and the majority of people are replacing with 35v 1000uF. I don't think there's a problem using the 10v either - the ones that were used in the original power supplies probably just fell victim to the well known capacitor plague: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague