HD-PVR dead?

[wayner]

After about 3 years my original HD-PVR appears to be dead. It seemed to at first be overheating or something as the recordings would crap out at about 1GB in size even when they should have been much bigger.

Now it appears that the PC won't even recognize the HD-PVR as when I do a power cycle on the HD-PVR it says unrecognized device.

Has anyone else seen similar behaviour?

Note - this was a Rev C2 device that I believe I bought in about July/Aug of 2008.

[jsiemon]

Try replacing the power brick. I had similar problems and thought mine had died, but all it needed was a new power supply. About $15 from Hauppauge.

[wayner]

I have two HD-PVRs so I will try swapping power supplies when I know I am not going to screw up a recording.

I have ordered another one from Newegg - even if it turns out to be ok it is good to have a spare.

[jorton]

I have had one dissappear on me as well and I just had to reinstall the drivers and it came back. No idea why but it worked.

[dstanley]

I have had two power supplies fail on me over the time I have had them. The HD-PVR 'looks' like it has power according to the led lights but it would not function properly. Replacing power supplies has fixed up my problems.

[jorton]

Originally Posted by dstanley

I have had two power supplies fail on me over the time I have had them. The HD-PVR 'looks' like it has power according to the led lights but it would not function properly. Replacing power supplies has fixed up my problems.

Where did you find the replacements?

[wayner]

Wouldn't it be nice if home wiring also included DC plugs as well as AC so we wouldn't need all of these stupid bricks and wall warts?

[david1234]

Originally Posted by wayner

Wouldn't it be nice if home wiring also included DC plugs as well as AC so we wouldn't need all of these stupid bricks and wall warts?

I'd settle for everyone just using a standard 12v wall wart. Last time I counted I've got a dozen different power supplies sitting in my spare equipment drawer, and none of them is the same voltage or plug

[dstanley]

Originally Posted by jorton

Where did you find the replacements?

Hauppauge was kind enough to send me replacements ... One was almost a year ago and one was just a few weeks ago.
I bought an 'equivalent' of eBay but when I got it it was the wrong type ... Te seller replaced it for me so at least now I have a spare.
I could look up the model number if you like ...

[wayner]

After a couple of months I have finally gotten around to trying my new HD-PVR which I have had for a month or so. It looks like the problem is the the PS as when I try the new PS with the old HD-PVR then everything works. But when I switch back to the old PS the device doesn't show up in device manager. I have emailed Hauppauge to ask for a replacement PS.

[wayner]

The power supply on my second HD-PVR died yesterday. Luckily I had a spare one on hand as I had Hauppauge send my two PSes after the first one failed. I cut the old one open and there are (not surprisingly) bulging capacitors.

[thomaszoo]

Just when I think there isn't much more help to be had from the Sage Forums. Last week it appeared that my HD PVR (Rev C1) had died. I had opened up the top and had a fan blowing on it since almost day one.

I had noticed that there were a bunch of wavy lines in the picture when I watched from my cable box a couple of days earlier, but I thought it was just the channel. Then it was still there when I tried watching something and so I checked all the connections and that is when it died. I checked the power supply and it was still putting out 5 volts so I figured it was something in the HD PVR itself. I was just about ready to throw it out when I saw this thread this evening. I tried a different power supply and instant success! I have been using it without any problems with the optical for sound so I was pretty surprised that it had died.

Thanks again for the help.

Wayne

[Sector7g]

Power Supply for me as well

[jriskin]

Me too... Power supply... thought it was dead, light still on, but usb not recognized. Ready to write it off until i found this thread.

Dug through and old drawer and found a matching 5v 2.8A (vs 3A) supply that had almost the exact connector. Powered right up and back to recording fine.

One note, before it died it was recording channels but was flickering and had extreme color banding. My guess is interference/noise from the dying power supply.

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by jriskin

8< snip >8
One note, before it died it was recording channels but was flickering and had extreme color banding. My guess is interference/noise from the dying power supply.

Same symptoms mine was exhibiting when the PS started to die. Mine was odd, it would drop in and out at random as not being recognized. I think it would drop voltage when it got hot, cool off a bit and then pop back in until it overheated again.
A new PS and it has been working fine for well over a year now.

[Olias]

I ended up just splicing into the power off of my sage server power supply itself after the second wall wart died. Voila! No more worries.

[Olias]

Last night we started having intermittent issues with Sage. Narrowed it down to one of my two HD-PVRs. Audio was fine but the video appeared very blurry. Sure enough, this one was still using a wall wart for it's power. I spliced it into the servers power supply, same as the first HD-PVR and I'm back in business.

As a bonus, I also realized I can reduce some clutter by removing a power strip I had needed previously.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by Olias

I ended up just splicing into the power off of my sage server power supply itself after the second wall wart died. Voila! No more worries.

Is it possible to show a diagram of how you did this? Did you just cut the wire of the power supply at the wall wart and then splice these wires into PC wires? How do you know which wire for the HD-PVR is ground and which is +5V (or whatever line it uses).

A photo would help show exactly what is going on.

[SHS]

That easy with 4 Pin Molex the 5+ Volt is the Red wire and Black wire next to it is Ground the same apply with floppy drive connector, and all need is 4 Pin Molex PCI Bracket.
Keep in mind that you need hook it up the right way the 5+volt is inside pin where is ground is on out side

[Olias]

What he said
It's pretty straightforward to do. The quick and dirty way is to just snip off the cable at the wall wart and strip back about a 1/2 inch of bare wire. Then fold each bare end back on itself to make it nice and fat and shove it into an open molex connector and wrap it all up in electrical tape. Easy Peasy.

As SHS says, the red wire on the molex is +5 and the black wire is ground. And the inside of the HD-PVR connector is +5, the outside is ground.

The hardest part is determining which bare end wire on the HD-PVR cable is +5 and which is ground if you don't have an ohmmeter.
In a pinch I've used a bulb from a flashlight, a battery and a couple pieces of wire to construct a quick continuity tester.