HDHR Power supply failure

[wayner]

I have one of the older grey HDHRs. A little while ago it started acting up - it turns out to be a power supply failure. I have had this same issue with both of my HD-PVRs, have others seen this issue with the HDHR? I assume it is likely caused by the same bad capacitors in the HD-PVR supplies.

[waynedunham]

Silicon Dust had problems with the power supplies on some of the early HDHR's, the ones with one cable input for each tuner. That was pretty well known for quite a while.
I received replacement power supplies for the 2 units I had and they are running fine recording all the time.

I also have 2 HD-PVR's and the Power supply crapped out on one of them. It took me a while to figure out what was happening because it wasn't a complete failure, just a sometimes low voltage situation.
Every once in a while SageTV would "lose" that HD-PVR for a while. Then it would re-appear.

One day I was doing a reboot of the HD-PVR (regular occurrence on them) and noticed that when I turned it on the power light was bright, but when it got to the self test when the record light comes on for a few seconds, the power light dimmed. I checked the power supply and sure enough the output voltage was fluctuating quite a bit, ranging from proper voltage to a pretty good under-volt.

So I ordered a new power supply for each of them from Hauppauge. They were something like $10.95 each.

[jerryb33]

Originally Posted by waynedunham

I also have 2 HD-PVR's and the Power supply crapped out on one of them. It took me a while to figure out what was happening because it wasn't a complete failure, just a sometimes low voltage situation.
Every once in a while SageTV would "lose" that HD-PVR for a while. Then it would re-appear.

One day I was doing a reboot of the HD-PVR (regular occurrence on them) and noticed that when I turned it on the power light was bright, but when it got to the self test when the record light comes on for a few seconds, the power light dimmed. I checked the power supply and sure enough the output voltage was fluctuating quite a bit, ranging from proper voltage to a pretty good under-volt.

So I ordered a new power supply for each of them from Hauppauge. They were something like $10.95 each.

I also had problem with HDPVR (kept losing USB connection). Out of warranty and I needed one, so I bought another. Had a d-link switch PS and tried it on the OLD one. It came to life. Sent E-Mail to Hauppage and they said they would send me one. It has been a month and nothing. Rep said he sent it out. He said, he would send another. Been 2 weeks, still nothing. He never mention a price, so I am assuming it was free. Just sent him a fourth e-mail.

Frustration over, it came in the mail yesterday 2 hours after I posted above!

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by jerryb33;543849[COLOR="Red"

Frustration over, it came in the mail yesterday 2 hours after I posted above![/COLOR]

I was going to say with tongue in cheek that it is easy for them to send it to you free if they never actually send you anything.

Congrats on the new PS, I hope it fixes everything up for you. I was hoping my new PS would fix up that HD-PVR for me. That is my original unit and suffered from random "deaths". Sometimes a recording wouldn't start and sometimes it would die mid program with the dreaded "no signal". Each and every time power cycling it would bring it back.
When the PS went really bad finally I was hoping that the PS had been the trouble all along, but alas that isn't the case. It still randomly will get a "no signal" condition that isn't anything with the STB, I've checked that.

I sure wish they had figured out what was causing this because other than that one problem with some HD-PVR's (mostly the early ones) it is a great product.
My pet theory is an overflow of a variable in the firmware. The reason I say that is because a large part of the failures are during bouts of crappy signal issues with Comcast. Whenever there are recordings with a bunch of drops for a second or so that seems to be when the thing craps out on me.
Trying to get them to address signal strength/quality issues isn't helped when the tech enters my basement and sees my rack with 7 tuners, SageServer, 24 port wired ethernet feeding the whole house, etc, etc. They usually get either a glazed look on their face, a look of fear, or both.

[jerryb33]

Originally Posted by waynedunham

I was going to say with tongue in cheek that it is easy for them to send it to you free if they never actually send you anything.

Congrats on the new PS, I hope it fixes everything up for you. I was hoping my new PS would fix up that HD-PVR for me. That is my original unit and suffered from random "deaths". Sometimes a recording wouldn't start and sometimes it would die mid program with the dreaded "no signal". Each and every time power cycling it would bring it back.
When the PS went really bad finally I was hoping that the PS had been the trouble all along, but alas that isn't the case. It still randomly will get a "no signal" condition that isn't anything with the STB, I've checked that.

My old HDPVR (D2) is up and running. Have to wait a week of so to see if the PS was the problem.
I did tell him I was a fan of Hauppage as I do own a few pieces of their gear.
1800 came with computer - put away - poor signal strength
1600 in use OTA
1250 in use OTA
950q dead
HDPVR (d2) Diretv
HDPVR (f2) new one bought when above went down. Will put in play (DTV) after I'm sure above unit is working OK.
Also have HDHR and HDHR3 in play.
Maybe that helped in him being nice to me.
On another note the bad PS I have is back up. Most wallwarts are sealed and you can't open them up. I used a screwdriver and pried it apart. It was just snapped together. Found a cap 470uf with crown on top. Replace it and powered up and it did recognize my USB port.