I've had to exchange either ours or our 9 year-old son's HD DVR cable box on an average of every two months for the past year (DCT-3416/3412 units). Before that, it was an endless procession of returns on 3412/6412 units. I'm curious...how long has your Comcast Motorola (hopefully DVR) box lasted? Is there a reason why I keep getting dead boxes? This is beyond ridicuous.

Out of the three 3412 boxes we have in the house, I've only ever had one replaced.

That was after nearly two years of service.

They replaced it with a version III (HDMI, eSATA), and haven't had any real problems with it.

Mr Zoid

In the Philly area i've had a ton of call backs due to comcast box problems. Most stem from poor HDMI HDCP handshakes, but i also find HD failures and firmware corruption is also enough of a problem to come up on alot of my dealers radar.

Never had a problem with any of them - A 6412 HDDVR, a 5100 HD box, and whatever model OG digital box I've had since like 2001 in the bedroom. Knock knock.

The only one I've ever swapped out was a Moto 6408 single tuner DVR, to get a the dual tuner/larger HDD 6412.

The only time I have ever "replaced" a box is because I have either upgraded my service (SD to HD) or moved. Generally speaking it was a year or two between swaps but I never swapped because I had a technical issue.

I am living in the Seattle area and have been using Comcast since they were AT&T out here.

I also have a DCP501 home theatre setup from Motorola and that has been working fine for the last year or so. There was a period of time where the guide was broken and would not reset but I believe that was a problem at the headend since it was resolved about a month or two later.

Its my second box and its in the bedroom so I didn't really sweat it too much.

Too many boxes to count-like 4 or 5 DCT 6200's, couple DCT 700's, one of the older DCT model, the DCT 2200 or something like that. All in the last 3 years.

I have never had a problem with a cable box.

I have an old black Motorolla digital box that has the AT&T Broadband logo on it and a Motorolla 6200 HD box, its been a couple years and no problems with either.

I also have a series 1 Tivo that has to be 7 years old now that gets daily use and still runs fine too.

Never. Although I have dealt with some Moto bugs (mainly the remote command "freeze ups"), I only swapped my 2yr+ old 6412 for a 6416SIII for a little more disc space and an HDMI out.

The 6416 SII has been less buggy, though.

Thanks to all who have voted in the poll so far. Anyone have any ideas why I'm so cursed with faulty units (other than bad karma ;))?

Thanks to all who have voted in the poll so far. Anyone have any ideas why I'm so cursed with faulty units (other than bad karma ;))?

Don't worry, you're not the only one who's cursed. I've had pretty much nothing but trouble when it comes down to STB's.

Anyone have any ideas why I'm so cursed with faulty units ?

I'd suggest poor ventilation/overheating.

I'd suggest poor ventilation/overheating.
That would have also been my first guess, however, the box is not in an enclosure, sits far from all other electronics, and has plenty of space for airflow.

Okay... other than that, all I can theorize is power frequent surge/spike/brownout. Or....... you DO have bad Karma. ;)

I have heard of overheating on some of the units. We are getting a DVR in an open cabinet and hopefully there will be enough space at the top to prevent overheating issues. I heard that the newer models don't overheat as much as the older ones did. Even like a small 1/4 amount as long as the space is open is better than a totally confined area.

Jack

These boxes are incredibly poorly made. The heat buildup is like nothing I have ever seen in consumer electronics. I have not had major problems with my HDMI box absent lock-ups and the occasional handshake issue, but I went through four non-HDMI boxes before the HDMI ones came in stock. Ventilation is a huge problem.

Well, I sent in 2 seperate reports of the obvious spambot link to porn in the above post over the past 2 days and nothing has been done. Hopefully, something will happen soon by me posting here. Moderator, please delete the above post! Thank you for your kind and timely consideration in regard to this matter.

My 6412 just went bad last week, and when Customer Service tried a cold init on it, it got stuck with a "..0" on the display, with blank video output. You could see a black SD pillar box picture with black sidebars on the TV.

I had that box since the first day DVRs became available (2004?). I think the hard drive finally just died on it. Before the problems started, I was hoping to watch everything on the disk and then trade it in for a 3416, but it died before I could get around to doing that. The disk was 90 percent full at the end and took a lot of programming to its grave.

No problems with my 2 6412's that have been running for over 2 years. Only real problems would be the incredibly irritating glitches and bugs!

No problems with my 2 6412's that have been running for over 2 years. Only real problems would be the incredibly irritating glitches and bugs!

That's what I mean, for the most part. Audio loss/dropout, artifacting/banding/aliasing/whatever else you can think of. As soon as there's any sign of an issue, I get a new box. Sadly, this is once every 2-3 months on average. Comcast keeps blaming ingress as the issue, but how is it that simply getting a new box solves the matter for a few months?

Never had a problem with any of them - A 6412 HDDVR, a 5100 HD box, and whatever model OG digital box I've had since like 2001 in the bedroom. Knock knock.

The only one I've ever swapped out was a Moto 6408 single tuner DVR, to get a the dual tuner/larger HDD 6412.

Less than a month after I posted this my 5100 crapped out on me. Couldn't get video on any digital channels.
I even knocked (twice)!!!

wow... I have a very old box. Six years? Five years old? Never had a problem.