Originally Posted by
Jon S 
I've spent the last three years in complete bliss (ignorance) with my TX-NR906. It seems my HDMI board has now failed. My story is a little different than most, but I think the only culprit is HDMI board failure. Many people talk about going through a period where it takes many minutes to lock onto the HDMI signal, but it eventually makes the connection. In one day I went from everything working perfectly to not getting any HDMI signal at all.
I've done all the troubleshooting I can think of (connect HDMI direct from source to TV to confirm signal, factory reset, swap cables, change HDMI out from Main to Sub, use unused HDMI ins), but nothing works. Additionally I can't get any setup menu to go through HDMI, the board just seems dead.
I called Onkyo, out of warranty so nothing they can do. Called local Onkyo service dealer, they quoted aprox $800 for a new board installed, $150 to $300 to repair if possible.
I saw a couple threads where people were replacing the caps themselves. I'm normally pretty confident with replacing boards in PCs or building PCs from scratch, but I've never attempted to replace something that was physically attached to a board; it seems a little out of my league. There's a guy selling Onkyo and Integra HDMI boards on eBay; looks like about $50-$90 per board. He has them listed as seller refurbished so I'm guessing that means he's repaired the boards in a similar manner. His feedback rating is 100% with aprox. 350 positive feedback. He doesn't have any boards for the TX-NR906 currently, but he said he has them occasionally so I should check back. I think I could probably replace a board without issue, I just am leery about soldering and replacing the capacitors.
So I think these are my options to get the 906 in working order. Please provide comments/suggestions.
1. Buy a board from the guy on eBay and install myself. What's the worst that could happen, I suppose I could do damage to the rest of the receiver, but at this point it's close to useless anyway. Cost $50 to $100. No idea how long this would last.
This is a risk only you can decide on. Does he want your board in exchange? If so, the refurbed board could be more of a problem. I do not know what would happen if you replaced the original board with one that is a different version as there was a production change along the way.I agree. This is my absolute last resort.
2. Have Onkyo service tech repair board if possible. Cost aprox $150 to $300. Does anyone have experience with repaired board? Will a repaired board last as long as the original (in my case 3 years)?
If they do right, the repaired board should be as good as the original. If the problem is bad caps and they use the proper caps with a higher thermal rating, the board should last even longer.Unless it ends up being much more expensive once they get a chance to look at it this will be my most likely option if I don't go with separates. I think in some other thread, possibly earlier in this thread you mentioned that you actually had Onkyo service repair your HDMI board. How did that turn out?
3. Have Onkyo service tech replace board. Cost aprox $800. Does anyone have any experience with a replaced board? Will a replaced board last as long or longer than original?
I would repair the board first unless they know that there is something really bad with your board.
4. Buy a new receiver. Cost $2500 to $2900. Have the more recent Onkyo/Integra receiver models had better luck with their HDMI boards? From the threads I could find it seems like the Onkyo xx5 and xx6 models were the worst for HDMI board reliability. Are Integras more reliable in this respect? In my research it doesn't seem like I could find many people complaining about the Integras. Perhaps because Integra's sales volumes are significantly less?
This would be a last resort. If you are consideringgoing to 3D in the near future, then it would be worth considering. If not, I would have the board repaired. The integras and onkyos in the same model year shared a lot of the components. So an integra in the same year might have the same issues.
I would seriously look at another brand. Onkyo has not been reliable and has had major issues with their AVRs. The x05 and x06 models suffered from HDMI issues. I think the x07 and x08 had problems in manufacturing where some coating on the boards was not removed which has been causing shorts in the system. The x05 and x06 models now have another issue with the DTS decoder with the infamous DTS bomb has reappeared last September. It has been four months and they have not come up with any updates to resolve this problem. Other companies (Pioneer, Denon and Yamaha) acknowledged the problem and have come up with updates to fix the problem a few months ago. Another issue is that Onkyo customer service is horrible. They do not return calls nor do they answer emails. I have been on hold for an hour or more waiting for someone to answer my call.I don't think I'll buy another receiver; that may even be more of a last resort than option 1 above. My long term plan was to upgrade to separates anyway, just not this soon. The receiver I had before my 906, an HK AVR7200, also needed repair but after only two years, 45 days after of going out of warranty. I just have doubts about the reliability of something that creates so much heat in such a small size. I'm wondering if separates would be more reliable for this reason. Without the huge amp onboard, a preamp shouldn't get as warm as a comparable receiver. So theoretically that would at least take some of the heat out of the equation.
5. Upgrade to separates? Cost $2500 and up. I have several questions on this one so I'll put in a new response.
Thanks!!answers embedded above...
. It has been manually reset from what I understand repeatedly by pressing the VCR button, pressing the stand-by+video, blah, blah, blah and yet it still will not operate past this stage.
There are also errors and ommission in SMs. Post the part number and I will see if I can find it in the diagrams (they are not searchable text).
. If it's not an arm and a leg to fix, I may fix it - if not - the power amp's still sweet, so I may just use it to drive the speakers for the 709. We'll see. I wish some other company could come up with an AVR with the feature set and price of the Onkyos and increase the reliability...
