The Official AVS Dish DTVPal DVR Topic! - Page 402

Would be kind of you to help him. I am guessing that the one under warranty will go back to the company he bought it from. Even if they just give him back his cash.

The other one is useless. Unless someone could help him

Just out of curiosity. What did it cost for the one you fixed? One never knows if their machine will break. Good info to have. Just in-case.

Do you charge for the work done or just for parts or both?

In any case someone like you would be the last resort if a person could not find a little fix it guy

It bothers me that Dish and now channel master could sell a $300 to $350 machine with NO SUPPORT after the warranty has expired. Even if you were willing to pay.

Sorry must of missed that comment. Thanks for repeating.

Just think for a minute. How many electronic devices in that price range can you name that have service/support after the warranty runs out? What happens when your cell phone breaks the day after it's warranty expires? Why do people continue to insist that the Pal/CM DVR should somehow be different.

Are you saying you won't tell us the cost to fix the dvr?

Sorry this happened to you, but a few things seem amiss here. A ticking sound may be traced a bad hard drive.... did you try unplugging the hard drive internally and see if the ticking sound stops ?
From what I know about these machines, the fan doesn't go on right away,
it takes about 5 to 10 minutes after you unplug it for a while, like being off for an hour or so.

Unlike everyone else who owns these dvr's, I unplug both of mine every night after they're done recording, and leave them unplugged until the next night.
When I turn them back on, both green and red lights are on, nothing is on the screen, after a few minutes the 'loading' screen comes on, then it downloads program info and the units go into standby mode.

You said you disconnected the antenna cable, I would check the cables with other sources like your tv set to make sure you're getting a signal..... without a signal the screen goes blank. If you're getting a green light with one of them, maybe that one is still salvageable.

Just curious. Why turn your DVR off every night? Saving power or something? I am planning to unplug my DVR's power for the summer when there's nothing on TV to save power and make less heat in my room (can go up to 90F degrees!).

The one with the ticking sound is the one still under warranty, so I didn't do anything with it besides verify that the same thing happens when plugged in to different power strips in different wall sockets. It is now sitting in the home of the person I bought it from on ebay, waiting for my decision about what to do. I thought he had a place to take it to for repair, but it turned out he used the word "warranty" when he actually meant "guarantee".
I came here to see if anyone knew of a place that could repair it, because the warranty I bought myself (for after the 90 day original coverage) would cover the repair, but I'm still no further on getting info on who to call about even doing an estimate. It has to be an actual repair shop that would give me an invoice I can fax to Square Trade.
I know there is nothing wrong with the antenna because I tried it connected to an outdoor one in another location that was and is working for my 3rd DVR.
Plus, being without a signal still shows something on the screen, like it's trying to acquire one, never just a black screen.
Because the green light still comes on on my oldest one, the one NOT under warranty, I was hoping that it could be repaired and that my recordings are still on the hard drive. That's the one I opened to clean the dust off of and see how the fan is connected, etc. I don't understand why the fan wouldn't come on by design as soon as the power goes on. Are you sure this happens with every unit and isn't just a flaw in yours?

The fan has some sort of temperature sensor - the higher the internal temp of the unit
the faster the fan runs.

Not a fan has, the temp sensor(s) located on board and inside of a drive.

From what I have read, once you get these units open, it is a simple plug and play replacement for the HD.
What seems to be a killer is when the PS or the tuner goes out.

There is a guy on craigslist who is willing to give away his broken DVDPal DVR. I spoke to him and was going to take it off his hands, but after talking to him it seems that both the tuner and HD are toast. IIRC, I think he was from Virginia?

As for DVDPal DVRS being sold no returns, as is... I just don't buy any used electronics unless I get at least a 7 day guarantee against DOA/unit failure.

There is no device called the DVDPal.

It's the "DTVPal".

The machine has no DVD drive. Never has.

If you get no appearance of any power ....fan....lights....hum... Could be a power supply issue, assuming the outlet works, and rather easy to repair by a tech that knows anything. Basic power supply parts are available at some Radio Shacks and places like Newark and I'm sure many others. I was able to repair an ATSC receiver with some new power supply capacitors....running for two months now.

When you get down to the chips and components on the Main Board...then your pretty much out of luck, as many are probably proprietary or in need of software programming.

Good Luck,

Does the DVR have a simple fuse for the power supply (or power line, etc.)?

Yes, I did post a macro picture of it.

Nope, That is what real warranty's are for.

My original question was. What did it cost on the last DVR (dish) you fixed for a member here?

Can you give an approximate if you will not give exact

Just really curious if it pays to fix these things.

Where is the picture posted? I don't see it on the first page of this thread. Plus, the picture that was there of the inside latches and how to best open them isn't there anymore. Why was that removed?

To me there's no reason a DVR should be running 24 hrs a day.... I don't leave my computers on 24/7. Dvd recorders with hard drives power
down after useage, as do cable co DVR's. Since the DTVPal DVR's are
prone to failure, I'd rather leave them off when not in use. It's not a
'saving power' issue, more like a precautionary measure.

No I can't be sure it happens with every unit, I'm going by the two working units I have, and a broken one I've taken apart to see how it works.
I've seen black screens if the signal is lost completely on whatever channel
it's tuned to. My OTA signal is marginal, usually in the 60's or 70's on the signal strength meter.
Unfortunately there isn't anywhere these DVR's can be sent for repair, I've
brought up this issue several times here.
I was under the impression that Square Trade refunds your money if your
broken equipment can't be repaired......

I think the constant daily thermal cycling from a cold start to warm and cold again, over and over is worse than leaving it plugged in, turned off in standby mode. I speak as a retired consumer electronics technician with over 30 years experience. My Pal's been plugged in for about two years. Sometimes when power supply components begin to fail like electrolytic capacitors, they won't start showing symptoms until it's been completely powered down, like a no power supply startup condition for example. Anyway good luck with it, I am pretty sure I won't change your mind.

I totally agree with not turning things like this off. I never turn my computer off either, unless it's to do maintenance. I have read many articles that say hard drives are meant to keep running, and get stressed most every time they get started again after being stopped.

Yes, I can get my money back from Square Trade, but in that case a unit that has only been used about 60 days will never get a chance at being anything but trash, and I will never be able to watch the recorded shows that were on that hard drive.
At least now I feel like I have tried my best to resolve this the way I wanted it to go.
ChannelMaster rep took my phone number a few days ago, and a tech actually called me back, even though I don't own one of their DVRs. I'm still rather shocked at that, especially how nice he was on the phone, chatting like he had all the time in the world.
He told me that DVRs under warranty are replaced right away with a new or refurbed unit. Broken ones are sent overseas to be evaluated. There isn't even one repair shop in the USA that he knows of. If the unit can be fixed, they send it back to ChannelMaster to use as a refurb. They never just fix one and send the same one back to the customer.
I asked about the recordings, and he says they don't get corrupted like on a computer hard drive, so would still be there if I could transfer it to another working DVR.
The problems I described with my 2 DVRs, he said sound like power supply and capacitor issues, and that if I could talk a local shop into checking them out, parts would be easy to obtain to fix them, they are nothing special that would have to come from ChannelMaster or Dish. But I would have to find a shop that has some kind of diagnostic equipment (I forgot what he called it-a system analyzer?) and convince them it would be possible to fix. I am going to try calling around eventually to check into that for the one that isn't under warranty.
Now I know that even if I buy a CM7000Pal, my recordings are going to be lost even if the unit dies under warranty. Will never again save anything on a DVR that I think I want to save permanently. Good thing I haven't gotten rid of my DVD recorders, because now I know they are extremely necessary to someone like me who likes to keep copies of certain shows.

I'd like to remind you a simple way to preserve your recordings (sure, it would require to open the DVR):
- get same size SATA drive - 250 GB
- use "GHOST -lr" for sector-to-sector copy or use free software to execute drive plain copy.

In case if your backup drive is bigger then original [250 GB] you will need to make reverse copy to that one what will be inside of replaced DVR.
Using bigger disk [with small partitions] inside of new DVR will destroy your copy - be vigilant to the process.

FWIW...I might suggest offloading programs I HAD to save to another macine such as a SD dvr..HD dvr....or even a VCR. As you know, all outputs are "hot". Of course you would have to do this while the Pal is operating normally.....JMHO

I was planning on copying from my first DVR to the DVD recorder one day, had even tested it once to see if I connected the cables correctly. Just never got around to it. And with the 2nd DVR only lasting around 60 days from the time I bought it, never thought I'd have to worry about losing shows that soon. That's why now I'm thinking I should never record onto a DVR in the first place, anything I know I might want to save.

Might be simple to you, but I need a lot more detail in order to understand what this means.
I understand opening it and getting same size drive, but how do you connect the 2 drives, what is "GHOST-lr"? What is "plain copy"?
Thanks for trying to help.

I just wished we could copy our recordings easily directly to PC or something with no encryption/security. Blah. At least TiVo lets you do it. Also, home made home theater/media center PCs as well.

Today 250 GB drives are so cheap, and opening the DVR is no brainier. I'm not telling about the simply copying process.

Modern PC (desktops) has many SATA ports - you'll need two for old and new DVR's drives. In case of notebook, you could buy for $20 dual SATA PCMCIA card or two SATA/USB dongles.

That command line was for Symantec GHOST program, but you can find free program like Clonzilla to make a 'clone' of DVR's partitions/drive.

Importance of "cloning": you must preserve partition's attributes like size and location to avoid full re-init of cloning drive for new DVR.
The 'beast' [DVR software] is very picky about how the drive formatted.

Doesn't the Pal use the same file system as Dish DVRs?

Yes. Some. To some extend.