Official Onkyo TX-SR707 Thread [No Price Talk] - Page 112

I must say any thing bad about Onkyo I ever thought, they did a really good job restoring my faith in them as a brand. My 707 had died (no sound) 2 weeks before the 2 year mark. It just so happened I was throwing a fight party and needed a receiver the day after it died so I went to Best Buy and purchased a 709. Do to my own complacent lazy mentality I never contacted Onkyo before the expiration date. Someone on this board had said they extend warranties by 45 days and now I'm 40 days in. So i figured i would give it a shot. To my surprise the man on the line at Onkyo granted me the one time extended warranty claim even though I don't have a proof of purchase considering it was a gift. He saw amazon had purchased it from Onkyo on Nov 16, 2009 so he allowed it, ahaving tested the regional repair shop United Radio, instead of local. I plan on putting the repaired unit in my bed room when I get it back. Onkyo really did impress me with this one. I'm really impressed. The only charge I have to worry about is the $30 UPS fee to send it by my own choice to United Radio instead of a local repair.

I was having the same problem. After digging around, found a tech note somewhere on the Onkyo site mentioning turning of RIHD. Did that and it updated over the network without a hitch.

I did panic a bit when I first saw then Error, then again after the process through my own screwup. In my troubleshooting, I had unplugged all HDMI inputs and the output. After learning the RIHD trick and updating, I went to plug everything back in and had NO HDMI connectivity. You could see the unit try to pair, then say no signal and go to analog mode, plus no output to TV. I was thinking the update had frapped me. Finally, pulled the receiver out (I had just reached behind blind to unplug and replug) only to find out I had shifted everything one to the left.

So I'm done with this receiver and done with Onkyo. Expensive life lesson learned.

I called the other Onkyo regional service center (United Radio) and they would not talk to me about the problem either, they also said the only way they could give me any estimate is if I send it in. Then it is a minimum of $165 + parts if needed + $30 return shipping or a $40 bench fee + $30 shipping if the cost of parts and the repair exceed the value of the system.

This is ridiculous, assuming mailing the system outbound also costs $30, I need to pay at least $100 just to find out if it is worthwhile fixing this thing, plus the time and effort of boxing this thing up and shipping it out.

This is a common problem and they should be able to communicate an estimate to me over the phone... but Onkyo and it's partners are thoroughly unhelpful.

Since best case for a repair is $225 (but I'm sure they will charge an outrageous amount for a new HDMI board) it totally makes sense just to pick up a Sony or Yamaha with similar features for not much more than that - and then I would get a new warranty too since I am betting it's HIGHLY likely that the "fixed" receiver will suffer a similar fate after a few years of usage - due to the number of users and nature of the failure this seems like a design or material defect (I keep thinking of the nightmare XBox 360 owners suffered until they started replacing failed units with redesigned models). That would also explain why Onkyo is so willing to replaced failed 707's with 709's... it took me months and 4 failed attempts by local and regional service centers before they sent me this 707 to replaced my defective 706...

Has anyone received written confirmation from Onkyo, that reason for "no sound" problem is actually a manufacturing defect?

Or did someone received written response from Onkyo, why his unit was replaced with 709 model?

Please send me a copy...

Well, repair number two (replace intermittent circuit board) did not last long. Intermittent still but i would guess it will die completely. I tried to reach Onkyo service today. Tried the star for the call back, waited half hour on hold, to no avail... not sure what to do, wish i had my old panasonic , always worked and sounded good but didn't have the video capability.. Next is what, Denon or Yamaha.......

Actually when I called the first guy in Tech help said it was the first he heard of this problem and the guy in parts wouldn't directly admit to the issue either. Bo's clearly they're not admitting to anything. And I don't blame them in the end they still extended my warranty by 2 months and are repairing the receiver free of charge, which will than be covered 45 days afterwards. As long as they fix every receiver it's fine.

since so many people are showing the same thing, I will tell my experience. I took my sr707 to the seattle authorized repair shop and they confirmed it was the hdmi board.

I found one on ebay and replaced it myself, total cost to me was, including the diagnostic just under $100, very very annoying but not the end of the world.

If your reciever shows no speakers on the front pannel, and the video works just fine, there is a VERY high likley hood it is the hdmi board. the part I ordered was:

ONKYO TXSR707 TX-SR707 HDMI BOARD
PART # BCHDM-0132 OR 2514132C

this was fairly straight forwqard to do, there are all the screws holding the hdmi ports to the case, 3 cables, and one screw on the board itself along with a plactic clip. I was able to swapp out the board having never looking in the case before in about 15 minutes. saved me hundreds of dollars as the repair shop wanted $570 for the borad and $110 for the install fee.

IF you cant afford a new reciever, and onkyo wont help you, this is the fix that worked for me. I have been using it now for over a week and no hicups at all.

I may give this a shot. Does Onkyo sell parts directly of do we have to go with eBay "Seller Refurbished" parts?

My TX-SR707 developed the same fault, and it's more than 45 days out of warranty so i am up a creek without a paddle.

I too bought a board from someone on ebay, and it doesn't work any better than the one i pulled out, so i am trying to negotiate an exchange with the seller.

My observations, though, in case they may be helpful:

The biggest IC on the board, the ST chip with the silver top, runs quite hot. If i let the 707 sit there and cook for half an hour, and then reset it while the ST chip is hot, it works.

I repeated that cycle twice, and then experimentally held a blow dryer (poor man's heat gun) over just the ST chip for a couple minutes, and this worked just as well as letting the whole unit warm up.

Since this is a BGA chip (ball grid array) my suspicion is that thermal cyling - expansion and contraction - gradually caused some of the solder balls under the chip to break or otherwise come loose from their intended contacts.

If this is the case, adhering a small heatsink to the ST chip on a working board may prevent failure. A passive computer chipset or VGA heatsink without a fan may do the job handily.

I don't know any hot air BGA rework techs, but it's possible that the real hotshot rework guys may have tricks to reflow the solder between the chip and the board. This is not something i would attempt myself. But if i knew someone who does that kind of work for a living, I would absolutely offer him a little cash to try it on my HDMI board.

Yes, I think a home AV component fan unit goes a long way to help amps in general last longer. A passive heat-sink is also a good idea if there is good air-flow.

I wouldn't call myself a hot-shot board level repair tech ... but if you go back a few pages ...

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...1#post21082761

... I made an offer to try to repair someones 707 (that they were going to throw away anyway) and share those results with the forum. You should definitely try to get a new or refurb amp out of Onkyo first ... but if it's going to the dump ... I wouldn't mind giving it a try. I look at fixing stuff as a form of recycling.

I think the failure mode we're looking at here is probably exactly the same as are seen on many game consoles and high end gaming laptops - BGA chips that are insufficiently cooled and assembled with early lead-free metallurgy solder - at least I'm hoping that that technology is getting better - leading to broken solder joints under the chips with prolonged use.

If that's the case, some of us may be able to repair them using the same techniques used to repair xbox 360's with the red ring of death - which largely seems to involve injecting some very thin no-clean solder flux under the chip, assembling a heat shield to protect the surrounding board, and heating the chip with a heat gun until it hits the melting point of lead-free solder (220c or so - this takes a couple minutes with an actual heat gun).

Since i already spent the money for the replacement board, I am going to pursue a swap for the board i received which is also bad, and assuming i arrive at a working 707, I will apply a thin heatsink to the ST processor on the working board and then see about repairing my original board with a heat gun and some kester 951 flux. Which may presumably mean that i have an extra board some day.

But i am in no way offering to become a repair service. I've tried to run a home business before, catering to headphone enthusiasts, and i positively loathed it. And all i was doing was manufacturing a fairly specialized adapter cable.

Since I''m in Utah and work in Salt Lake City, I suppose i have the option of requesting the services of Knight's Gaming Repair, who claims to be equipped and experienced with full-on BGA reballing. But i have not spoken to them yet to determine whether they are comfortable repairing something that does not play video games.

This is the procedure I used to fix the HP Laser logic board with a BGA solder job that failed after a couple of years.

Using Solder Reworking Station, Hot Air Gun attachment:
Temp: 280 C (536 F)
Air Power: 72%
Air Nozzle: BGA 16mm x 16mm (largest one I have)

Board and BGA chip face up. Used small screws as stand-offs (to keep board level and stable ... to keep surrounding small SMT parts from sliding off the board). With nozzle perpendicular and about 1/4" (5 mm) away from board, rotated around total chip area (BGA is about 25mm x 25mm) ... never stopping in one place for more than a few seconds. Did this for 3 minutes. Left alone and let cool for about 5-10 minutes.

Board and printer seem to be working fine after reapir. I still use this printer (it's been working fine for about a year now).

I recommend you have some board level soldering experience before attempting this. If your expereince is only with "hole-thru" boards/parts ... practice hot air work on some old SMT boards first.

Just got a call from the repair shop, they have replaced the hdmi card...it is only two weeks since I dropped it off. Hopefully my 707 is now repaired.

I have done smt work but no hot air.

Just picked up my 707 and hooked it up, it works fine but my fingers are crossed. The repair shop indicated they are having some receivers replaced but only if there are no parts available. The repair shop said the hdmi cards value is $375

I would definitely take the advice of some of the people here and put heat sinks on the chips. Try www.frozencpu.com and get GPU passive coolers. I have no idea if it will help, but I can't see it hurting.

$375 is better than the $500+ quoted to someone else here, but still more than this receiver is worth. I've been shopping for replacements and depending on the sale you can get an equivalent unit from Yamaha, Sony or Pioneer in the $250 - $350 range.

Now, my rant:
I mentioned before in December my Onkyo receiver, Samsung TV and XBox 360 all died around the same time (rule of 3's) - all out of warranty.

Samsung had an easy online repair process and came out and fixed my TV on site in under a week for free because it was a widespread issue.

Today I got my XBox back. Microsoft had a fast and easy online repair process, charged $100 flat fee but included shipping for free and I just got my console back with a letter apologizing it took a little longer than they thought it would and a certificate for 3 free months of XBox Live to make up for the wait.

From past experience with my 706 and now this 707, Onkyo has long long hold times, a very unhelpful support department (All they have ever done for me is give me names of places to send the unit for repair - if you want anything above that you need to fight to escalate your case), customer service is difficult and rude to deal with (and that's getting warranty repairs done correctly), you have to take or ship the unit to their repair centers on your own dime and there are often LONG waits to get your stereo back.

Now that the unit is out-of-warranty, the repair process seems to be a crapshoot of picking the local or regional repair facility with the lowest bench fees / flat repair charges and hoping the parts won't cost more than the unit is worth. They all flat-out refused to give any type of estimate over the phone even though this seems to be a common problem - you HAVE to send it in and pay their diagnostic fees. Seems like a scam.

Onkyo needs to take a long hard look at how they stand behind their products because they are WAY behind the other consumer electronics companies I have dealt with.

Sorry for the venting... just very very frustrated with Onkyo - this is the 2nd time this has happened to me.

I just got my 707 back from United Radio 1 week after I sent it to them. They repaired the "intermittent connections in audio circuit" to fix the no sound issue. I'm not able to check it just yet but if any one can chime in with their experience on this fix. What should I expect long term. I was hoping they'd replace the HDMI board but they didn't. I called them and they said I'm warrantied for 6 months with them. But I know I'm only warranties for 45 days with ONKYO since it was an extended warranty. Hopefully if it's going to fail again it happens within the next 45 days.

I purchased a factory refurb Onkyo 707 about one year ago. So far no issues as others have been reporting.

However, as a preventative measure I placed a very large 200mm 12V DC cooling fan on top of my receiver. The fan has a molex computer power connector that I have connected to a computer mini 12v/5v power supply. The power supply is plugged into a smart power strip that turns it on when my onkyo powers up (which is also plugged into the smart strip as the control device.)

The fan is a funky blue color which matches the volume knob. Fans without lights are available as well. The fan is a low RPM unit and is very quiet (not totally silent tho) but moves alot of air. My entire onkyo chassis is cool to the touch even after long movie sessions. I can feel the air being drawn up from under the onkyo chassis and expelled up thru the top fan. My receiver is in a closet away from my listening room. So the fan noise is not an issue. Even in the same room, the fan would be pretty low especially if you drive it with less than the 12v dc spec'd to slow down the fan.

link to fan:
http://www.amazon.com/Cooler-Master-.../dp/B002FRLEIS

link to a smart strip:
http://www.amazon.com/Smart-Strip-SC.../dp/B000L9A7ZS

link to power supply:
http://www.amazon.com/Coolerguys-110...dp/B000MGG6SC/

Well, a lot of the lead-free solders are more brittle than the leaded version.

it stands to reason that wild variations in temperature (heat expansion) would stress the solder joints.

anyway.

Something like the "Enzotech Forged Copper Northbridge Low-Profile Heatsink (CNB-S1L)" should be plenty adequate. Get the thermal tape option, or use regular (or metallic) heatsink paste - small dab of paste in the center and a dab of superglue on each corner. Should hold it for Years And Years as long as you don't knock it around much. If it needs to come off you can slide a knife edge under the heatsink and pop it off easily (because the shear strength of superglue is poor). I've applied heatsinks this way a few times now with good results.

It's fairly likely that i will try the superglued corners trick with a small aluminum heatsink pulled off an old motherboard. Because I'm cheap that way.

I echo your frustration with Onkyo's commitment to their customer base. I have heard stories of Onkyo going all-out to make a customer happy well out of warranty, but these stories seem to be the exception, and Onkyo does not seem to have a customer service culture that proactively seeks to do that sort of thing when there is a widespread issue like this.

As my 707 that I picked up today, the second repair in just over a month, still has six months warrenty I'm not going to add heat sinks to the chips. However, I might purchase a small cooling fan. I understand they had to replace the chip before the board which they replaced this time (under warrenty). The actual hdmi pcb board cost is $379.79 If the unit fails for a third time I will be screaming...previous to the onkyo I've had pioneer and marantz and never had issues, the a/v marantz is now used in the family room.

Heck, I'm using the old 503 that my 707 replaced right now.

lead-free solder probably has a lot to do with it, but so does the increased amount of processing power required for high definition digital signals.

I would have to find a datasheet for the processor to know for sure, and STMicro doesn't like publishing CPU datasheets, but it's possible that they touted the chip's ability to run without additional cooling, and Onkyo believed them because it turns out that it can run for about 2 years of normal use without additional cooling.

In 2008 every solder vendor was saying they had solved the problem of how to make good solder without lead in it. It's possible that we're in this situation because Onkyo trusted companies that had previously been trustworthy.

But I'm still Very Annoyed. This thing was damn expensive. I should have gotten more than 2 years of trouble-free use out of it.

I'm having problems with the sound on my Onkyo TX SR707. It was working fine, and then a few days ago would turn on my Bravia TV and get a picture but no sound. I used the power button on the Onkyo to turn the unit on and off, and the sound would come back on. Today, I've tried all that, but no sound at all. I've tried using the receiver to listen to the radio, I've tried watching a DVD -- nothing. The picture on the TV is fine. Just...no sound.
I opened the case and with my wife’s hairdryer I started blowing warm air every ware inside the receiver. I heard a noise like a relay or a speaker cutoff switch and the sound came back!! I unplugged and plug power back again and the same problem came up ‘no sound’. Do you think it is a switch problem? Where is that switch and how can I replace it?

Dude.....Welcome to the club....Go read back a dozen pages and you'll see you are having the same problem as every other 707 owner. Hopefully you're still in the 2 year warranty, because your pretty much SOL.

Having owned mine now for little better than two years with no issues yet. Although probably just jinxed myself. I would be curious for those of you with defective units if you turned your unit on and off alot. Being that the 707 gets excessively hot I would wonder if the heating up and cooling down is causing these boards to fail pre maturely. I'm by no means an expert just a thought. I rarely turn mine off but do use an external fan ( modified laptop cooling pad )

Our unit is now well over 2 yrs old. Yes, it runs HOT. However, it sits in a well ventilated cabinet. It goes on as soon as the TV is turned on and it goes off, together with the TV.

One thing I didn't do is to try and update the software. I don't know if that has anything to do with it, or not.

I haven't really been of the opinion that the 707 runs excessively hot for as much power as it puts out. Heat was never really something i considered one of it's remarkable characteristics.

But i do use a wire shelving unit as my AV rack, so it's basically sitting in open air.

The ST processor on the HDMI board itself runs very hot, though. Hotter than you would like to hold your finger on, perhaps not hot enough to physically burn you. And this is the chip that is problematic. I believe that it's thermal problems are wholly independent of the general thermal output of the 707.

Mine was on a wire shelving rack too - top shelf, nothing above it, didn't help, unit died after about 14 months.

For what it might be worth, my Onkyo replaced a Harman Kardon that bit the dust at the 2 yr 3 o 4 month age. The Dolby circuit board needed replacement @ $650. I had paid $800, so I decided to donate it to charity!

I confirm that the problem is at the ST chip on the HDMI board. When i blow warm air with my wife's hairdryer my onkyo 707 works perfect. When it is off at night and go to sleep, the next morning is dead again.
Is there a solution for me? How can i fix the ST chip? Can i replace the HDMI board with a new? Where can i find one? Eb@y? Thanks.

I will say Onkyo did respond to my email of complaint asking if there is anything they can do to resolve my issue.
Although the current issue has been resolved, I am satisfied they at least reponded.
In response I replied with the serial number and a copy of my purchase invoice should I have to contact them in the future due to issues with the 707.