Onkyo problems? HDMI, overheating problems etc - vote here to let Onkyo know what you think! - Page 3

I used my 807 mainly for watching movies and occassional music. I watched about 2-4 movies a month so it really wasn't used a lot. It failed 5 months out of warranty.
Before that I had to have my 805 repaired once during warranty and it pooped the bed a few months after warranty. So I still went with Onkyo after the problems with
the 805. I went with Marantz this time and doubt very much I'll ever go back to Onkyo. I just recently retired so the Marantz will get used quite a bit more. The 3 year
warranty on the Marantz is a plus. After the 807 was repaired I gave it to my son and had him put a cooling fan on it. It was alway on the top shelf of an open audio
rack when I had it so it wasn't starved for air.
The HDMI boards they are using to repair the Onkyo are supposed to be a re-designed board according to the forum administrator at the Onkyo support forums.

Doesn't apply to me. My 3008 just failed (No Audio and network grayed out) and has it's own table stand and free and clear on both sides and top . About 30"
on both sides and free and clear on top by at least 7 feet.

I also have a fan on top.

The last few weeks no sound and had to constantly turn it on and off to get sound in the early stages of failing. Then it took longer and longer and now no sound unless I leave
it on for several hours and then maybe the sound will come on when I turn it on and off.

Anyway I'm bringing it in this Saturday..Thank God my service center is only 15 miles away so I don't have to ship it.

I have owned three Onkyo receivers over the years:

SR-800 - still runs great (my son is using it for 2 ch stereo)
SR-606 - HDMI board failure around 2 years
NR-3008 - HDMI board failure around 2 years

I used to think that only a small percentage of units were likely affected, but I'm thinking otherwise now. I don't think it's a coincidence that both of my units failed at the 2 year mark. It seems like a fatal design flaw, and the boards will fail at some point (when that happens could depend on usage, conditions, etc).

My time is pretty valuable to me, and tearing down my system, setting it back up/reconfiguring is something I don't care to do often. It will be interesting to see if, one or two years from now, the repaired units start failing again. I'll also be curious to see how the x09 and x10 series fare when their clocks hit 18 to 24 months. Only then will we know if Onkyo has indeed addressed these issues.

When I first joined these boards a couple of years ago (to research new receivers), the x07 series and x08 series received nothing but praise. Now this forum is littered with dedicated "Official Onkyo xxxx failure" threads. I don't see dedicated failure threads for any other AVR brand.

I've been an Onkyo supporter for a long time, but they are going to have to win me back.

Wow 2 HDMI board failures in 2 years..not good. Did you buy an 2 year extended warranty for the NR-3008 knowing the history of
the SR-606 ?

Well I just bought the additional 2 year extended warranty for $75 ( I signed up for Onkyo website when I registered and recieved 10 points which is $10 discount) so after I get this fixed I'll know if it fails again around the 18 to 24 month period. Stay Tuned


I used my Denon for over 10 years and it still works but not hooked up..I updated it with the Onkyo and never expected the Onkyo to fail in 2 years.


PS: I'm not looking forward to taking everything apart..UGH !

I have a 805, that runs my family room system and zone three whole house (4) four years with no problem, system runs 14 hours every day. I also have a 5008 in my Theater for three years and did have to return it a year ago for service, was fairly effecient in returning the receiver. It is used just for movies and usually three days a week. Am thinking of upgrading to the 5010 for the better speaker selection and true 9.2, I have all of the speakers installed.

I had an Integra DHC 40.1 (sold it a few months ago) that had the HDMI board go bad along with the am fm tuner board. Since it was still under warranty I sent it in for repairs. Turnaround time was a couple of weeks. Much less than I expected. I bought an Emotiva UMC-1 in the meantime (big mistake!) since I was also interested in their XMC-1 (I wanted the 40% discount card) that has yet to appear... I've sold the UMC-1 and the discount card. After owning a pair of LMC-1s and the UMC-1 I think I'm done with Emotiva's processors. For now at least. Big Dan's promise of a UMC-1 with 'lightning fast' HDMI switching was a bit optimistic. OK - more than a bit.

Anyway I think the 40.1 was based on the NR807 or 808 so the HDMI problem didn't surprise me after reading about all the problems with the 807 and 808 that kept cropping up. It always got very warm right above the HDMI board. I've got the NR818 now - seems to run cool even having the amps on board. The 818 only drives the surrounds since I use a beefy 3 channel Acurus amp for the front three.

So even though I've experienced a bad HDMI board (and tuner board) I decided to give Onkyo one more try. If the experience with the NR818 sours I'll probably try Denon or Marantz next time I need an AVR or processor.

Reading some of the posts on this board, there is speculation as to weather or not keeping the HDMI board cooler is indifferent or beneficial. I had some old fans lying around that I bought at Radio Shack some years ago. Ther were rigged up very simply with rubber feet and a power cord. 52dB was pretty noisy though. I could hear them over quiet passages and low to moderate volume. I got a kit from Coolerguys, which I saw mentioned elsewhere on this forum. There is a black metal enclosure that sits on top of the AVR. These fans are much, much quieter, measuring lower than my SPL meter can display. They claim 22dB. If I listen very carefullly during a quiet passage, I can hear them, but they easily go unnoticed. I may do something to tone down the LED's since I can see them lighting up the wall behind the equipment in a dark room. Red when the fans are off and green when they kick on. The only other thing I did was to replace the adheasive feet that I think you are supposet to stick on top of the reciever, with some silicone tubing slit lengthwise to put on the edges of the fan frame. All in all, a very simple setup that works well and goes unnoticed. They have a nice variety of kits and parts for just about any application.

Weather some cooling will do any good or not remains to be seen. That may be a long experiment I suppose. They may not help, but they certainly cannot hurt.

John

I've had a fan on top of my Onkyo 5508 from nearly the day I got it and it still showed symptoms of HDMI board failure after 13 months.

I guess that answers that.

John

Most complex electronic equipment will have some faults, but this HDMI switching thing is such a major problem for me, that I will buy another brand next time. I have solved my 3007's problem for now with an external fan, but I shouldn't have to do that on such an expensive piece of equipment. The thought of sending it in for service, even if the warranty is extended, and being without audio/video for a long time (according to the posts I have read) is painful to contemplate.

Wow. I have been an Onyko fan for just over 14 years now and I have had ZERO problems with the 701 which was bought new back in 04 of something. It is on every single day and it keeps kicking but I want to upgrade to a newer Onkyo AVR but after reading so many horror stories and bad feedback about them I am pretty much convinced that my new AVR will NOT be an Onkyo. Its a shame because I had great success with my 501 and 701. Now to find a comparable AVR to the 809.

The new units are far, far cooler than the previous years' models. It is no hotter than my Denon 3808.

Having just purchased the 717, I thought I would chime in. I have owned MANY receivers through the years, mostly Pioneer and Marantz, but when the Onkyo 705 came out I did buy it at a great price for all the "bells and whistles." The HDMI board went out about two weeks after the warranty expired and Onkyo would NOT repair it for free. Perhaps that was the beginning of the HDMI board debacle? At any rate, I decided I wouldn't buy another Onkyo based on their Customer Service. I replaced the 705 with an entry level Pioneer (919AH) that had rave reviews and it performed quite well until we bought our new house (a year ago) and I built a dedicated room for my Home Theater. At last I was able to play my Blu-rays at near reference levels...or so I thought! The Pioneer kept going into protection mode (i.e. shutting down) during any loud scenes with extreme (high or low) frequencies (example: the "pod emergence scene" in War of the Worlds) at volumes louder than -17. I thought it might have been a bad connection in one of my speakers, but it was indeed the receiver.

I had a choice to make...with the Pioneer being out of warranty I finally decided to either go with a high end Pioneer Elite or TRY ANOTHER ONKYO. So, here I am, crossing my fingers and hoping I'll have success this time around. I will say this, I absolutely love the sound of the Onkyo; the Pioneer was good, but it lacked the fullness of sound I get from the 717. And the reviews on Amazon were quite good, so I took comfort from them.

Speaking of Amazon, I purchased the 717 from them and methinks they are NOT an authorized dealer. Am I right? If not, can one still purchase an extended warranty somewhere or will Onkyo refuse to honor it since I purchased the unit from Amazon?
Edited by djoberg - 1/15/13 at 8:09pm

Well, my 808 is at United Radio in Syracuse, NY right now for service. Mine was 3 weeks out of warranty but after an email, they did agree to do a one time warranty repair. I just spoke with the service center this afternoon and the rep said that they ordered a new HDMI board. As others have mentioned, I've had continuous issues with the network features having a mind of their own and finally had the no sound condition. For three nights in a row, when I turned it on cold, I could not get sound. I would shut it off and turn it back on and then a few seconds later I would have sound again. Over a three day period, it took longer and longer for the speaker relays to click and then finally, on new years eve, I could not get sound out of it no matter what I tried. It cost me $45 to ship it to Syracuse an hour and a half away. They received it on Thursday, Jan 10th, looked at it today and quoted at least 7 business days for parts to arrive. I'm hoping that the new board is redesigned as some have mentioned. Also, I am curious if they will go ahead and replace the cable for the potential input switching issue?
In the meantime, I'm using my (almost 14 year old!!!) Yamaha RX-V795 which still works and looks new.

I forgot to mention that I have been very pleased with how cool the 717 runs. I watched a full-length action movie last night at fairly loud levels (-12), along with some satellite broadcasts, and when I checked the top of the 717 it was barely warm.

I'm really hoping the HDMI board in these newer models have been redesigned. BTW, when I did my research on the 717, I was mainly reading reviews on Amazon and some of the posts on the discussion thread for the 818, 717, and 616, and I really didn't see anything about an HDMI problem. And having had that problem with my Onkyo 705 4 or 5 years ago, I just assumed that it would be a non-issue by now. So I was surprised to start reading in the 818 Owners Thread that the problem hasn't gone away. This is really unacceptable, IMHO, that a problem this serious would go unresolved by a company this large. I would think that this issue would be very counterproductive for Onkyo, especially since they seem to be repairing units after the warranty has expired.
Edited by djoberg - 1/16/13 at 11:23am

I have an update on the repair status of my 808. United Radio ordered (and received) a new HDMI board for my "no sound" condition. I also asked about whether or not the IDE cable replacement TSB would be performed while it was in for service. They said that it would and that the parts for that fix are already in stock. They said my receiver likely won't ship back to me until next week. All in all, this will be a turn-around time of about a month if it does actually ship next week. Fingers crossed!