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Timing of forum down was sure a pain for me this week. 2 days before, my fan started growling loudly, and barely spinning in spite of the heat that needed ejection (it sits on top of a LG tuner/recorder that makes more than its share of heat). Just to be sure it wasn't a fluke, I hit the fan with compressed air, but it didn't help. I decided to see if it would stop on its own like PC coolers sometimes do, and just let it make noise for a while before going to bed. On the next two startups, nothing changed. On the third, after some sleep and off time, the noise was gone, and it was spinning normally. Nevertheless I came here to see what I could find, but got sidetracked before I really got into it, and sort of forgot about it, until the next day. Then the noise came back, so I came back to the still open page here, but nothing worked, no 404, but no browser response to clicking the search button or any other link either.
Consequently I dug inside to see what I could figure out without benefit of others' experiences here. What a pain. The fan connector is tiny, unlike those on any PC fans around here the same 50mm size. Worse, the connector is buried under the daughterboard with all those flimsy fragile ribbon cables connected to it, and I couldn't figure out how to release all of them that I wanted to to lift up the board enough to get at the fan connector with more than one finger.
While I had the board up, it was very apparent that the disk drive cable that connects on the daughterboards adjacent middle was somewhat mangled from when the machine went in for motherboard replacement under warranty last year. It had me worried about giving it just one too many touches and destroying machine function.
I started on the fan by removing it, then hitting with full force from my air compressor in both directions, hoping the stress would clear some detritus from the innards to make the noise go away and restore normal operation. I put it together and plugged it in before putting the cover on. Sounded fine, so I turned on the power, and almost immediately the noise and near total lack of spin was back.
Of the 6 50mm fans I found here, only 2 were 2-wire like the 2160's, and one of those was actually 52 mm so would not fit. The only suitable fan turned out to be the dirtiest, which means probably well used. Nevertheless, I clipped its plug off, clipped the plug off the old 2160 fan, soldered the wires together, and got it installed. I put the board back, plugged it in, and the fan turned on. I turned the machine on, and again the fan worked. So I put the cover on, put it back in its place, connected all the wires, set the clock, reset the 18 timers, assumed everything was hunky dory, and went to bed. When I got up in the AM and checked on it, I could see something wrong, but initially it was not apparent what. Turns out it should have been recording while I was checking, but it wasn't. I went into the timers and could see the timer set for current, yet it wasn't red and the counter was not moving. I tried playing yesterday's HD recording, and that worked. Then I tried cycling the power, but it ignored the remote's power button, so I tried the panel's power button. It ignored that too, so I pulled the plug. After plugging it back in, nothing had improved. I tried a short timer recording just to test, but nothing.
So I took it back out, took the cover off again (note that each such cover operation is highly annoying to me, because WalMart's warranty service had stripped out half the cover screw holes) to inspect the previous night's work. I looked for loose or forgotten connections, but found none, so pulled the daugherboard back up to look underneath, where I noticed that worrisome cable looked worse than I remembered. While the board was back up, I finally noticed an unconnected 4-wide ribbon laying on the mainboard, connected behind the HD, unconnected on the other end.
So I put it back together again, with all cables connected this time, completing the stripping of the screw hole for the HDMI plug in the process, but inspecting my own work more thoroughly, with the result that everything I know how to do with it works normally now, including the used fan.
Now the question becomes, am I the first among the many reporting here to have such serious fan trouble? Should I consider replacing my replacement fan soon? Whether soon or otherwise, should I opt to buy from Magnavox service, or go for a generic that's clearly labeled ball bearing? Or maybe one that's not labeled ball bearing?
The old, in use about 28 months including time in for warranty repair, is marked with model number RDL5012S1, DC 12v, 0.06A, brushless, with red and black wires, made by Xinrulian in China. It's 50mm X 50mm X 12mm. Apparently its speed is controlled via voltage, as it has only the two wires.
Consequently I dug inside to see what I could figure out without benefit of others' experiences here. What a pain. The fan connector is tiny, unlike those on any PC fans around here the same 50mm size. Worse, the connector is buried under the daughterboard with all those flimsy fragile ribbon cables connected to it, and I couldn't figure out how to release all of them that I wanted to to lift up the board enough to get at the fan connector with more than one finger.
While I had the board up, it was very apparent that the disk drive cable that connects on the daughterboards adjacent middle was somewhat mangled from when the machine went in for motherboard replacement under warranty last year. It had me worried about giving it just one too many touches and destroying machine function.
I started on the fan by removing it, then hitting with full force from my air compressor in both directions, hoping the stress would clear some detritus from the innards to make the noise go away and restore normal operation. I put it together and plugged it in before putting the cover on. Sounded fine, so I turned on the power, and almost immediately the noise and near total lack of spin was back.
Of the 6 50mm fans I found here, only 2 were 2-wire like the 2160's, and one of those was actually 52 mm so would not fit. The only suitable fan turned out to be the dirtiest, which means probably well used. Nevertheless, I clipped its plug off, clipped the plug off the old 2160 fan, soldered the wires together, and got it installed. I put the board back, plugged it in, and the fan turned on. I turned the machine on, and again the fan worked. So I put the cover on, put it back in its place, connected all the wires, set the clock, reset the 18 timers, assumed everything was hunky dory, and went to bed. When I got up in the AM and checked on it, I could see something wrong, but initially it was not apparent what. Turns out it should have been recording while I was checking, but it wasn't. I went into the timers and could see the timer set for current, yet it wasn't red and the counter was not moving. I tried playing yesterday's HD recording, and that worked. Then I tried cycling the power, but it ignored the remote's power button, so I tried the panel's power button. It ignored that too, so I pulled the plug. After plugging it back in, nothing had improved. I tried a short timer recording just to test, but nothing.
So I took it back out, took the cover off again (note that each such cover operation is highly annoying to me, because WalMart's warranty service had stripped out half the cover screw holes) to inspect the previous night's work. I looked for loose or forgotten connections, but found none, so pulled the daugherboard back up to look underneath, where I noticed that worrisome cable looked worse than I remembered. While the board was back up, I finally noticed an unconnected 4-wide ribbon laying on the mainboard, connected behind the HD, unconnected on the other end.
So I put it back together again, with all cables connected this time, completing the stripping of the screw hole for the HDMI plug in the process, but inspecting my own work more thoroughly, with the result that everything I know how to do with it works normally now, including the used fan.
Now the question becomes, am I the first among the many reporting here to have such serious fan trouble? Should I consider replacing my replacement fan soon? Whether soon or otherwise, should I opt to buy from Magnavox service, or go for a generic that's clearly labeled ball bearing? Or maybe one that's not labeled ball bearing?
The old, in use about 28 months including time in for warranty repair, is marked with model number RDL5012S1, DC 12v, 0.06A, brushless, with red and black wires, made by Xinrulian in China. It's 50mm X 50mm X 12mm. Apparently its speed is controlled via voltage, as it has only the two wires.
