625: Is it just me?

[ruefrex@sbcglobal.net]

The good folks in this forum answered many of my questions when my 625 DVR failed late late year, after only having it since April. I got another one and it's about five minutes from failing. It's doing the freezing thing the other DVR did, and it's stuttering as well. One day, it will just crash and I'll be without a DVR for a week.

I called customer service, just to do a preemptive sort of thing, and the heavily-accented woman read some gibberish from a script and was no help at all. I've been perusing the forum and see that even if I upgraded to HD and the 722, the failure rate is probably going to be about the same. Is it normal to have 2 DVRs fail like this? I don't do anything weird to them. We just watch TV together. Before Dish, when I had TiVo, I never had a problem.

I would much rather have the Dish programming, but are there any other DVRs -- DirecTV or the dreaded cable -- that are more reliable? Or is this, sadly, the norm now?

 

[rcdallas]

Well as long as your keeping it well ventilated that's pretty much it besides having good clean power to it as well.

Could of just been your luck of the draw... I had my 622 reman for about 16 months and still works just fine.

 

[kylekatarn]

Have you had a tech come out and check it out and replace it. I find that the replacements they send in the mail do not last as long as the one I may come out with. Who knows maybe UPS dropped it 50 times before you got it?

 

[rcdallas]

You'd be surprised as to how things in a tech's van gets tossed around.

 

[Agonizing Fury]

You'd be surprised as to how things in a tech's van gets tossed around.

Not always in the van that's the problem. my manager was at one of the locations where they test, and box back up the receivers that are good (or at least didn't fail right then). Apparently they hire day laborers to re-box and stack these things on the palettes to ship off to the other LSCs. He watched as these day laborers would just let the receivers fall off the line into a pile because they were not fast enough to handle them. What do you know? out TC rates are up again! Wonder why

 

[boba]

Dish has always had a high failure rate on hard drives, TiVo has been much lower TiVos still wear out from usage but usually after several years of use.

When you call DISH go to tech support you have a smaller chance of getting an Indian call center.

 

[cparker]

On the other hand.... my 625 lasted years until I upgraded it to the 622 which is the original one I received and I've had no issues with it (knock on wood). I also still have an old 508PVR in service (bedroom TV).

So.... there are failures and there are.... uh..... non-failures!

Understand that folks will come here to tell about a problem FAR more than they will come here to say, "Everything is working great!" so sometimes you could get a rather slanted view.

 

[ruefrex@sbcglobal.net]

Thanks for the replies! So the general consensus is that I should just accept that these guys fail? Should I go for a different receiver than the 625, or does it not matter? I did look at the website to see what else was available and how much it would cost, but the website didn't tell me what the difference was between a regular DVR and an "enhanced" DVR, so I'm totally confused on that score.

My 625 IS refurbished, but is my understanding correct that they're not even making the 625s anymore? Did something replace them?

 

[NotMe546]

Have you had a tech come out and check it out and replace it. I find that the replacements they send in the mail do not last as long as the one I may come out with. Who knows maybe UPS dropped it 50 times before you got it?

No, they are required to kick it at least twice before they bring it up to the door.

 

[catnap1972]

First 625 lasted only 9 months...hopefully the replacement makes it longer than that.

 

[lownote2]

625 has a common problem w/ stuttering. Mostly just a second or two here or there, but it's a pretty common thing on DVR. I've learned to live with mine. Not so annoying that I'm ready to toss it, but it'll hiccup every once in awhile. If it's just every so often don't worry because a new one will probably do the same thing. If it's constant and too annoying than you need to see about getting it replaced because you're paying good money for service and shouldn't have to put up with that. Just know that though nobody seems to talk about it... the stuttering here or there for a second or so is very common on the 625's.

 

[eacalhoun]

I've had my 625 for about 18 months -- basically no problems. I do get an occasional "hiccup" where when I am watching a DVRd event the picture will freeze and the audio keeps rolling. I just hit "live" then go back to the event in the DVR menu and resume watching my program. If it totally freezes, I either unplug the power cord for about 30 secs or hold the front panel power button in for about 5 secs to "reboot" the receiver. The other problem I sometimes experience is "updates" (MENU-8-5) interrupting a DVR Timer, even when I know the "updates" time should not conflict with the DVR timer.

Eric