I am hypothesizing that there may be a relationship between blank, gray, and IKD recordings and internal box temps. After being with D* for ten years I jumped to E* ATT Homezone for four months last year. This box was a nightmare and it was often due to high temps. In the end, I had five auxiliary fans to get the box sort of stable. I remember then that E* support admitted temps around 127 or above would cause errors. I thought even lower temps would.
I came back to D* last October and have had little trouble with my HR20-100. When I first installed it I added some extra cooling a la E*, but finally discovered a modified PCI card slot fan pulling out of the right rear side vent would keep the box under 100. In April I added a 1TB Cavalry eSATA drive and my problems began. With the Cavalry had three issues. One was two drives were just plain bad, two was that the Cavalry connector was a loose fit, and three was the Cavalry ran hot to the touch. While waiting for the Cavalry's to be RMA'ed, I had no issues running with the internal drive. Box temps were generally 98.
After receiving my third Cavalry I found it kind of stable until the box received the slightest bump locking up the HR20-100. The eSATA cable would just not seat snuggly. Taking drastic measures, I removed the drive from the Cavalry case and eSATA to SATA cabled it directly to the box. For power I am using an idle PC 350w power supply I had in my PC graveyard. Yes, the setup is is very ugly. BTW, to get the PC power supply to turn on you must ground/short the green motherboard connector wire to any of the black ones.
Bottom line for right now is taht I am having no errors, The HR20-100 is 92 degrees, I assume because the internal drive is inactive, and the bare Cavalry drive, a 1TB Western Digital Green, is cool to the touch.
So if you are having recording errors and your temps are in the teens or above, you might see if add-on cooling helps. All the boxes cool differently so make sure you are supplementing the OEM airflow. I have added a Radio Shack adjustable output wall brick to the fan. This allows you to control the airflow and also quiet the fan. I thought the PC power supply would be noisy but isn't. I guess that is because it has very little demand placed on it.
Anyway, that's my theory.
I came back to D* last October and have had little trouble with my HR20-100. When I first installed it I added some extra cooling a la E*, but finally discovered a modified PCI card slot fan pulling out of the right rear side vent would keep the box under 100. In April I added a 1TB Cavalry eSATA drive and my problems began. With the Cavalry had three issues. One was two drives were just plain bad, two was that the Cavalry connector was a loose fit, and three was the Cavalry ran hot to the touch. While waiting for the Cavalry's to be RMA'ed, I had no issues running with the internal drive. Box temps were generally 98.
After receiving my third Cavalry I found it kind of stable until the box received the slightest bump locking up the HR20-100. The eSATA cable would just not seat snuggly. Taking drastic measures, I removed the drive from the Cavalry case and eSATA to SATA cabled it directly to the box. For power I am using an idle PC 350w power supply I had in my PC graveyard. Yes, the setup is is very ugly. BTW, to get the PC power supply to turn on you must ground/short the green motherboard connector wire to any of the black ones.
Bottom line for right now is taht I am having no errors, The HR20-100 is 92 degrees, I assume because the internal drive is inactive, and the bare Cavalry drive, a 1TB Western Digital Green, is cool to the touch.
So if you are having recording errors and your temps are in the teens or above, you might see if add-on cooling helps. All the boxes cool differently so make sure you are supplementing the OEM airflow. I have added a Radio Shack adjustable output wall brick to the fan. This allows you to control the airflow and also quiet the fan. I thought the PC power supply would be noisy but isn't. I guess that is because it has very little demand placed on it.
Anyway, that's my theory.
