HDD Frustration!

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ERSanders

ERSanders

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Mar 3, 2004
440
96
Fairport, NY
For the second time in seven months my 722 has failed and taken all of my recordings back to the DishNetwork scrap heap.

As I look back over the 12 years which I have been with Dish I noticed that I average one or more failed receivers per year. Now, with the PVR they are "stealing" my pre-recorded shows.

I know that the right thing to do is to get an external HDD, but why should I have to pay for the right to do that. If they used better HDD's (or more likely bigger fans to keep them cool) it would be a lesser problem. If they can't do that they should give us (free) ability to install and external HDD.

OK, rant over. Please resume your normal programming.

Oh, BTW, what is the best / most compatible (and cheap) 1Tb HDD available? Any sales going on currently?
 
Last edited:
Guess I've been lucky then. I've been with Dish for almost 8 years, and I've never had one failed receiver. Hope I didn't just jinx my equipment. :rolleyes:
 
I'm sorry you lost your recordings. However, your frequency of receiver replacements raises some flags, the first of which comes to mind is adequate air circulation. These babys run hot to begin with, so out in the open is the best solution. IF your receiver is in an enclosed cabinet or cramped quarters, this could be the problem. Another is electrical grounding problems. Just some thoughts for the next go round.
 
KAB said:
I'm sorry you lost your recordings. However, your frequency of receiver replacements raises some flags, the first of which comes to mind is adequate air circulation. These babys run hot to begin with, so out in the open is the best solution. IF your receiver is in an enclosed cabinet or cramped quarters, this could be the problem. Another is electrical grounding problems. Just some thoughts for the next go round.
Click to expand...

According to the Dish guru's on the phone, even though it is in a cabinet and behind the 47" Sony the free air space of 3" (below) 1" (above) and 6" (both sides), is sufficient. I know more airflow would be better but that's the geometry I'm stuck with.

The whole enchillada is powered thru an APC SmartUPS 1200VA so power is not an issue.

A team of 2-4 Dish Employees setup the installation over three days so I believe it is grounded properly.

I'm out of "prevention ideas"!
 
I'll join the crowd of disgruntled DVR users. I had three 622s die in less than a year, also losing saved programs, so I switched to a 211k. They can take their unreliable DVRs and put them where the sun don't shine!

All my 622s were on an open shelf with plenty of air circulation; almost never heard the fan run. And, I have had all my AV equipment on UPS for years. The failures were simply due to flakey hardware!
 
ERSanders said:
According to the Dish guru's on the phone, even though it is in a cabinet and behind the 47" Sony the free air space of 3" (below) 1" (above) and 6" (both sides), is sufficient. I know more airflow would be better but that's the geometry I'm stuck with.

The whole enchillada is powered thru an APC SmartUPS 1200VA so power is not an issue.

A team of 2-4 Dish Employees setup the installation over three days so I believe it is grounded properly.

I'm out of "prevention ideas"!
Click to expand...

Get a fan or get it out of the cabinet, especially if it is behind the Sony. The TV is putting out heat as well. A terrible environment. In the open would be better. That is the root of your problems. Believe it!!
 
I live in an RV trailer and the VIP 622 is in a cabinet in a slideout. The insulation isn't like a house, the walls and the ceiling in slide is only 2" thick. When the sun hits on the slide , it ishot outside, and we don't have the air conditioning on, we sometimes get the overheat warning for the VIP 622 that it is shutting down. We use muffin fans mounted on the end of the 622 to help the cooling and we changed the cabinet door to have expanded metal screen instead of the plastic stained glass panel that was in there.

Even with the overheat alarms, about once every 6 months, the 622 has hung in there. We had an early failure on the HDMI jack. This receiver is three years old.

I am considering getting a 722K for the dual OTA function and only have a few saved recordings but they are important. I wish Dish would offer a sshort period use of an external HD drive to move recordings for changing out DVRs without incurring the $40 fee.
 
KAB said:
Get a fan or get it out of the cabinet, especially if it is behind the Sony. The TV is putting out heat as well. A terrible environment. In the open would be better. That is the root of your problems. Believe it!!
Click to expand...

:upCouldn't agree more regardless of what the Dish CSR said.:rolleyes:

Ed
 
I also agree, those tv's put out a lot of heat. Smartest thing and easiest thing to do would be to get a fan.

I also agree with you about the hard drive. I work as an installer, and believe me it's always nice to tell the customer, "Well, you're getting a new receiver, but..... you're gonna lose all of your DVR'd programs."

Sure would be a lot easier as installer to be able to hook up a hard drive and transfer everything. Admittedly, as an installer that would be a PITA, but it would be better for the customer.

I have a 722, 612, and an old 510. If it wasn't for the extra $40 charge to activate an external hard drive I'd upgrade that old 510 to a 211 in a heartbeat.
 
Dish guru's on the phone, to me that is a joke. Some at Dish certainly are Dish guru's and I have certainly benefited from their assistance. Supervisors are knowledgable though I have found the idea of Dish guru's generally not to be the case. When I read your post I had to chuckle. Yes, they have training and instruction, but I have experienced unknowledgable and flat out wrong technical advice so many times. I say trust your own abilities and teach yourself about your stuff, one can really learn a lot from this website. I don't want to bash the Dish installers because they work very hard. I have been with Dish for over ten years and had no hard drives in the beginning although they had the Dishplayer or whatever it was called. I remember the first high def recorder just about anywhere of any kind, the 921. I purchased two and they were expensive. It was the only way to record high def. No way to use external hard drive either. You should try to use the external hard drive. It is a great feature and worth paying for. The 921 was prototype and nowhere near what they came up with as its replacement. I think they constantly had to do software updates on it. For whatever reason one of my two 921s was dead after what I believe to be one of those updates. There was no way to recover the precious 1920 x 1080 high bit rate recordings I had on it. It really sucked. I remember I had The Towering Inferno, great movie that is thankfully now on blu-ray, in OAR at full HD 1920 x 1080 with no way to recover. Who knows what else I had. When I read your messages I have to think something is wrong because what you are saying just has not been my experience. Of course I am anal retentive. I do not know what is wrong. Forgive me for saying these words, I have never had a 722 and I do not mean to be short with you, but I would figure out what is wrong and get over it. Dish is great as is this website. I have had a lot of experience, just not like yours. Not getting external hard drives is a joke. You have had some good advice in this thread. Take it. Nothing is perfect. YMMV. I used to have a friend named Sanders, but he lives in California. He is agreat guy.
 
As a followup, I got a call from Dish in reply to my email to ceo@echostar.com. I do not want to tell exactly what they offered, but it was exceptionally generous... more than I requested. My backup solution is now in-hand.

I also discovered that the installers placed the 722 in the cabinet with the left side up against the cabinet wall. That is where the fan intakes or exhausts. The 722 temperatures are now 127/77/109 vs 138/107/120 (Hi/Low/Avg.).

I just wish the Dish software allowed a choice in the "record" menu to record to 1. 722, 2. External HD, or 3. Both. That would be really good!
 
ERSanders said:
For the second time in seven months my 722 has failed and taken all of my recordings back to the DishNetwork scrap heap.

As I look back over the 12 years which I have been with Dish I noticed that I average one or more failed receivers per year. Now, with the PVR they are "stealing" my pre-recorded shows.

I know that the right thing to do is to get an external HDD, but why should I have to pay for the right to do that. If they used better HDD's (or more likely bigger fans to keep them cool) it would be a lesser problem. If they can't do that they should give us (free) ability to install and external HDD.

OK, rant over. Please resume your normal programming.

Oh, BTW, what is the best / most compatible (and cheap) 1Tb HDD available? Any sales going on currently?
Click to expand...


I feel your pain. I have four DVR's and have 1-2 failures each year. The only way to overcome this problem is put an external hard drive on each box to back up your recordings you want to save for future or repeat viewing. Not the best situation but it appears to be the only solution. Caution, backing it up to an external hard drive is not 100% effective as external hard drives also fail. If it is really important you will need to make an additional back up on another hard drive.
 

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