Looks like the HDD on our 508 is finally dieing after ~ 4years. I can't remember how long, but we bought this just as Dish was adding the DVR fees and we jump at a special 508 price with no-DVR fee grandfather option.
Last week we started getting audio drop outs, then video would freeze and skip forward. This rapidly got worse. Thinking I could fix it, I performed a push button reset. Oh no, . . . the system would go through the init sequence, reset itself, and repeat the loop. So, . . . a hard reset (unplug for ~ 10 min) was in order and it fortunately came back. Live shows ok, but same recorded show issues. After finding some diagnostic codes on-line, I ran the HDD diag #1 (pause-1), and it came back with an error. Must be a bad HDD I figured.
What to do? We didn't really feel like going the DHPP for a month route - this DVR doesn't owe us much anymore. So, . . . we agreed just to call Dish and see what they would offer. After ~ 15 minutes of 'diagnostics', the on-line tech said, . . . "your HDD is corrupted and can't be repaired". As they say in the Guinness commercials - Brilliant!!
Ok - how much to fix? A refurbished 508 for $19.99 plus $14.99 for shipping (2 - days). Seamed reasonable to us - for $35 we will get this unit replaced with a call on Monday and a new unit at our door on Wednesday. About the cost of a new HDD I would say. Anyway - thought I'd pass this along as an alternative route to others that might be needing replacement 508s.
Very positive response from Dish I would say, . . . now if we could only migrate from our Dish 6000 to the Vip622 without having to fork over $21/month we would be VERY happy. Just can’t justify $252/year plus the $199 upfront ($450 first year) for an HD PVR plus a few extra HD channels. Oh well, . . . that's another topic I guess.
Last week we started getting audio drop outs, then video would freeze and skip forward. This rapidly got worse. Thinking I could fix it, I performed a push button reset. Oh no, . . . the system would go through the init sequence, reset itself, and repeat the loop. So, . . . a hard reset (unplug for ~ 10 min) was in order and it fortunately came back. Live shows ok, but same recorded show issues. After finding some diagnostic codes on-line, I ran the HDD diag #1 (pause-1), and it came back with an error. Must be a bad HDD I figured.
What to do? We didn't really feel like going the DHPP for a month route - this DVR doesn't owe us much anymore. So, . . . we agreed just to call Dish and see what they would offer. After ~ 15 minutes of 'diagnostics', the on-line tech said, . . . "your HDD is corrupted and can't be repaired". As they say in the Guinness commercials - Brilliant!!
Ok - how much to fix? A refurbished 508 for $19.99 plus $14.99 for shipping (2 - days). Seamed reasonable to us - for $35 we will get this unit replaced with a call on Monday and a new unit at our door on Wednesday. About the cost of a new HDD I would say. Anyway - thought I'd pass this along as an alternative route to others that might be needing replacement 508s.
Very positive response from Dish I would say, . . . now if we could only migrate from our Dish 6000 to the Vip622 without having to fork over $21/month we would be VERY happy. Just can’t justify $252/year plus the $199 upfront ($450 first year) for an HD PVR plus a few extra HD channels. Oh well, . . . that's another topic I guess.
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