Hopper with sling hard drive failure

[garywiley]

In January of this year one of my HWS's froze up and was replaced. The new unit, showed the 311 error message, several weeks after I installed it. With an unplug reboot, the unit resurrected itself. This event reoccurred about 10 times over the last 4 months. Last week the unit did it 2 times.

Dish sent another HWS which I installed yesterday. This morning, I got the 311 error message again. On reboot the message reappears. This unit is toast.

Another HWS in on the way. A very sad situation. I am pissed.

 

[charlesrshell]

In January of this year one of my HWS's froze up and was replaced. The new unit, showed the 311 error message, several weeks after I installed it. With an unplug reboot, the unit resurrected itself. This event reoccurred about 10 times over the last 4 months. Last week the unit did it 2 times.

Dish sent another HWS which I installed yesterday. This morning, I got the 311 error message again. On reboot the message reappears. This unit is toast.

Another HWS in on the way. A very sad situation. I am pissed.

What does the 311 error message say?

 

[garywiley]

What does the 311 error message say?

Hard drive failure

 

[JSheridan]

Is it in an enclosed cabinet or otherwise not well ventilated?

 

[KAB]

Is it in an enclosed cabinet or otherwise not well ventilated?

Probably.

 

[navychop]

Besides adequate - heck, massive, ventilation, you should AT A MINIMUM, IMHO, put it on a UPS costing at least $70, preferably over $100. I run mine on a combination UPS and line conditioner. Big bucks. But I have no troubles, between that and sitting in open shelving. Both HWSes I similar circumstances.

 

[ChadT41]

Besides adequate - heck, massive, ventilation, you should AT A MINIMUM, IMHO, put it on a UPS costing at least $70, preferably over $100. I run mine on a combination UPS and line conditioner. Big bucks. But I have no troubles, between that and sitting in open shelving. Both HWSes I similar circumstances.

I can't agree with that as a blanket statement, as I have never used one, and keep my hoppers very well ventilated, and nothing has ever happened. Even when I forget to unplug them and kill the power to my house(lots of home renovations in the last 2 years).

 

[Skytrooper]

Living Room Hopper no problems and it's a few years old. Bedroom Hopper two hard drive failures and replacements. Now it's acting up again. I feel Dish is not properly repairing them.

Both of my Hoppers are well ventilated. The consumer should not have to purchase UPS's or Line Conditioers.

 

[garywiley]

Is it in an enclosed cabinet or otherwise not well ventilated?

Yes

 

[JSheridan]

Is it in an enclosed cabinet or otherwise not well ventilated?

Yes

There's your problem. You have to keep all your AV equipment well ventilated if you don't want repeated failures.

 

[navychop]

Living Room Hopper no problems and it's a few years old. Bedroom Hopper two hard drive failures and replacements. Now it's acting up again. I feel Dish is not properly repairing them.

Both of my Hoppers are well ventilated. The consumer should not have to purchase UPS's or Line Conditioers.

I agree repairs are "iffy." But these are rather advanced and power varies widely geographically. I prefer to protect my stuff.

 

[JSheridan]

Living Room Hopper no problems and it's a few years old. Bedroom Hopper two hard drive failures and replacements. Now it's acting up again. I feel Dish is not properly repairing them.

Both of my Hoppers are well ventilated. The consumer should not have to purchase UPS's or Line Conditioers.

What's not to properly repair? When there's a bad hard drive they just replace it with a new hard drive.

Usually repeated failures of the same component in replacement equipment is related to the particular installation, not the equipment.

I remember years ago I had a customer who had 3 722K hard drive failures. On the 3rd one I sat her down and asked her if anybody messes with the receiver or if they had small children playing around it. She said that no one goes near it except her when she cleans around it once a week. I asked her to show me how she cleaned it and she walked over with a swiffer and dusted the top. Then she lifted the front corner and dusted under it and just let it drop from her fingers with a thud to the shelf. I pointed out the sticker on the top of the DVR and told her again that they don't like shocks.

Problem solved. Never another hard drive failure there.

 

[Skytrooper]

What's not properly to repair? By the amount of complaints here, this is a common problem. Replacing the Hard Drive may not always be the answer.

I am retired and did component level repair for over 40 years. Many times I found something else in the device was causing problems somewhere else in the device. You look over here for the problem but the real problem is over there. The nature of electronics.

 

[JSheridan]

What's not properly to repair? By the amount of complaints here, this is a common problem. Replacing the Hard Drive may not always be the answer.

I am retired and did component level repair for over 40 years. Many times I found something else in the device was causing problems somewhere else in the device. You look over here for the problem but the real problem is over there. The nature of electronics.

Sure that could be the case with the SAME device being repaired over and over. But for different devices from different product runs to fail in the same way repeatedly is most uncommon. Unless they had a huge batch of bad hard drives that they used as replacements, the odds of the same problem recurring naturally in different devices is very, very rare.

The amount of complaints here means very little in the grand scheme of the millions of Hoppers out there. Most of the problems we see here have turned out to be heat related.

We've installed literally hundreds of Hoppers and can assure you that there is no wide spread design or component problem. I could count on my fingers the number of our Hopper customers that have had problems and they all had them in an over heated entertainment center or on a flimsy table in the kid's playroom.

 

[ewindowman]

I had the same problem with my hopper a few months Back . Hard drive crashes and error codes . I took the hard drive out of the unit and ran it with out the cover and the drive hanging out thinking it was a heat issue and it was perfect. I than after a month put the hard drive back into the hopper put the lid back on and it is still running fine . So I don't think the drive was bad it has to be something else causing the problem.( also I dropped the hard drive down a flight of stairs by accident maybe I just knocked some sense into it )

 

[navychop]

I believe it was reported that they did in fact get a bad batch of HDDs.

 

[KAB]

I believe it was reported that they did in fact get a bad batch of HDDs.

Yep...Seagates.

 

[Skytrooper]

Back to my days of working on the bench. My main job was Two Way Radio Repair. It was not uncommon for devices of the same product runs to fail in the same way. Every model of radio had its own personality and usually failed in the same manner. After you fixed the first one, the rest of them of the same model was a piece of cake.

 

[Skytrooper]

Now the Bedroom Hopper has hard drive failure daily. Won't even record. Here we go again. Gotta make the call. Tired of pulling out power cord. Will insist on a new one, no refurbished one.

 

[navychop]

Good luck with that.