DO read into folks adding extra cooling, if you check the diagnostics and your temps show in the 130-140 range and your receiver starts rebooting for no apparent reason. That's what happened to me and a USB fan on the side did the trick, stopped the reboots and lowered the temps about 10 degrees.
So how many watts does Dish hardware use?
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Family members use a 211k in a remote area on solar, so we tested that receiver a few years back. I believe it was about 30 watts average.
Not saying it is never needed, but I have seen several posts of folks adding cooling just because the receiver "feels warm." Barring unusual conditions - like an over crowded or over heated cabinet, extra cooling shouldn't be needed.
I'd assume a heat issue in a reasonably located unit is a symptom of a problem with the receiver or maybe even the node or LNBs and swap the hardware out before adding any sort of fan.
In my case, with my receiver in a open enclosure, my poorly insulated house in Florida in summer the ambient temperature barely stays below 80 degrees.
To answer the OP's question, I just put a Kill-A-Watt on our Hopper 2k and it read 40-41 watts (on or off).
Also, I just checked the HDD temperature, High Temp 129, Low and Average Temp 116. The Hopper is setting on top of a dresser with nothing on top of it. Our other Hopper in an open cabinet was 122 high, 111 low and 114 average.
Also, I just checked the HDD temperature, High Temp 129, Low and Average Temp 116. The Hopper is setting on top of a dresser with nothing on top of it. Our other Hopper in an open cabinet was 122 high, 111 low and 114 average.
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Thanks for answering the question. Do you also happen to have any Joey's or Super Joey that you could measure?
We have a Joey in a bedroom on a dresser that is plugged in behind the dresser that I can't move by myself. Possibly when my son gets home later today.
Extremely frugal people. I just happen to know one myself and he would be the type of person to figure this out too.
I don't see anything wrong with wanting a more energy efficient DVR. Like someone else mentioned, people complain when Dish has a $5 increase and then act like someone else is silly for wanting to save $5 on their energy bill. Whether it's concern for the environment, or purely to save money people are trying to make their homes as energy efficient as possible and get cars with better MPG.
I use a computer with Windows Media Center as my DVR. WMC is integrated enough into Windows 7 that it automatically wakes itself from sleep mode to catch my timers. This required nothing from me except for scheduling recordings just like I used to on my old hopper system. I set the sleep timer to 10 minutes of inactivity and the computer goes back to sleep shortly after a recording finishes. It's been running flawlessly like this for months with no reboots or intervention necessary. This computer is used exclusively as a DVR so it is often only active for 30 minutes to an hour a day to catch recordings.
DVRs all seem to use the same amount of power whether they are active or in standby mode. It would be nice if a Dish and other DVR companies could spin down the HDD and enter a low power mode when you put them in standby. If Microsoft can figure out how to automatically wake up the computer to catch scheduled recordings why can't DVR manufacturers.
Yes, this would probably only save a couple dollars a month but all our other electronics/appliances are pushing higher energy efficiency and it adds up. It's not always the most important factor but energy efficiency is something I consider with almost everything I buy these days.
I use a computer with Windows Media Center as my DVR. WMC is integrated enough into Windows 7 that it automatically wakes itself from sleep mode to catch my timers. This required nothing from me except for scheduling recordings just like I used to on my old hopper system. I set the sleep timer to 10 minutes of inactivity and the computer goes back to sleep shortly after a recording finishes. It's been running flawlessly like this for months with no reboots or intervention necessary. This computer is used exclusively as a DVR so it is often only active for 30 minutes to an hour a day to catch recordings.
DVRs all seem to use the same amount of power whether they are active or in standby mode. It would be nice if a Dish and other DVR companies could spin down the HDD and enter a low power mode when you put them in standby. If Microsoft can figure out how to automatically wake up the computer to catch scheduled recordings why can't DVR manufacturers.
Yes, this would probably only save a couple dollars a month but all our other electronics/appliances are pushing higher energy efficiency and it adds up. It's not always the most important factor but energy efficiency is something I consider with almost everything I buy these days.
No problem, don't hurt yourself trying to find out, it's not that important. Thanks
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I remember when I had U-verse, it spinned down the HDD often. Annoyingly often. About every 5 minutes of inactivity. The system was much like the Hopper setup, in which there were clients that relied on the main DVR. Lots of lag, all the time, while waiting for the HDD to spin up again. If it spins down it should be after 30 minutes of inactivity or some such.
I would suggest only spinning down when the Hopper and all Joeys connected to it are in standby mode. If any of the devices are actively watching TV it wouldn't make sense to spin down. Yes it might take a couple extra seconds when you first wake a device from standby but once you are watching TV everything should be able to perform exactly the same as it does now.
That's actually a good idea.
Folks in the northern quadrants might appreciate that, but those in the south definitely wouldn't reap any benefits from the extra heat.
Thank you, Thread Monitor....Mr Kramer, that has already been discussed in post #34 above (in the post you quoted)!
If a receiver runs that hot and other people's do not, doesn't that suggest a problem? If a cooling device fixes it, that's great, but it still shouldn't be necessary.
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