VIP722 with intermittent HDMI connection problem

[mrschwarz]

Sorry for the long post. I wanted to get all the details out in front so I am including all the information I have. I am having a problem connecting my VIP722 to my Sony TV. I live in a motor home. The receiver is in a cabinet over the driver seat and the TV is in the middle of the coach. When I bought the motor home, the receiver was connected via component cables to a distribution switch that connected 3 TV sets to it. The main set is quite a distance from the distribution switch and the picture was ‘soft’.

There is a Sony home theater receiver (DVD, tuner, amplifier in the cabinet next to the 722. It is connected to the main set with an HDMI cable so the TV can control the volume of the receiver. The sound from the TV was connected to the home theater receiver using a pair of RCA cables so there was not surround sound.

As a test, I reconnected the HDMI cable from the home theater to the 722. The difference in picture quality was astounding! It actually looked sharp and bright instead of dull and fuzzy. I then got a Toslink cable and connected the digital output of the 722 to the digital sound input of the home theater receiver. Now I had surround sound instead of 2 channel stereo. One problem was that when the HDMI cable was connected to the 722, I couldn’t control the volume of the home theater using the TV. The other problem was that when my PC was connected to the TV (using another HDMI input), the sound couldn’t get to the home theater receiver.

To solve these problems, I purchased a 50-foot Monoprice HDMI cable with Redmere (supposed to boost the signal over distances) and a 50 foot Toslink cable. I ran the Toslink cable from the TV to the home theater receiver. I ran the new HDMI cable from the 722 to another HDMI input on the TV. Everything worked great for a few days while I was testing the setup.

I then ran the cables under the floor to connect everything. It all worked just the way I expected it to for a few days. One afternoon, I turned on the TV and was greeted with a ‘no signal’ message on the screen, even though the exact same setup was working earlier that day. Since the other TVs are still hooked up to the 722 using the component distribution switch, I turned on one of the other TVs to see if the 722 was working. It was, but the picture was flashing on and off. When I turned off the TV that was connected via the HDMI cable, the picture on the other TV stopped flashing. I managed to get the HDMI connection to work by turning the TV off and on multiple times until I got a signal. Once I got a working picture on the HDMI connected TV, the component connected TV’s picture stopped flashing and was stable.

Here is another piece to the puzzle. When I was trying to figure out what was going on, I rebooted the 722. The first screen to flash was the ‘Dish Network’ screen. It stayed on for the normal time, then went blank like it always does when starting. After that, the other startup screens never appeared.

I thought perhaps the new ‘Redmere’ cable wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be. To isolate the problem, I swapped the cables connecting the home theater and the 722. Now, the Redmere cable is running to the home theater and the home theater cable is running to the 722. I didn’t change the inputs on the TV so they are swapped, too. If the problem was with the TV or the cables, I would have expected it to be with the home theater now. It’s not.

I am having the same problem as before using different cables and TV inputs. At this point, I am assuming that the problem is with the 722. Has anyone seen this before? Is there a setting I can make to eliminate this problem? Any other suggestions?

One last bit of info. There is not a lot of insulation behind the cabinet where the 722 is. I am currently in Mesa, AZ and it is getting a little warmer here than it was a few weeks ago. It’s getting pretty warm in the cabinet. There wasn’t ventilation in the cabinet so I got a small box fan and am leaving one of the cabinet doors open for air circulation. Could this be a temperature-related issue? Everything else in the receiver works fine.

Thanks in advance for any responses and suggestions.

 

[KAB]

Could this be a temperature-related issue? Everything else in the receiver works fine.

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Absolutely, Positively!!! 722s run very warm inherently. I'd say you've been cooking the 722. Get it out or at least open it up for ventilation. But probably too late now. Contact Dirt and see if they will replace it.

 

[mrschwarz]

I looked at the counters and the HDD showed a high temp of 140, a low of 89 and an average of 125. What is the ideal for these numbers? I am pretty limited on what I can do with the receiver.

 

[TECH4366]

Yeah it is being cooked , at around 139 it will start shutting down and rebooting itself, your problem is definitely heat related, 722 have vents on the sides also so if you have them in an enclosed area they heat up very quickly and in time will damage the receiver.

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[Stargazer]

In the past people have put fans on the outside of their DVR's to get the temperatures down. Maybe there is even a usb fan that you can connect to the DVR?

 

[mrschwarz]

So...should I get it replaced or just cool it off?

 

[dwarren2]

So...should I get it replaced or just cool it off?

If you have many recordings on it and it still boots up, get an external HD and download what you can and then replace it. You might want to consider a Hopper and Joey system.

 

[boba]

It may be too late to cool it off. High operating temperatures will have a cumulative effect on the components. Follow KAB's advice contact DIRT.

 

[mrschwarz]

I have a King Dome in-motion satellite dish. Is that something that a Hopper can use? Does the Hopper run cooler?

 

[mrschwarz]

I have been messing with this today. The temp in the cabinet doesn't appear that high to me. As I said in the original post, I use all of the outputs of the reciever including HDMI, component, composite and RF. I though that maybe the wire length was interfering with the HDMI signal. I have a couple of devices that can switch between HDMI sources and split an HDMI signal to more than one receiver. I used a Belkin 4 to 1 switch to see if it would boost the signal. It actually did. Since I connected it, I can consistently get a picture when I turn on the TV. I encountered another problem, though. When the main TV was off and I tried to change the channel to Showtime on another set, I got an HDCP error. I couldn't watch that channel unless I turned on the main TV.

This solved one problem and caused another. I also have a Monoprice 1 x 2 splitter. In the first test, I was able to get Showtime on another TV when the main unit was off and I was able to get an HDMI signal at the main TV. I'll continue testing to see what happens. Right now the splitter is in the cabinet with the receiver. I may move it to the cabinet where the TV is. This may boost the signal enough to overcome the problem.

 

[alaskaman]

How do or did you get the temp figures for the 722 or it's hard drive? I'm having troubles with my 722 rebooting and this is the replacement one after the first one did the same thing. What are the odds of 2 remanufactured vip722's having the same reboot problem. This second one is actually worse than the first one in that it reboots any ole time whereas the first DVR would only bugout at startup once in a while.