Satisfying repair to Humax PVR

[newshound]

The Humax started to behave erratically and doing a full retune and reformat didn't help (it is running the latest firmware).

Whipped the lid off to wiggle the connectors with little real hope of fixing it, to find an amazing amount of dust inside, not just the accumulations associated with the fan and heat sinks that you might expect, but a uniform layer of very fine dust over the PCBs. It looked like a heavy snowfall, the locations of the surface mount components were barely visible with just the capacitors poking through the surface.

Ten minutes with the cordless Animal (yes I know about static but it was dead otherwise), and to my surprise and pleasure it worked perfectly when reassembled.

In fact the video image is also a bit sharper, so it wasn't only the logic circuits which had been affected.

[sm_jamieson]

My Humax Foxsat PVR is starting to have occasional picture problems - break-up, stuttering, missing a few seconds of a recording, etc. I think it will need a new hard drive at some point, but perhaps I will try giving the insides a good clean first ... Simon.

[newshound]

Mine had a spell of that before it failed altogether. It looks like a standard 160 GB Seagate IDE drive in mine.

[F]

Our Humax *Freeview* Fox T2 boxes have Seagate Pipeline 1GB drives installed. One has just failed so I've replaced it with a 2TB Pipeline from Ebuyer. Anyone thinking of doing the same should think twice before buying one from Amazon. At least two drives that were sent out were built in 2013 and, without opening the packaging, looked very second hand: think dust, water marks and dents!

[Bill Wright]

My IT man has a bigass compressor in the back of his van. He takes the PCs out into the yard and blasts the f*ck out of them.

On a related topic I just used the pressure washer to clean all all the debris from the ivy (etc) on a retaining wall, having given it a haircut. Never seen so much s**te. A lot of it landed on the roof of a caravan I unwillingly store for my son-in-law, which is good.

Bill

[Chris Hogg]

A neighbour stripped a lot of ivy off a retaining wall. The wall has since collapsed. Better get your s-i-l to move his caravan.

[RayL12]

I know this feeling well.

As roofer, may years back, I began a strip & reslate on an end terrace. Covering the whole of the gable AND halfway across the rear of the roof, was an Ivy. It entangled itself through out the timbers and encapsulated the gutter. It was a damn nuisance.

In order to strip to the edge of the gable, we began to roll up the Ivy. The 'tendrils' were in the hundreds. As it approached the last 6ft to the edge, the branches were approaching 1.5 inches thick and the amount of cuts we had to make in order to roll it was painstaking. So, you can imagine how glad I was to get the roll to the very edge and watch it disappear over the side.

However, I did not know that it had wound itself into the brick work! It brought the whole outer skin down save for a small section towards the front of the building.

Now, when I see these beautifully clad houses, I wonder if they realise the damage it's doing to their property?

It was a lesson learned, for me.

[Big Les Wade]

I've been getting the stuttering thing since not long after I bought it four years ago. It jumps about 30 seconds at a time - not often but enough to be irritating. The recorded material seems to be there in that you can slo-mo through it - but if you try to play it normal speed, it jumps at the same point every time.

My guess was that the disk needed defragging, but there is no way of doing that provided in firmware. It'll be nice if it's just dust :)

[Mathew Newton]

They are normally 'consumer electronics' versions of drives compared to tho se that you would find in a PC. The main difference is a focus on continuou s streaming ability rather than error detection/correction but other factor s such as noise and heat can also vary.

Mathew

[GB]

Was this Amazon or a market place seller?

[F]

Marketplace. And I've reverted to my previous practice of never, never, never, ever buying from Marketplace.

[critcher]

Sounds like you keep a bird in the house, caged type.The parrot is notorious for dust off its skin and plumage. Don't forget your lungs.

[newshound]

Nope. Have dogs, though, and it's in the room with the woodburner which spreads very fine ash everywhere when it is emptied.

[Roger Mills]

Which Humax model?