Chromecast

Sep 19, 2017 6 Replies
B

I've been given a Chromecast unit by someone who found it too much hassle and just duplicated features on his TV. I understand it used to work OK for him from an iPad.



I've had it in its box for about 6 months, but today I thought I would try to use it. That's another day wasted.



First I tried to set it up with a W10 laptop. Went through the setup procedure and ended with a statement that it would not work with this device. Remembering that a recent W10 update had messed up this machine on the local network, I reset the machine and the router. The local network came good. Tried again and the Chromecast dongle set all the networking on the laptop to some weird IP range, throwing the laptop off the network.



Dug out a mobile phone and installed the app. This set the dongle to a sensible IP range and the TV started to show some video, but cycling between that and a screen full of snow. The ratio was about 15% video and 85% noise.



Tried again with the laptop. Setup on the laptop now said it could not see any dongle, but getting video on Chrome and selecting "cast" sent video to the TV. But still cycling video and noise.



With nothing sent to the Chromecast, it cycles noise for a bit then settles into a stable rotation of static pictures.



Is it broken or is there some setting I should know about?


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A

until the chroecase has been connected to your own wifi network, it acts as a wifi network of its own, in order to allow you connect to it and configure it, the chromecast windows app does that (it might have been renamed to the google home app now).

is the wifi network normally good (e.g. for streaming iPlayer on a laptop)?

When not playing videos to the chromecast, it should display a static wallpaper, is that buggered up too? If so I suspect the device has a dead HDMI port.

Sounds b0rked to me.

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The wifi network is usually fine, although I have had this problem since the recent W10 update whereby there was a dns problem with the W10 machine. Resetting the machines and the router seemed to bring everything back to normal, although now, when I look into the Plusnet (= Homehub) router advanced setup, it says the W10 and Linux machines are listed as "Not Connected" when they obviously are. Not sure whether this has happened since the W10 update or maybe since I added the Chromecast to the network. I've not seen it before.

When not playing videos to it, the Chromecast at first cycles noise and wallpaper, then settles to constant wallpaper.

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A

Try powering it from a different USB supply (of same or higher rating)?

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A

Has your TV got its mind set on auto switching HMDI/tuner inputs when not excited by the content that's currently playing?

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B

In message , Adrian Caspersz writes

That may well be what it's doing, but I can't find any setting to change that makes any difference. It's some sort of Sony Bravia 32".

I can't get in the room for the next few hours as we are 'entertaining' an elderly lady.

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I'll have to find one of a higher rating. A similar one makes no difference. Thanks, that's something I hadn't thought of.

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