HDR-Fox T2 and HD-Fox T2 receiver- any common hardware?

alexp

Member
Hi.
Is there any common hardware between the PVR recorder and the single-tuner receiver?
Maybe the power supply card is the same, so a receiver might donate theirs to a broken PVR?
Thanks
 
There are differences between some of them, that is why I was careful to say they are similar.
 
Are there? I have HDRs and HDs, and apart from the uncertainty whether it's a 4-digit setup code or a 3-digit setup code, their handsets are all the same.

Regardless, I'm pretty sure the OP was referring to the innards rather than any accessories.
 
Hi.

This is the scenario:

I have three Fox T2 HRDs, all running the same CFW and packages
webif_1.2.5-6_mipsel.opb
ffmpeg_0.10_mipsel.opb
auto-unprotect_2.0.1-1_mipsel.opb

One started freezing, about weekly.
I fully re-installed the firmware (WebIF set RMA, install factory FW, then CFW, telnet to clear RMA message, etc...).

Since then, the box froze again. After a hard reboot I found that a recording had been cut short with the message "due to power failure" at exactly the same time as I had set the box to standby using the remote control before the freeze. Big clue here !! I am assuming here that both the recording problem and the freeze are related to the reported power failure.

I opened up the box (for the first time) and didn't see anything visibly suspicious, for example no bulging capacitors on the power supply board. Shame because the next step would be obvious. So I just cleaned up inside, worked all the PCB sockets and put it back together.

I sympathize with one of Black Hole's posts I read about a week ago warning against making assumptions. So, very broadly what could it be about going to standby? I know the aerial pass-through is turned off to achieve the 0.5Watt or so. I don't know what other differences there are in functionality between low-power and greedy standby. Anyone?

As an experiment I set it back to greedy standby (about 4W I believe) and we'll see. A week later no freeze. So far so good, but a lot of time needed to increase confidence.

Does anyone have any circuit diagrams or schematics for this box? It would be really useful (obviously). In the absence of these, one can only blindly do swapsies, when in the possession of multiple boxes to provide the transplants. I don't want to mess with the working boxes so I'm looking to get another box, preferably fully working, but even a spares/repairs sample would be good. I have eBay in my sights.

From what I saw inside the box, for swapsy-mode operation, there are only the motherboard, disk caddy, power supply board, and various bits on the front and back panels. As I already have a spare new disk (in anticipation) my next step would be to swap this out, in case the current disk has for some reason become sensitive to what might be normal (ie within spec) PS fluctuation when moving to standby.

Anything else becomes more difficult without another box or schematics.

Any suggestions as to possible causes, drawn from other user's experiences?

Thanks.
 
One started freezing, about weekly.
Only one? All three of mine do from time to time. There are various speculations as to what might cause it, including PSU voltages going out of spec, but nothing definite. It is common enough that we accept it as a fact of HDR-FOX ownership, and some people use a physical time switch in the mains feed so that it gets a periodic cold start and recover from a freeze.

Does anyone have any circuit diagrams or schematics for this box?
No.

Have you done a factory reset? They're pretty good at clearing a variety of vague problems.
 
Have you done a factory reset? They're pretty good at clearing a variety of vague problems.
Really? Has anyone ever conclusively proved it, or is it just coincidence that it 'seems' to work?
What does it actually do? I'd have thought it just resets the various database files to their defaults. How are these different to what people are currently running with? Which fields are different?

I bet your answer to most of these is "I don't know".
 
Experience says...

It's easy to do, and either it improves matters (or seems to) or it doesn't. Maybe a factory reset also reinitialises some/all of the system-on-chip stuff.
 
First thing I did was factory reset and reconfigure the usual parameters (as per the other two PVRs).
Second was the full re-installation of FW.

Yes the others do freeze from time to time- quantitively, every three months or so. The suspect box suddenly started freezing about every week, say half a dozen times now.

The only significant information was that a recording was clipped at the point at which the unit went into low power standby (and I've never seen a "power failure" message as a reason), and that the box was found frozen after that.

As software was re-installed/cleaned up, it is extremely unlikely that software is the cause. It's also reasonably likely (well it's far eastern!) that it was something to do with power, as reported by the system. I've seen lots of logs (in other equipment) which are wrong though.

Now, power problem does not necessarily mean actually on the PS board...

Swapping parts to see when the problem is moved seems the only way to go. If the freezing is intermittent and the high frequency of freezing comes and goes randomly, then even that will be fraught with red herring results.

Groan.

At the moment I've moved to high power standby, and worked all the internal connectors.

I am holding my breath...
 
Leaving it on 24/7 is better for the disk anyway, just based on the number of people who ask "do I need a new disk" and then post the SMART stats.
The ones who do usually have several thousand stop-starts and not that many more running hours. You see very few high hours and low stop-starts.
 
That is probably because there are very few users that run their Humaxs 24/7
And those that do are mostly 'super users' who don't ask if they need a new disk.

That said I try to avoid unnecessary stop/starts and if I'm doing retunes and stuff on the boxes I always try to use the webif reboot, rather than remote, to avoid additional disk cycles.
 
alexp - If you have not done so already I suggest looking in webif> diagnostics> disk diagnostics to see how healthy your hard drive is. You can post the output here (use code tags) if you are unsure. I would then run fix-disk from maintenance mode to correct any faults (where possible) and fix any filesystem errors.
Is the HDR-FOX in question an original or revised hardware model? The easiest way to tell is to look at the two aerial terminals at the back (horizontal alignment = original, vertical = revised). The revised hardware version converts the 12V supply from the PSU to 5.8V on the main board. There are five capacitors on the main board which can cause the unit to lock up if they are out of spec (see here). The original hardware version has a different PSU (which supplies both 12V and 5.8V) and does not have these capacitors on the main board.
 
For reference, I have three HDR-FOXes all on original disks.

HDR1:
Code:
Power_On_Hours    -O--CK    36759
Power_Cycle_Count    -O--CK    3148
HDR2:
Code:
Power_On_Hours    -O--CK    26172
Power_Cycle_Count    -O--CK    3096
HDR3:
Code:
Power_On_Hours    -O--CK    18308
Power_Cycle_Count    -O--CK    1956

The trouble with these figures is that I don't really believe them. The power cycle counts seem rather high given the general nature of use.
 
Hi.

I've posted the full disk diagnostics on MS OneDrive here:

https://1drv.ms/f/s!AKSEwY7M3cCUfg

In the meantime here is a summary:

BITZER:
4 Start_Stop_Count -O--CK 7524
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct PO--CK 61
9 Power_On_Hours -O--CK 24250
12 Power_Cycle_Count -O--CK 3762

TIMMY:
4 Start_Stop_Count -O--CK 9956
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct PO--CK 0
9 Power_On_Hours -O--CK 7877
12 Power_Cycle_Count -O--CK 4978

FOXY:
4 Start_Stop_Count -O--CK 8706
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct PO--CK 0
9 Power_On_Hours -O--CK 5586
12 Power_Cycle_Count -O--CK 4353

197/198 are all zero
--------

A bit of background:

I got Foxy in September 2013 brand new, a bit before the end-of-line.
The old 9200T's had to go, so I got both Timmy and Bitzer off eBay in September 2015.

Bitzer came in a box with not a lot of padding, and was obviously hard up against the side. First thing I did was HDD test via the remote control and it locked up several times and then cleared. Eventually OK. After installing CFW I saw the Realloc_Sector of 61 and also both lines 197 and 198 were at 63. I ran the full telnet maintenance mode fix-disk (can't remember the option number) which took about 6 hours and cleared 197/198. The PVR has worked perfectly since then, and Realloc_Sector has NOT shifted from 61.

From Power_On_Hours it looks like Bitzer had been permanently ON for a couple of years before I got it.

Bitzer is the one that has been freezing in the last few weeks.

I forgot to say that I also did a short telnet fix-disk before re-installing the CFW, which looked fine, and did not cure the freezing problem.

All three have horizontal aerial sockets.

Thank you soooooooooo much for the information about the power supply. Certainly I would have it in my sights to replace these if it becomes apparent that the motherboard is suspect. Is it a multilayer board? Or, more specifically, can they be soldered and removed entirely, or is it best to clip the leads and solder new one to the tails (the usual hack I do)?

It was a nice idea to have three PVRs believing I would be able to swap parts for diagnosis, but Household Law won't allow it! So I have ordered another PVR from ePray, supposedly fully working, to be a donor.

It's now a waiting game, for the next problem. Until then, Household Law defines an Exclusion Zone around the boxes within which I am not allowed to enter armed with any tools.

Just in case no problem occurs when on greedy standby, does anyone have a full list of what is additionally powered down when using low-power standby?
 
Only one? All three of mine do from time to time. There are various speculations as to what might cause it, including PSU voltages going out of spec, but nothing definite. It is common enough that we accept it as a fact of HDR-FOX ownership, and some people use a physical time switch in the mains feed so that it gets a periodic cold start and recover from a freeze.

I wasn't even aware of this "common fact of ownership". I have two HDR Fox T2s, my parents have one and my aunt has one. I think I've had this sort of lockup twice in the many years I've owned the boxes, and no lockups for at least the last two or three years. I assumed it was a software problem which has been fixed. If my aunt's box locked up she would phone me, but never has for that issue (plenty of others though). My dad would just power cycle at the mains so I'd never know.

So why don't my boxes lockup in this way? One of them is pretty old bought only a year or two after release, one is one of the last B grade boxes, so age seems unlikely. I have a Bowthorpe FP mains filter on my boxes from my Pace Twin pre DSO days trying to eliminate impulse interference. But my aunt does not. None of us use the HDRs wifi.
 
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