HDR-FOX T2 shutting down / picture break-up

JKM

New Member
Hi,

I'm wondering if my HDR-FOX T2 has developed an issue with it's power supply, which seems to be a Humax PW808 Rev 1.0

It has a number of odd symptoms.

Sometimes it's just totally dead, but switching off at the back and back on brings it back to life.
Sometimes it's stuck in standby just the red power circle lit up, clock display is blank/off.
Sometimes it just gets stuck in a boot loop (but this is rare).
Sometimes plugging in an external drive to the rear USB will cause a shutdown/reboot.

Most common fault though is random picture break up which gradually gets worse over time, as if there was a bad signal, until it decides to reboot or just turn off, and if it's recording it'll come back with the message to say the recording failed due to a power failure. So it thinks the power has failed. The picture can also lock up completely with a frozen image but the sound continues, at that point none of the controls will respond and needs to be switched off at the back.

It's just so temperamental, I managed to record without any issues 3 hours of Forces TV yesterday (6x30min shows), but today I tried recording 3 x 30min shows and non of those 3 recordings got to the first ad break before the picture break up started followed by the machine shutting down and rebooting.

As it's causing what looks like a bad signal, I'm wondering if one of more capacitors have failed on the power supply board causing bad voltage ripple on one or both of the DC power supply lines generating interference in the tuner or some of the signal processing. According to the board it generates 5.8V @ 3.0A and 12V @ 2.5A (short peak of 3.0A).

There is a company online selling a kit of capacitors for the PW808 board, which suggests it's a known fault. However in their list of caps one is listed at only 16v and the one in the actual Humax is 50v. That's the small 47μF cap on the primary side of the power supply so this pre-made kit may not be the best option if at least one is of a lower working voltage, I think it would be easier to buy the caps individually to make sure I get the correct values from somewhere like Farnell.

I've got an old YouView (DTR1000?) box that looks identical to the HDR-FOX T2 but on opening it up it has a different power supply with only 12V @ 4.0A and the connector is smaller. I was hoping to swap over the power supplies to try and narrow it down to this board before ordering parts.

Anyone had these symptoms on their Humax? Are the electrolytic capacitors on the PW808 board known to fail? Panasonic is famous for failing power supply caps in their DVD recorders, so could it be similar power supply caps in the Humax too? None of the caps seem to be bulging on top or leaking in any way.

Thanks,

JK.
 
Last edited:
Not that I could see, there's one about picture/sound break-up near the top but it's from 2017.
Can you tell me which one you've seen so I can check it out. Thanks.

It seems the FOXSAT HDR uses the same PW808 power supply board as the HDR FOX T2, so I've also checked the forum for that model without any luck.
 
Last edited:
I would agree that installing the custom firmware and running fix-disk should be the first step before leaping into hardware repairs.
 
Thanks again, as you say it's not quite the same fault as that particular one seems to be referring to an external USB hard drive. The internal hard drive does appear to boot up every time as I can clearly hear it spinning up. Some months ago when this issue first showed up I did try the "System Flush Update File" and the latest version of the custom firmware and neither file fixed the issue. It's not so much getting it to start up but keeping it running for more than say 10 minutes or so.

Is it worth changing it back to the official Humax firmware? As I see they released an update last year. (– Update Date : 04 FEB 2021). Alternatively I can see if there's another update to the custom firmware.

It hasn't been plugged in for a number of weeks, just decided to try it again yesterday and it worked perfectly. Then today all the faults have returned.

When first powered on the picture is fine, start a recording, still fine, a few minutes later, the occasional small picture glitch, few minutes later again and the picture faults are happening more frequently, a bit later they are not only coming more frequently but covering a much later part of the picture, then eventually after 10-15mins either the picture freezes and the sound carries on or the machine completely gives up and reboots.

Sometimes when it tries to reboot it fails. The solution seems to be turn the power switch at the back off for about 10 minutes then it will boot again, but if it's only off for 30 seconds it fails. Maybe something is overheating and needs a bit of time to cool down?

At one point I did try replacing the hard drive but that made the problem worse and the replacement drive stopped it from even switching on. It only seems to like it's original 500GB HDD. Maybe the replacement was drawing too much power from an already failing power supply.

Just been checking the link for the latest custom firmware it's not working just getting this from Google for the following links.

403. That’s an error.
We're sorry, but you do not have access to this document. That’s all we know.


I couldn't see anything about access to these zip files and I was logged into this hummy.tv account at the time I tried. Have the files been deleted? I have downloaded these files in the past (mod 3.13 sounds familiar) and I don't remember having to use a specific log-in to download them. I probably still have these anyway I'll just have to dig them out.

Thanks.
 
Thanks again, as you say it's not quite the same fault as that particular one seems to be referring to an external USB hard drive. The internal hard drive does appear to boot up every time as I can clearly hear it spinning up. Some months ago when this issue first showed up I did try the "System Flush Update File" and the latest version of the custom firmware and neither file fixed the issue. It's not so much getting it to start up but keeping it running for more than say 10 minutes or so.

Is it worth changing it back to the official Humax firmware? As I see they released an update last year. (– Update Date : 04 FEB 2021). Alternatively I can see if there's another update to the custom firmware.
Just installing a new firmware is highly unlikely to fix anything, Did you actually boot into Maint mode and run the disk diagnostics and fix-disk.
The Humax release was Only to fix problems with accessing BBC iplayer and had no other improvements.

The current CF level is shown on front panel at boot time and via webif, 3.13 is the latest non-beta version.

It might help to post the disk smart statistics from the webif diagnostics page

Also check whether the fan is working, normally it doesn't turn on on until the disk reaches 55C but if you install the Fan package you can set it to run continuously and keep the system a more reasonable temperature.
 
Last edited:
Is it worth changing it back to the official Humax firmware?
No. It's a hardware fault, not firmware or software.
I would even wager that it's not a disk fault, or filesystem corruption.
I've got one that does a similar thing, although it doesn't do the glitching, it just crashes with a frozen picture and no response to the network. That's not disk related either, although unplugging it does make a difference, which suggests it might be in need of the Newcoppiceman capacitor fix.
I take it you know which end of a soldering iron is hot, so you may wish to investigate that. I've not got round to it with mine.
At one point I did try replacing the hard drive but that made the problem worse and the replacement drive stopped it from even switching on.
Replaced with what?
That also may suggest the same fix.
 
While that page is not fully working there is an alternative page that links to copies on Martin Liddle's own space.
Thanks I've downloaded the zip files now.

Just installing a new firmware is highly unlikely to fix anything, Did you actually boot into Maint mode and run the disk diagnostics and fix-disk.
It's not connected to any network, I got the Humax 2nd hand and it already had custom firmware installed on it. Can I connect it directly to a laptop using a cross-over network cable to run these tests or is the only option to connect it to a router?

Skip to the point where it says to disconnect the HDD if you like.
I will try the HDD disconnect test, I just need to make sure it's actually in the fault condition first before trying this. I tried this once before, but I disconnected the red data cable instead of the power cable which would mean the drive was still drawing power. This time I'll disconnect both cables.

No. It's a hardware fault, not firmware or software.
I would even wager that it's not a disk fault, or filesystem corruption.
That's what I'm thinking too, as it starts up ok then drifts into more and more picture corruption until it hits a point where it reboots. If I unplug it overnight so it has a cold start it will work fine for a while, but once it's had time to warm up the fault comes back. I know from past experience that electrolytic capacitors can change their characteristics from cold to working temperature. If one of the smoothing caps isn't working it's possible that mains AC hum is getting into places where it shouldn't go.
 
Typically it's been working faultlessly today, so I've not been able to get any further. This is the problem I've got, some days it's works without any issues then another day it keeps crashing no matter how many times I switch it off and back on again. So it's a very unreliable machine.

It's been on since 9:15am this morning, it's getting quite warm but so far no picture breakup or rebooting, so the fault isn't brought on by overheating. I've currently got it recording 2 HD Channels (BBC1 and ITV) and playing back an existing HD recording, and it still won't break, so maybe the HDD is fine. If it was failing I don't think it would cope with 3 HD streams at the same time.

I'm going to power it down overnight and see what it does tomorrow, starting up from cold.
 
Well I'm no further forward with this machine. It didn't like coming on from cold this morning but just got a few picture glitches, no reboot, then it settled and ran perfectly for about 4 hours. Then it completely locked up during recording, so the only option was to turn off the power at the back. Then it wouldn't come back on, getting stuck on the Humax boot up screen. I could hear it powering up the HDD. Turned it off and on again and it got a bit further showing pictures and sound, before it boot looped again. Unplugged the HDD (both cables) and turned it back on. It seemed to be working. Powered it off again and reconnected the HDD, now it's working perfectly again with the HDD running!

I'm going to recover what I can from the HDD and then scrap the machine, as it's just too unreliable to be used daily. As it seems to fail both when started up cold (sometimes!) and when hot (sometimes!!).
 
I'm going to recover what I can from the HDD and then scrap the machine, as it's just too unreliable to be used daily.
As you like, but I can't see any proof that it's the HDR and not the HDD causing the problem.
 
As you like, but I can't see any proof that it's the HDR and not the HDD causing the problem.
I've just tried running the HDD Test and it passed... twice. "HDD Test Pass No defects are found"
Settings>System>Data Storage>HDD Test

I did try changing the HDD when I first got the machine about 4 years ago, but it wouldn't even switch on. Seems to prefer it's original drive.
It was a borrowed 1TB drive so I don't remember the make, but it was either WD or Seagate, and it was a DVR/PVR drive, the type without the error correction bit.

But 4 years ago the original fault with the machine was basically it was dead nothing lit up when powered on with the rear switch. But I discovered it would switch on provided there was no aerial or HDMI connected, that in itself was very odd. Once it powered up it was fine, it would wake up from standby fine and make timer recordings fine. It's just in the last 18 months or so it's developed this new fault of picture break up and shutting down. I'm assuming it's the original fault just getting worse over time.

I did try looking for a service manual but no luck. As I'm curious to know which parts of the machine use the 12volt supply and which uses the 5.8volt.
 
I discovered it would switch on provided there was no aerial or HDMI connected
That implies some kind of earth isolation fault. Sounds dodgy.

I did try looking for a service manual but no luck.
We know.

I'm curious to know which parts of the machine use the 12volt supply and which uses the 5.8volt.
The 5.8V supply feeds multiple low drop-out regulators so that 5V can be provided locally with minimum power dissipation in the regulators and therefore eliminate heat sinks. You'll find some information here: https://hummy.tv/forum/threads/start-up-fails-when-hdd-connected.10164/

I've just tried running the HDD Test and it passed... twice. "HDD Test Pass No defects are found"
Settings>System>Data Storage>HDD Test
...which does not rule out the HDD as having a hardware fault, only that it passes self-test. IIRC a long test is a separate option on the maintenance mode menu, but whether that will trap it is another matter.
 
I'm curious to know which parts of the machine use the 12volt supply and which uses the 5.8volt.

Was it established whether the PSU 12V supply is used by
  • the HDD (yes, if 3.5")
  • the main board?
  • the front panel?
 
Was it established whether the PSU 12V supply is used by
  • the HDD (yes, if 3.5")
  • the main board?
  • the front panel?
The somewhat similar HDR-2000T (early production models) with a 3.5" hard drive have a 12V power supply whilst the HDR-1800T with a 2.5" hard drive but the same motherboard only has a 5V power supply which suggests it is only the hard drive using 12V.
 
Was it established whether the PSU 12V supply is used by
  • the HDD (yes, if 3.5")
  • the main board?
  • the front panel?
Yes it's a 3.5" HDD. I'm assuming the Clock Display VFD and perhaps the tuner would also need the 12volts.

Well it's been kind of been behaving itself this week. It only crashed out once while copying to an external HDD. I normally use the rear USB socket for copying but now finding the front one is more stable.

I still think this machine has a power supply issue, as something must be causing the interference on live TV. I know it's technically recording all the time for the pause/rewind live TV function but I'm not using that function to watch the TV when the fault occurs as it's not reading anything back from the HDD. If watching live TV was fine and only recordings were breaking up, then yes I'd suspect the HDD having bad sectors. That's not to say the HDD isn't the problem, as a mechanical fault could potentially be causing interference to go back through the data cable and into the main board.

If the clock VFD and the tuner also use the 12volt rail then I think that might be the issue. As both are showing fault symptoms.
 
Back
Top