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Start Up Fails When HDD Connected

I find it difficult to believe this is the only electrolytic capacitor with a problem. Perhaps other capacitors are less critical to correct operation, but if that's the case why are they there at all?
 
Long time reader first time poster...

Had the same issue with my much loved hummy since just before Christmas. Took the plunge in attempting the capacitor fix.

Given that it's over 30 years since I've done any sort of soldering and thanks to the joys of MS my hands are less than stable these I wasn't that confident of success but what the hell...

So once I managed to get reasonably priced capacitors - not paying 9.95 handling fee for a 35p part! - I took the plunge. Took a lot longer than anticipated and a panic that I'd completely screwed it but I finally got the capacitor replaced. It doesn't look pretty but I now have a resurrected hummy! Of course if you've taken the thing apart you've got to stick a bigger disk in haven't you???

Big thanks to everyone who traced the issue and worked out the repair. If anyone's considering having a go but are a bit nervous, give it a go if I can manage it with my rubbish hands anyone can!
 
Flynny said:
...but I finally got the capacitor replaced. It doesn't look pretty but I now have a resurrected hummy!
Click to expand...
Excellent! Hearing stories like this one makes all those hours I spent nailing this one even more worthwhile. Well done for persevering; there's a lot to be said for the "what-the-hell" approach! As you found, it often pays dividends.
 
Newcoppiceman said:
Excellent! Hearing stories like this one makes all those hours I spent nailing this one even more worthwhile. Well done for persevering; there's a lot to be said for the "what-the-hell" approach! As you found, it often pays dividends.
Click to expand...
It was nothing ventured nothing gained - the box was effectively dead. I'm just relived I didn't burn my way right through the circuit board! Thanks for spending the time working out the solution; my box lives on to fight another day!
 
Black Hole said:
I find it difficult to believe this is the only electrolytic capacitor with a problem. Perhaps other capacitors are less critical to correct operation, but if that's the case why are they there at all?
Click to expand...
I carried out an in-circuit ESR check on all the silver SMD electrolytics in my 3 boxes when this problem was discovered. All of the other capacitors checked as OK with low ESR readings apart from the 3x 4u7 capacitors, which read 6, 6 and 8 ohms. As standard 4u7 25v capacitors (not low ESR) measure around 3 ohms and all my boxes are working OK I will not be replacing them at the moment.
It does however confirm that these 4u7 capacitors are suspect/inferior, luckily there is only one fitted in each box.
 
Long time lurker here and first post. I have the non boot loop issue with the HDD connected, disconnected the HDD power block and unit boots OK and continues to function normally after I reconnect the HDD power block and the HD also functions. My solution is to fit a small on/off switch to the back of the receiver box and manually start the HDD after boot up. My question is, I assume it would be the red lead on the block to switch?
 
Dwaviation said:
Sadly my switched supply was a better idea... one of the solder pads came away with the capacitor.. buggered!
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That looks horrible! Certainly a degree of skill and experience with a soldering iron is called for when replacing the cap - but plentiful tips on how to achieve a successful outcome are to be found in the many pages of this topic. New readers please note!
 
Total horlicks, I'm embarrassed... but it works...!
Newcoppiceman said:
That looks horrible! Certainly a degree of skill and experience with a soldering iron is called for when replacing the cap - but plentiful tips on how to achieve a successful outcome are to be found in the many pages of this topic. New readers please note!
Click to expand...
Agreed! But believe it or not it now works...
 
I managed to get the replacement capacitor in and secure... It looks horrible and definitely not my best days work but a win is a win... Working perfectly 😀
 
Dwaviation said:
I managed to get the replacement capacitor in and secure... It looks horrible and definitely not my best days work but a win is a win... Working perfectly 😀
Click to expand...
Well recovered! We've all had days like that, of course, so chalk it up to experience and move on. Pleased that's another victory over the cursed cap.
 
Thank you all for your write up on this issue.

I have three of these boxes.

Box 1.
Doing a retune of the machine on reboot it kept cycling as you describe. Unfortunately at this point I had not seen this thread. Being unable to boot the box I removed the HDD and put it in a Linux machine and tried running various tests on it which showed the disk was failing. However, the Humax booted with the disk out which then lead me to this thread. I replaced the cap and reinstalled the HDD and it then booted but showed the disk either not present or needed formatting. I can't be sure I ddin't make things worse when I put the HDD in the Linux machine. Cutting my losses I ordered a new 2TB HDD - Toshiba HDWT720UZSVA. I've not had much luck with Seagate or WD in a while so thought I would give this a go and it has a 3yr warranty. Will revisit the old HDD to see if anyhting can be done but I think file recovery is not going to yield much. New cap, new HDD - all working perfectly.

Box 2 & 3.
This triggered a memory. I had noticed for a while that when being rebooted after a backup restore (folowing a retune) these didn't just boot once it booted twice before coming on - may have been more and didn't notice. I have also replaced the cap in these.

After doing this I decided to check the state of the caps with a tester. Cheap thing I picked up called a T7H so don't know it's accuracy.

Results were


BoxCapVlossESR
14.7 uF5.3%150R
24.7 uF5.2%44R
34.9 uF9.4%150R
New electrolytic 4.7uF 50V cap4.6 uF1.0%1.3R

So all three caps were bad although a cursory glance would say the C values were all in tolerance and at the time only one bad enough to prevent correct booting.

I also decided to do a fixdisk on all three.


BoxFixdiskDiagnostics in WebifAction
1New disk passed.New disk perfect.(Replaced)
2LOTS of errors. Second run now finding errors again.Multiple warnings for sector reallocate and pending sector countSeems to be on its way out so have ordered another Toshiba. Current ST1000VM002-1CT162 - ~6/7 years
3Passed despite Cap seeming to be worst.OK - altough did get temperature warningLeave as is for now. ST3500312CS
1 Old disk** neeed to check after attempting file recovery **WD20EURX - 7 years old - now replaced

So, 2 failing HDDs - both new replacements. Box 3 disk OK - I think original Seagate 500Gb pipeline disk.

Fix disk on disk 2 is having issues - gets stuck :-

Using superblock 0 on sda1
Using superblock 0 on sda2
Using superblock 0 on sda3
Dev: /dev/sda LBA: 867706256
LBA: 867706256 is on partition /dev/sda2, start: 2104512, bad sector offset: 865601744
dumpe2fs 1.42.13 (17-May-2015)
Using superblock 0
Block size: 4096
LBA 867706256 maps to file system block 108200218 on /dev/sda2

Checking to see if this block is in use...
debugfs 1.42.13 (17-May-2015)
Block 108200218 is marked as in use

Searching for inode...
debugfs 1.42.13 (17-May-2015)

I am wondering if this is the sector pending causing an issue???

Disk realloc sector count is: 160
Disk pending sector count is: 7
Disk offline sector count is: 7
 
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As you have several disks and more disks than HDRs, it might be easiest to work on each disk separately in a USB SATA dock attached to a PC (if these should be available), using a live Linux boot disk if necessary. You can just reformat them or run the security erase, once any precious content has been recovered. Operations will be much faster.
 
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