What next? Replaced AV drive but she still crashes!!!!

David Weston

New Member
I have replaced my drive as it was showing errors after 50,000 hours or so. The new one went in fine - a Seagate 2TB that formatted perfectly. Although the box works, I am still getting daily crashes - and I am beginning to suspect the power supply. I see no bulges in the capacitors - but - I have found for some time that powering off by the rear switch and attempting to power back on does not reactivate the box unless one leaves it in the off position for at least a couple on minutes. Is that normal? Any ideas of what I might try next? Normal retuning etc. does not seem to cure it.

Thanks in advance!

D
 
Several per day. Yes, I did work through the issues on the site. Is it normal for the switch at the back not to bring back power until left off for quite a while?

D
 
Several per day.
Have you tried unplugging the network to see if it makes any difference?
Is it normal for the switch at the back not to bring back power until left off for quite a while?
My iffy one needs turning off for at least 30 seconds before it'll come back on. The voltages from the PSU decay remarkably slowly when you turn off the switch.
Have you actually measured the PSU before suspecting it?
 
And I

thanks. No i have not
I have unplugged the network, however, but to no avail. The box used to be very solid but has become more crashy over the last year. Disconnecting the drive entirely seemed to make it stable (pulling both power and signal cables) so I had hoped that a new drive was the answer. Looks like I was wrong.
 
Did you do Step 2E on BH's guide? Run fixdisk in maintenance mode?
Otherwise no further ideas without another to swap parts with.
 
Did you do Step 2E on BH's guide? Run fixdisk in maintenance mode?
Otherwise no further ideas without another to swap parts with.
Yes I tried all the in-situ fixes including an offline fixdisk. Then I replaced the drive with a brand new one that is error-free. I guess I could buy a used box on ebay and try swapping out parts - but might I be throwing good money after bad?
 
Update: I think there may have been bending stresses on the box floor or front panel - the cover was screwed home with some misalignment which may have been distorting the front panel. Now I have managed to get it back together smoothly and the crashes appear to have gone away. Does that sound like it might be a candidate explanation?

D
 
Update: I think there may have been bending stresses on the box floor or front panel - the cover was screwed home with some misalignment which may have been distorting the front panel. Now I have managed to get it back together smoothly and the crashes appear to have gone away. Does that sound like it might be a candidate explanation?
I think something similar is going on with mine. I moved it from one room to another and it became virtually unusable. Putting it back where it was makes it a lot better but it still has spells of working fine and spells of crashing. I wonder if it hasn't got a dry joint somewhere or a hairline crack in the board. Doesn't seem to be temperature related though.
 
I think something similar is going on with mine. I moved it from one room to another and it became virtually unusable. Putting it back where it was makes it a lot better but it still has spells of working fine and spells of crashing. I wonder if it hasn't got a dry joint somewhere or a hairline crack in the board. Doesn't seem to be temperature related though.
Ah, now this is interesting. I picked up a non-working HDR-Fox from a charity shop last weekend and the fault may be relevant to this thread.

The box was a V1 (with the horizontal RF connectors) and the fault was the corner of the PSU PCB next to the output connector had broken broken inboard of the fixing screw taking two tracks with it. One broken track was 0V/chassis, the other was the 6.9V supply to the output connector. It's entirely possible that flexing the chassis would re-make connection.

It looked like the back edge of the PCB hadn't been fitted properly into its chassis slot on assembly, leaving it supported on one edge and one corner. It would only have needed a modest drop while upside down to break the corner off the paper PCB. The second fixing screw tab was bent upwards slightly which would seem to confirm this, and if one was assembled like this then probably there were others.

Patching the board back together was easy enough, but then I've been been doing this kind of thing for over 50 years.

In short, look for a crack at the output connector corner of the PSU PCB.

Edit: The PCB is marked 5.8V but it's not regulated. On the unit here it varies between 5.9V in standby, 6.9V when running (which is when I measured it) and as high as 7.5V when there's a lot of demand on the 12V rail, which is regulated.
 
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