What To Do with a Dead or Unwanted HDR-FOX, HD-FOX, or DTR-T1000/1010

Ezra Pound said:
So would you say that when BucksLad reports "approximately 12V and 6V" that this is indicating a problem or not?
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It would seem to indicate it's not taking any appreciable power, if any.

Going by the inductor count there there are several local SMPSUs on main PCB and it's entirely possible one may be critical to the unit's operation. Of course it may not be a power issue at all but the usual fault-finding procedure on a bit of kit like this is to check power rails first.
Are you suggesting this is the way forward or would it be better to suggest something he is likely to be able to manage?
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Ah, just realised the ambiguity in what I wrote. I meant how I'd tackle it using what I have. A 'scope is vital - there's very little you can do on a unit like this without one.
 
My working HDR-Fox T2 has on-load values of 12.25 Volts and 6.62 Volts which is approximately what BucksLad had quoted

I would agree there is probably more voltage level changes on the main board

I can see that a 'scope will tell you which pins are toggling, ( as would a logic probe), but beyond that I can see little advantage, has anyone ever fixed anything other than a power supply problem on an HDR-Fox T2?, with the exception on a single person re-seating the SoC?
 
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Ezra Pound said:
I can see that a 'scope will tell you which pins are toggling, ( as would a logic probe), but beyond that I can see little advantage
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So you don't think how "clean" the supply rails are has any bearing on the matter. I don't see that a logic probe would be much help there, and even on digital signals logic probes are almost useless in modern processor designs - the switching is too fast, and the track loading introduced by probing it can result in the circuit not working. Neither are the logic levels typically supply to supply.
 
Ezra Pound said:
I can see that a 'scope will tell you which pins are toggling, ( as would a logic probe), but beyond that I can see little advantage...
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Let's establish credentials here: I'm a professional electronics engineer with over 40 years design experience in various industries, most recently as freelance consultant/troubleshooter.
I've also repaired PC motherboards at a component level.

How about you?
 
Black Hole said:
I don't see that a logic probe would be much help there, and even on digital signals logic probes are almost useless in modern processor designs...
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It's not a debugging issue here, it's a matter of seeing which bit has stopped working, seeing if you can see why and can you do something about it. The most basic of 'scopes will let you do that if you know what you are doing.
 
BH : So you don't think how "clean" . . .
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The cleanliness of the 'Power' supply rails does have a baring, yes and you would be able to see this power supply problem with a 'scope, however replacing every one of the relatively small number of Power supply components that deteriorate with time blindly would have the same outcome, after that how much use is your 'scope going to be when determining that this pin doesn't move on the faulty unit, but it does on the good unit?

The point I was making in #22 is a 'scope is going to be of little use beyond fixing anything other than a power supply problem
 
Ezra Pound said:
has anyone ever fixed anything other than a power supply problem on an HDR-Fox T2?, with the exception on a single person re-seating the SoC?
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I remember a post (not necessarily on this Forum) some years ago from Biggles about one of his colleagues fixing an HDR-FOX T2 by changing a power supply component on the mother board. I don't have time to search for the post at the moment. I think there have also been reports about people changing capacitors on the mother board.
 
everthewatcher said:
Let's establish credentials here: I'm a professional electronics engineer with over 40 years design experience in various industries, most recently as freelance consultant/troubleshooter.

How about you?
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I'm glad you asked, as I don't usually see the need to blow my own trumpet, I too am a professional electronics engineer with over 40 years design / test experience in the electronics industry, I too have repaired PC motherboards at a component level, what comes next?, my 'scope is bigger than yours?

There are quite a few users on this site who work in the electronics industry and some of them like us are retired or nearing retirement, you may not be as special as you think
 
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MartinLiddle said:
. . . there have also been reports about people changing capacitors on the mother board.
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I appreciate that these components were not on the PSU, however they are still power supply components, as has already been established, further voltage changes on the motherboard will require these components
 
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everthewatcher said:
It's not a debugging issue here, it's a matter of seeing which bit has stopped working, seeing if you can see why and can you do something about it. The most basic of 'scopes will let you do that if you know what you are doing.
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Why get at me? I was backing you up.
 
Wow, that generated quite a response whilst I was away for a couple of days...

I had already checked the USB ports' 5V supply pins, but felt it was inconclusive as I don't know at what point the supply to these ports is enabled. For the record, I couldn't detect anything. I was, however, just using a multimeter so could easily have missed a transient supply voltage.

I may take a better look at the front panel PCB to check if there's anything obviously damaged there.

Thanks for the contributions so far.
 
BucksLad said:
I may take a better look at the front panel PCB to check if there's anything obviously damaged there.
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I take it the illuminated ring around the on/off button isn't lit?

If there's no 5V USB supply number one suspect would be the whatever generates the +5V supply on the main board. Unfortunately I've not dug into the guts of the twin-tuner HDR here enough to point you at it on the board from memory and can't I pull it apart this evening.
 
I forgot to mention in my earlier post that I did also try the 'optical mouse' test - again, no signs of life.

To confirm, the illuminated ring around the front panel 'on' button does not illuminate at any point. I think I also checked what I assumed is a supply feed to the front panel PCB from the main board - and again found no signs of life. However, without a circuit diagram it's unfortunately a bit 'flying blind'. My next step will be to do what was suggested above: identify the 5V power supply circuit on the main board and see what's happening there.

I'll report back when I've had the opportunity to do this.

Thanks again to all for the suggestions.
 
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