DB 7020 lost signal lock on all satellites

yazooo

Hi there,

Got a strange problem. My DB 7020 no longer locks onto any sats. I have 28.2, 19.2, 16 and 13 installed on a 4x1 diseqc switch. The signal is gone from all of the, wont find a lock on a scan either.

I've tried just switching to one sat, no joy. I have recently installed a new gemini image on multiboot, but have gone back to the old one and still the same. No and then, the signal suddenly comes back, for a varying length of time, but always goes again, and that is occurring less now.

I was wondering that it's either my diseqc switch gone, or the tuner in the DB. Is there a history of this kind of fault? I might try and swap another DB to this sat output at some stage.

Any other suggestions welcome, cheers

rolfw

Get yourself a female to female "F" type barrel connector and connect direct to one of the LNBs, if it works, then it will probably be the DiseqC switch.

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yazooo

I thought you might say that...it's a bit chilly to get out on the roof!

rolfw

Well unfortunately it's the only way to test it, unless you can borrow another receiver, doesn't have to be a dreambox, just another DiseqC capable receiver.

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yazooo

hmm, i tried another box and no signal was received, so i thought it must be the switch. got out there, swapped over the output from the switch and put it straight into a spare spot on the lnb from the mini dish, and still the same.

i guess now it suggests the cable...and that is going to be a royal pain!

yazooo

I think I'm gonna replace the cable. Take the opportunity to put in a twin cable. Anyone recommend a decent supplier?

nidawy

This problem happened to me and it's not from the switch nor the cable.

which image are u using?
and did you reboot your dream box after installing keys through a telnet client?

yazooo

hey, it does seem like it might be my box after all.

i'm using gemini 4.1, but have 4 and 2.6.9 installed on multiboot and they all do the same.

i have recently installed keys using the autoupdate.

yazooo

ok lads, shoot me now! it seems in my recent diy escapades i crippled a part of the wire coming through the wall! it's been mended now with a barrel connector! a dufus i am!

yazooo

ok, this problem has not completely gone away. i'm now sure, it's something with the box. basically now, only some of my astra channels show as having signal, the others have ~50signal and hence no lock. to me there is no obvious pattern.

for instance c4, c5 dont work, e4, more4 does, some sky movie channels and sports work, etc, but the others have this low signal problem, and wont show anything.

i've tried rescanning and no joy. i know its not the sat/lnb as if i plug the same feed into my sky box, it works fine. i tried reflashing to a base gemini 4.1 as i was on a multiboot before, and the same problem. any ideas please?

RedDevil_UK

to be fair, a few people have been having problems with Gemini 4.1, me included ive dropped back to 4.0 on multiboot using a CVS on the flash

when i had 4.0 or 4.1 on the flash i had all sorts of problems. nothing like yours apart from the fact that with these images GotoXX doesnt work at all!!

i would put a CVS image on flash and use a Gemini on multiboot.

PS
when i had 4.1 on flash and installed satans AU it all went pear shaped!! the box wouldnt restart or shutdown
doing a reset with the 3 button trick meant it asked for PAL, English, complex etc etc
everytime i switched the box on!! and wouldnt remember it IP settings

i did a flash erase and then got rid.

Luckily for Gemini, there isnt much competition for good images... otherwise we would all be trying something new.

yazooo

cheers, i remember having 4 and 2.6 on multiboot and the problem was still there, but i'll try something completely different, see how it goes.

yazooo

i put on the latest pli image as the base firmware, did a complete rescan, c4 and some other channels didn't even show up after the scan. same problem, some channels wont lock for me...could this be a hardware fault on the box...sounds a strange one?

yazooo

i just wanted to bump this again...still no joy. it seems a hardware fault on the box as it wont pick up signal on the majority of my channels. no longer using gemini 4.1, problem remains no matter what fw used.

it did start to happen soon after i tried this key auto updater for the first time, similar to what the previous poster suggested, but he's disappeared...any wacky ideas ppl, or this receiver is dead :-(

cheers, and happy new yrs!

T_G

Are you sure youre dish is aligned correctly? Is the LNB OK? If you could borrow a receiver from someone just to check the dish/lnb I would do that first. I had some strange stuff happening with my setup due to a faulty lnb...

T_G I only believe stuff that comes straight from Mr. Horses mouth!

yazooo

I have another db using the same dish and lnb which is fine, it definitely this particular receiver as I swapped them over.

mhku

Have you tried adding a USB stick and using multi-boot? If the problem happens with every image then it must be a hardware fault.

T_G

OK, that is a good thing you did, you got to try to remove the unknowns.
I don't know if you have tried it, but I wold go to the dreambox mynufacturers site and dowload the latest firmware, install it IN THE FLASH od the box, without multiboot, usb etc. and see what happens. Go back to basics so you can eliminate some more unknowns.

T_G I only believe stuff that comes straight from Mr. Horses mouth!

yazooo

cheers, just tried the standard firmware in the flash memory, did a full scan of 28.2e and only found 300 odd tv services, missing some movie channels, c4, 5 etc and some other ones. no obvious pattern to what's missing but it's the same as before.

T_G

What happens when you lod up a channel list which does have all the channels. can you then see them? Does your satellites.xml have the correct transponder/frequencies?

T_G I only believe stuff that comes straight from Mr. Horses mouth!

yazooo

when i load up a channel list, the channels that weren't there have low signal, so dont show anything, 50% or so, sometimes they show an image or so but with a large ber, it obviously never watchable.

the channels that do work, lock on with 90% signal strength, v strange.

T_G

If you find that all the channels that are "weak" are either all vertical or Horizontal it could show an LNB problem. I had a dodgy LNB for over 2 years, and it would do strange things.

Just to be sure: I think the best thing for you to do is to go to a friend and hook up your DB to his dish and see what happens. If you still get the same readings then your tuner is probably funny.

T_G I only believe stuff that comes straight from Mr. Horses mouth!

BonceChops

Are you sure you made a good connection when you repaired the damaged coax? Your dreambox may have a weaker tuner than the other one you tried that still works. The fewer connections you have in your coax the better.

You really need to prove your dreambox on a known working dish/lnb setup. Do you know someone that has a Sky setup? Plug your dreambox into their minidish and see what your scan finds then.

yazooo

I have another dish pointing at 16e which I'm going to realign to 28.2 and try it on that...unfortunately no friends who have sat.

yazooo

I've pretty much all but given up on this as a hardware failure. I now have two dud 7020s, with different faults. Anyone know of a decent repairer, I'm sure between the two boxes, there is enough parts to get one working.