Problem with DRX280 Amstrad.

barrie.lamb

Hi, I was wondering if anyboby could help me . I have the above mentioned sky+ box and I don't get a 'Lock-on' to the 'Dish input2' , I have had the Sky engineer out and he has confirmed it after checking all cables and connections, the symptoms were that I could not record and watch another channel, after checks it was confirmed that there is no input to number 2 dish connector, we swopped the dish cables and it was still no lock on to 'input 2' so there is evidently a fault in the 'box' which the sky people won't touch because I did NOT get the box from them, does anyone know a quick fix, or someone in the NW Cumbria area that repairs them and an approx. price of such a repair or even if there is a known spare that I would need ??
Thanks in advance, Barrie.

satelliteman

Assumed your engineer tried reboot if not:

Try turning off the box from power, plug power back in at the same time as pressing back up on receiver. Keep hold of back up until all lights light. Wait for reboot, (10 mins).

When the receiver comes back on, sometimes it takes a minute or so for second feed to show a signal.

If this fails, you have a dead box.

Brought a few back to life with above

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barrie.lamb

Thanks for a quick reply, but yes, I before the skyman came did a 'Defrag', 'Software Update', and a 'Full System Reset' all to no avail, when the skyman came he tried it all too, I thought at first it could be a cable connection problem, but no the cables are good, I have an old fourty gig box and that is working super but the eighty gig box has this problem that there is 'no-lock' on the second connector from the LNB, and no signal on the signal strength in the 'setup' program. and that is for over a week, any other ideas.
THanks again, Barrie.

jonwisbey

i take it sky want £199 of you for a new one. the problem sounds like a dud tuner or power supply problem both can be tricky to repair appart from thomson box's which are a little easier.

you could try sky again demanding a new box since you paid for a call out charge from sky or you will terminate your subscription.

if that dont work then maybe try your luck on Ebay

barrie.lamb

Hi,
Just to let you know, 'prob.' fixed , In the end I phoned Sky again and was connected with India , they had it in a minute , the Indian matched the box with my 'card' and from then on I had both inputs. all the other calls to Sky were connected to somewhere in Britain, mostly Irish or Scottish accents, but last night at around 11'o'clock I was put through to India, hey-presto 'matching the card with the box' was his first reaction, why didn't the others tell me that ???
Anyway all's well that ends well.
Cheers for now and thanks again for your answers,
Barrie.

satelliteman

Never heard of that one before

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jonwisbey

thats new to me to
sounds a bit random

Shoog

I too am sceptical about that "fix".

I've got an Amstrad DRX280 with similar problems. Tuner 2 drops in and out. Sometimes it will record, sometimes it won't. If you watch the tuner page long enough you can see it going from locked to not locked and then back again. I've tried swapping the cables over and it's still tuner 2 at fault. My Pace PVR2 works fine with them.

The card I'm using is not paired with the box, but I've tried the same things with a friend's DRX280 and it all worked fine with my card (on FTA).

Similar post from someone on digitalspy recently suggested it was a faulty tuner. Not sure how technical a diagnosis that was. I've checked the PCB and there's no obvious faulty caps. Might try swapping the tuner but it doesn't look that easy. Maybe just re-solder might be enough.

holmroad

Well I too find it difficult to comprehend all that - but as a total 'layman' maybe the previous 'paired' cardholder who actually owned the DRX280 didnt subscribe to Sly+ and the logics within the DRX280 required a 'paired' card to be looking for a SECOND input feed to make use of its FULL Sly+ logics? It just seems that it COULD have been as simple as that!

Cupart

Barrie.lamb, was the card matched with the Sky+ receiver from before (i.e. could you use the Sky+ functions before the fault came up)?

I also find this VERY strange and guess it was more a lucky 1 in a million coincidence than anything else... Guess you have "used" you luck in this life m8 so no more point in playing the lotto ;-)

barrie.lamb

Hi All,

Yep I answered that one a bit 'premature',
Up-date... Yes it fixed it but after about a week when I tried to Record the same time as I was watching another program, a big NoGo, so I was in touch with Sky again and they carried out all sorts of checks and in the end sent an Engineer out to me, they checked everything at my end again including my Dish installation and everything seems to be in order so it seems to be on the Box between the 'Input2' and the 'hard Disc' or 'Tuner'.

Luckely when I bought it off Ebay I didn't send any 'Feedback' so I have been in touch with the seller and they have agreed to check it again and if it proves to be faulty they will replace it, , so it went in the post this morning.

The funny thing is it seems to be an 'intermittant' snag as sometimes it gets a signal on 'Input 2' and then it doesn't 'lock-on', so no way can you 'record' one program and 'watch' another.

By the way the Sky engineer replaced my old 40Gb box but he woudn't replace the 80Gb but at least the 'seller' is going to do something there, .

Well I will just have to wait now and see what happens, but I'll keep you posted on it, Cheers Barrie.

holmroad

Good luck then M8 -let us know how you get on!!

barrie.lamb

Hi,

Well after all the inconvenience this morning I recieved the replacement 'Box' from the seller , and everything is working as it should , The Sky engineer is coming again as the last time he came he found a fault with the 'Dish' installation, which is the reason I get picture and sound 'breakup' when it is windy , mainly on the BBC programs and also on 'Military channel' and also on a couple of film channels, due to a weak signal, last time he adjusted the dish position and fitted a new LMB and the next time he is going to fit a new 'co-ax' cable as the original one is just laid diagonally across my roof and flaps in the wind, I knew from the start that the first installation was a 'botch job' but it's taken nearly a year to get Sky to respond to it, and then with the trouble with the 'faulty' box it just gave Sky another reason to postpone the 'action.
But never mind 'All's well that ends well' .

Cheers for now, Barrie.

barrie.lamb

Hi,

Just had the engineer out again to replace the cable to the dish, (yesterday),
today at the moment a Raging Gale and everything is Okey, a perfect pic on all channels as it should be, Cheers Barrie.