Overheating??

[dvmedia]

Hi guys, I have bought a Humax DVB PVR. It's great except the fact it gets very hot!

I've read the instruction booklet, all it says is allow 10cm on each side..

Each side has about 4 cm

The top of it has ventellation grills, and there is about 6 or 7cm there.

It is on top of a Philips CD-i player which radiates no heat as it's turned off at the mains most of the time.

It's inside a TV Cabinet with a Glass door front. The cabinet bizzarely seems to have no ventellation holes at all except for a circular hole at the back where all the wires go.

Is there anything I can do? What are the risks of overheating it? Fire? Damage?

When it got particularly hot I noted it couldn't display some channels "This channel is either scrambled or unavailable" - putting it in standby and taking it out fixed this though.

Regards,

 

[Rob]

I think you must have the same cabinet as me. What I have done is remove the backing of the cabinet (may be even the glass front) and you might think of removing the receiver top.

Another idea I had (which I have not done yet) is fit a computer type fan inside the receiver.
I would advise you to do something to improve the ventalation in or around the receiver or it will start playing up, or worse still pack in all together as happened to my old Force receiver.

 

[Llew]

I always consider placing equipment in an enclosed cabinet the kiss of death to STBs.

You could fit a small computer fan in your equipment, but where will the warm air escape to in the cabinet? Leave the doors open, or better still, fit a fan somewhere on the cabinet (perhaps at the back), operated from a DC adaptor.

All my stuff is free-standing,and even then I ensure plenty of space is provided by standing the equipment on small pieces of 15mm plastic water pipe stuck to the STB's mounts. Looks quite OK aesthetically, but what the heck, there's a lot of expensive equipment that I don't intend to cook to death prematurely.

Llew

 

[gameboy]

Several users have added fans inside their Dreamboxes (instructions can be found easily) but this can cause noise.

You could try drilling a row/s of holes in the sides of the cabinet above the equipment to let the heat out. The longer you take planning this the better it will look.

I would also advise not putting another bit of kit directly on top of your receiver (does it have ventilation slots on the top?).

I placed four Duplo (large Lego) blocks covered in black electrical tape on top of the receiver and then placed the player on that. It helped a lot.

Remember - if the receiver is overheating you are reducing its life expectancy so try and do something.

 

[T_G]

Yep, can"t but agree. I would think that fitting a ventilator to your cabinet would be a good thing for all the equipment that is there. Try to get a large one with low noise. I recently fitted one to my computer, and they don"t cost a lot. Of course you could always try to get some from old computers. What you could do is fit two fans in your cabinet, one at the bottom pushing air in and one at the top pulling air out.

 

[PoloMint]

If you get bigger quieter fans - 8cm or 12cm it would probably be a good idea to get fan grills too. The fans are quite powerful and this would prevent cables getting pushed into the fan blades, and stop you accidentally sticking your finger in them. Plus it would probably look better. They are not expensive.

 

[dvmedia]

Hi again guys, thanks for your input

I have taken the glass front door off the cabinet.. so hopefully now it should get some ventilation.

Funnily enough I thought of making and fixing some small fan in the back last night. - Thing is, I just really don't want the noise.

When I sometimes have to leave my computer on over-night, thats bad enough (although admittedly that has four case fans).

I might end up having to move it out of the cabinet if taking the door off has minimal effect..