Sky+ Pace Box - Dead ??? Lots of questions...

[lukethegooner]

Hi guys,

I've searched around on the this forum and have found a lot of good information [thanks!], but, I feel I need to ask some questions that haven't been resolved. If anyone could hepl I'd be most grateful.

I'm on my second Pace box, I believe it's a V1 and I'm seeing the same issues that led to my first Pace box dying a death.

The performance has been getting very iffy / erratic for a few weeks, live rewind and pause failing to work requiring a power cycle / reset to cure, etc.

Recently the box has started to suddenly power down into Standby without notice, often, within a few minutes of the last power up (please note this is not in confusion with the new idle power down software from Sky on newer boxes).

This has conincided with losing the planner completely last night; after rebuilding the planner and it seeming to work, only to see all unviewed recordings turn to 'fail' and the spare disc space leap to 99% even though there are many viewed recordings on there.

I've also now performed a Full System Reset (FSR) but this has not cured the problem, planner now empty but the box will power down (into Standby) without notice.

My question is; is my hard drive dead??

My box is out of warranty, is it worth buying new / refurbs from eBay, or, is there much success in arguing with Sky along the lines of the Consumer Act, in that they have supplied equipment that should last several years but in fact has last less than two, and even that was a replacement for one that lasted less than six months.

I'm willing to do a HDD replacement myself as I'm out of warranty, but have read via the links here about Maxtor drives and running Maxtor 'utilities' to remove formats etc.; is it necessary to run the Maxtor utilities if you're replacing the HDD?

I use a Mac at home, not a PC. I have one [PC] in the loft but I'm loathe to get it down just to fart about with a new HDD.

What is the financial margins in replacing a HDD to getting a new box from Sky or eBay?? What do I have to do to marry up my viewing card with any new box if I were to purchase from eBay??

And finally, as I've seen two of these fail on me now, is there any sort of maintenance routine that should be running to keep these boxes healthy??

For e.g., clearing the planner every few months and rebuilding it? Switching off the mains / power cycle every week, or, several times a week.

I like Sky+ but I'm very disappointed to have this fail again with what seems like exactly the same problem as the last box (HDD failure), more so horrified to read that some people have had 17 different boxes!!

any advice great appreciated

Luke

[reddwarfcrew]

yep you need a new hard drive, pretty sure of that. YOu could check the hard drive manufacturers website as HD have a 3 yr warranty unlike the 1yr from Sky for the box.

See the link in my sig for all you need to know about replacing the drive.

[lukethegooner]

How would I know which HD is in the unit? It's actually a standard PACE V2 (not V1 as I mentioned above)

Although I'm quite peeved, in this case I've stumped up the £65 call out, that's all I'll pay though, if they want me to pay for a new box on top, I'll cancel the sub and scream blue murder to their Custom Service department.

Luke

[reddwarfcrew]

if you've already called them out then you should get a refurb as part of the £65.

You need to open up the box to see the hard drive (and get the hd serial number) in order to see if the drive is still in warranty.

[lukethegooner]

if you've already called them out then you should get a refurb as part of the £65.

You need to open up the box to see the hard drive (and get the hd serial number) in order to see if the drive is still in warranty.

Thanks for that; here's a question thought, when the less than jovial Sky man arrives who will, probably, have tourettes syndrome, will he attempt to take the old PACE V2 box away with him, and, more over, am I within my rights to keep the duff box along with any refurb unit offered to try and fix myself??

I'm kinda thinking I've paid for this bit of kit and it's mine, god damn it!!

Thanks for all the advice, muchos appreciation ...

Luke

[reddwarfcrew]

well if it was within warranty then you wouldn't get to keep the bust box, but as you've paid £65 you may. Depends what the t&cs are for the call out, if its in the t&cs that they take away your box then 'fraid not.

[lukethegooner]

Depends what the t&cs are for the call out, if its in the t&cs that they take away your box then 'fraid not.

Well I'll let you know what happens as I shall ask the Sky Engineer if I can keep the box, after he's removed the chip from his shoulder that is

[Koala5]

You will not be allowed to keep the old box, the £65 covers the cost of an exchange box, they will then just refurb it and pass it on to somebody else for another £65, thats the way it works. For future reference I replaced my hard drive with a brand new one and didn't need to run any utililtys, I just put it in the Sky box and pressed the button that forces an update the box then formated the drive and set everything up fine. I think the only utility some people run is to set the drive to run in quiet mode, but I didn't bother and it dosen't seem any more noisey than the old drive.

[lukethegooner]

I think the only utility some people run is to set the drive to run in quiet mode, but I didn't bother and it dosen't seem any more noisey than the old drive.

Qualilty, thanks for the reply mate!!

Luke

[lukethegooner]

Just for anyone keeping up with this, I was given a replacement box for me old Pace V2; the Sky engineer told me that, due to his previous call not being in he was replacing the old Pace V2 with a new box. I believe it's a Thompson 160 (DSI6210), which he said was a better box and the old Pace V2's 'were bad' ...

The engineer said it was new, and it looks new, god knows if it is. If it is new do I get a new years warranty out of it? I forgot to ask the engineer this ...

Luke