DJ140

The hard drive in my Sky+ box has failed for the 2nd time, on this occassion the unit is 13 months old.

I know my basic rights, with regard to the sale of goods act 1994, but the morons at Sky just quote that it is out of warranty and needs a £65 replacement.

Does anyone know of a quick way to get Sky to replace the unit Free of charge, without resorting to the legal route?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Dan

logiclee

Looking ay digital spy it's common, all they do is stuff you with a £65 charge for a recon box. Even if you do it under warranty you get a recon box.

Easier to buy yourself a 120gig harddrive and change it yourself. You at least know you are getting a new drive and with three times the capacity.

Do you have it contained in a unit? Majority of failures seem to be caused by overheating.

Lee

DJ140

Hi Lee,

The box is on the bottom shelf of a TV stand, so plenty of space for cooling.

The point is I don't see why I should have to fight for the right to a free replacement under the sale of goods act, Sky should be aware of my rights as a consumer and just replace the unreliable piece of sh*t!!!

My other option is to cancel Sky+ and call next day and get a free normal Sky set top box, then buy a DVD recorder, which is hopefully more reliable than Sky+.

4 of my friends have bought Sky+ on my recommendation, I'd steer anyone clear of Sky+ now, although none of their STB's have gone wrong, yet.

Dan

logiclee

To be honest I think the boxes are not cooled sufficiently and the hardrive is spinning 24/7 unless you unplug it. All the time you have the thing switched on it's writing to the hard drive for instant rewind etc. I wouldn't expect many hard drives to last much more than 18months under such abuse.

Sky and customer relations don't go together though so you may have a fight on your hands.

DJ140

I've noticed that the disc spins constantly, even when in standby, not very good design IMO.

I refuse to pay the £65 to get the thing exchanged again and if they won't do it I'll just cancel the subscription, which will cost them far more than if they replaced it.

Once you've cancelled they then call you up and offer you half price subs for 3 months, after which time you cancel again and the whole process goes on.

Thanks for your advice Lee,
Dan

Adam M

do you have a good friend who has a sky plus box still in waranty?

switch with them if that is the case! ie. get them to send yours back.

When mine failed they had no record of the gae of the box by its serial number, only the date I signed up to the sky plus service.

dba

mine is crammed under the TV stand with no room to breath at all,has been for 2 years and its survived,but its one of the original ones,maybe this is a problem with the new ones

mannyo

as already suggested consider changing the drive for a 120gb. you'll be able to record a whole lot more before the drive fills up. Instructions for the v2 box can be found Here

lightning101

Take the drive out - and do an online return, Tell them you had it in your computer and it has just failed after 4 month usage. You didn't register the drive, only the box.


Or try manufacturers utilities from web site and repair the drive.

gsm1

Are you sure the hard drive has failed? My box (7 months old) lost the recording feature recently. When looking at the LNB signal strength only one of the LNB inputs (on the box) would receive.

rotty

gsm1 , that is a syptom of a failed hard disk ( as well as the obvious possibility of genuine lost signal )

imlach

How can one of the LNB inputs being kaput possibly be a symptom of a failed hard drive!!!

I have to assume gsm1 measured the LNB outputs from the dish and found one to be faulty.

I hate the whole Sky scenario, even although I have no choice as no cable in our area. At least with cable, any box problems are the responsibility of the cable company. With Sky, the ***** in your court

gsm1

Well the sky guy who came to replace it didn't mention the hard drive being the fault. But these guys are not the smartest people in the world.
I had 2 of them come to re-fix my dish 3 months back. It was comedy hour, both of them were up the ladder, the lower trying to hold one bracket with his head wedged between the other guy's bum cheeks. I had to talk them through what to do as they didn't have a clue. They were sub-contractors btw.

imlach

I always use a specialist for my Sky stuff. Works out slghtly more expensive, but you know the job will be done properly....

For instance, when putting the dish up intially, Sky would not put it on the side of the chimney breast as that was too complex...Sky would only shove it on the wall at the house front....had to spend £50 on a specialist to install it, instead of it being "free" with Sky, but well worth it. Dish is where I want it, and he knows my install inside out (it's a complex multi-room type thing).

gsm1

No, the LNB at the dish was fine. If you swapped around the co-ax connectors at the back of the box then the same signal input was dead at the box.
I've also noted that the last engineers didn't put any self amalgamating tape on one of the F-type connectors at the LNB. I know water ingress doesn't do the LNB any favours, I wonder if there is a good chance it can also affect the box.

rotty

If the disk fails then it has no use for the LNB2 signal and as such disables it

DJ140

All I have now are the channels, no pause, record etc.

I've sent a letter to Sky advising that they read up on the sale of goods act, then come and repair it FOC. Also joined the Consumer Association Legal service and the solicitor that called me confirmed they should repair or replace the STB for upto 5 years!!!

I'm determined to get Sky to fix it, then install a HD upgrade and possibly a fan for the HD?

Thanks for all the advice.

Dan

imlach

That's a great system that is - NOT!

Makes debugging whether you have a problem in your 2nd LNB or cable difficult - why can't they just leave the signal status for LNB2 on such that you can determine yourself if it is the LNB and/or sat cable that is at fault.

Even better, if it KNOWS the hard drive is broken and disables LNB2, does it have a screen telling you the hard drive is goosed? Or does it just not let you know?

rotty

just swap your 2 lnb cables over and see if its lnb1 that shows no signal , if it does it's your lnb or cable , if the prob stays with lnb2 its you tuner/disk , easy

imlach

Yeah, but the point is, if the box KNOWS the hard drive is goosed, it could tell you this on the screen, instead of just blindly disabling LNB2.

Useability.

rotty

it could but that would make far too much sense


I may have actually misphrased my earlier comment , it probably isn't a deliberate feature but the fact that the disk has failed means that LNB2 is not registered as that is not used directly by the tuner but via the hard disk

DJ140

Just tried to take the cover off and there is a standard Torx screw, with a raised bit in the middle.

Any idea what I need to take the screws out?

logiclee

Anti-Tamper Torx driver.

Neanderthal

iTrader: (6)

this is what you need

DJ140

Cheers mate, I'll order the Screwfix anti-tamper bit set immediately.

Dan