[TelstraClear] T-Box issues continued

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Reply # 544939 14-Nov-2011 07:27

@ Gary

When these machines are returned by the Tech to Telstra Clear are they actually opened up and examined?

Are they checked for ...

Faulty capacitors.
Damaged or ill fitting memory chips.
Warped cracked main board material.
Excessive drying of solder.
Faulty of poorly functioning cooling systems.
Evidence of low grade moisture deterioration due to heating and cooling .

Mike
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RobertT

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Reply # 544967 14-Nov-2011 09:14

Perhaps now that Digisoft.tv have been named in the development of the Tbox, we can invite them to respond, though there are bound to be legal issues.

They are headqurtered out of Cork, Ireland and have a US office.
http://www.digisoft.tv/contact.html

They have a facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/digisoft.tv

They have a LinkedIn page
http://www.linkedin.com/company/digisoft.tv

Each site is well worth a look - mainly for the lack of information on the LinkedIn and Facebook pages (social media doesn't appear to be there strongest market).

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Reply # 545017 14-Nov-2011 10:16

KiwiNZ: My T-Box has decided it is going to do something new and very annoying this morning, that is , a buzzing noise
There is no recording etc its just sitting there buzzing. I can even hear it in our home office where I work.

Hi KiwiNz, one of the broadcast techs has told me: "If it’s a slight vibrating sound, then it is just the hard drive spinning. I have had this happen at home too. It’s not a fault. Tap the box on the side and it will stop. If not, pick up the box and then place it back down."

Hope that helps, Gary

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Reply # 545020 14-Nov-2011 10:20

KiwiNZ: When these machines are returned by the Tech to Telstra Clear are they actually opened up and examined?

Hi KiwiNZ.

Boxes that have a confirmed fault are sent to a external repair company for soak-testing/analysis.

Cheers, Gary

MikeB4

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Reply # 545052 14-Nov-2011 11:15

TelstraClear:
KiwiNZ: My T-Box has decided it is going to do something new and very annoying this morning, that is , a buzzing noise
There is no recording etc its just sitting there buzzing. I can even hear it in our home office where I work.

Hi KiwiNz, one of the broadcast techs has told me: "If it’s a slight vibrating sound, then it is just the hard drive spinning. I have had this happen at home too. It’s not a fault. Tap the box on the side and it will stop. If not, pick up the box and then place it back down."

Hope that helps, Gary

Errr I managed a Tech Support unit, if one of my Techs did that method to stop a HDD from spinning I would seriously doubt their quals.

Most modern HDD's are quiet if there is a "buzzing" noise coming from them it would indicate a bearing issue or or actuator arm issue.

This is not a slight buzzing it can be quite audible.

Does the T-Box have cooling fans or is it only using heat sinks ?

Mike
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Take My Advice, Pull Down Your Pants And Slide On The Ice!

Fog

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Reply # 545164 14-Nov-2011 13:59

KiwiNZ:
TelstraClear:
KiwiNZ: My T-Box has decided it is going to do something new and very annoying this morning, that is , a buzzing noise
There is no recording etc its just sitting there buzzing. I can even hear it in our home office where I work.

Hi KiwiNz, one of the broadcast techs has told me: "If it’s a slight vibrating sound, then it is just the hard drive spinning. I have had this happen at home too. It’s not a fault. Tap the box on the side and it will stop. If not, pick up the box and then place it back down."

Hope that helps, Gary

Errr I managed a Tech Support unit, if one of my Techs did that method to stop a HDD from spinning I would seriously doubt their quals.

Most modern HDD's are quiet if there is a "buzzing" noise coming from them it would indicate a bearing issue or or actuator arm issue.

This is not a slight buzzing it can be quite audible.

Does the T-Box have cooling fans or is it only using heat sinks ?

KiwiNZ, I couldn't agree with you more. I am amazed to hear that one would fix a HDD noise by this method. A novice technician would know that this is poor advice. No wonder people are having trouble with their T/Box when this is the advice that is being given.

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Reply # 545203 14-Nov-2011 15:35

Fog:
KiwiNZ:
TelstraClear:
KiwiNZ: My T-Box has decided it is going to do something new and very annoying this morning, that is , a buzzing noise
There is no recording etc its just sitting there buzzing. I can even hear it in our home office where I work.

Hi KiwiNz, one of the broadcast techs has told me: "If it’s a slight vibrating sound, then it is just the hard drive spinning. I have had this happen at home too. It’s not a fault. Tap the box on the side and it will stop. If not, pick up the box and then place it back down."

Hope that helps, Gary

Errr I managed a Tech Support unit, if one of my Techs did that method to stop a HDD from spinning I would seriously doubt their quals.

Most modern HDD's are quiet if there is a "buzzing" noise coming from them it would indicate a bearing issue or or actuator arm issue.

This is not a slight buzzing it can be quite audible.

Does the T-Box have cooling fans or is it only using heat sinks ?
KiwiNZ, I couldn't agree with you more. I am amazed to hear that one would fix a HDD noise by this method. A novice technician would know that this is poor advice. No wonder people are having trouble with their T/Box when this is the advice that is being given.

I have great respect for Gary and really appreciate his efforts here and what I say next is by no means a personal attack on Gary.

But the "advice" given by the Broadcast Tech is either ill founded or the Tech is taking mickey. If it is the former I am left with a lot of doubt and not a lot of confidence that any of the T-Box issues are going to be addressed. It it is the later and they are taking the mickey, then that is highly unprofessional and insulting. When a company stops taking it's customers seriously they will lose them.

Mike
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The views stated in my posts are my personal views and not that of any other organisation.

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DonGould

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Reply # 545245 14-Nov-2011 16:29

KiwiNZ:
I have great respect for Gary and really appreciate his efforts here and what I say next is by no means a personal attack on Gary.

But the "advice" given by the Broadcast Tech is either ill founded or the Tech is taking mickey. If it is the former I am left with a lot of doubt and not a lot of confidence that any of the T-Box issues are going to be addressed. It it is the later and they are taking the mickey, then that is highly unprofessional and insulting. When a company stops taking it's customers seriously they will lose them.

ya, with all due respect Gary, non SSD hard drives have heads and platters in them which can crash into each other if you impact them to hard.

I'd be very concerned about causing a head crash in the box and then being held accountable for damaging the unit when I told the helpdesk or tech what I'd done.

Last thing I'd ever advise a customer to do with anything that's vibrating is to just give it a bit of a whack.

If people have a machine making a noise then call for a tech to give it a whack. It's a bit like the days when we used to whack a TV that wasn't working properly and some times it would work again because it was a dry joint. But you always called the tech to do the whack because then it was their problem if it got whacked to hard!

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Reply # 545248 14-Nov-2011 16:37

But the "advice" given by the Broadcast Tech is either ill founded or the Tech is taking mickey. If it is the former I am left with a lot of doubt and not a lot of confidence that any of the T-Box issues are going to be addressed. It it is the later and they are taking the mickey, then that is highly unprofessional and insulting. When a company stops taking it's customers seriously they will lose them.

To clarify: The idea to gently tap/touch or move the T-Box when ‘buzzing’ is noticed is to see whether it is something that is being caused by a faulty component (in which case gentle movement will make no difference, or the noise will change but not stop).

If gentle movement stops the noise and it does not return then the issue is likely to be a one-off and related to the case or some other part of the T-Box picking up low-level vibration. The assumption has been made here that the noise is from the hard drive. While this is possible, further investigation is needed. If you prefer, you can power down the T-Box before touching or moving it.

As our tech originally stated: “If it’s a slight vibrating sound, then it is just the hard drive spinning. I have had this happen at home too. It’s not a fault. Tap the box on the side and it will stop. If not, pick up the box and then place it back down.” We apologise for not making it clear that it may be due to hard drive unit rather than inside the HDD.These gentle actions (tap/touch/move) will do no harm and will not stop a hard drive spinning. They will assist in diagnosing the cause of the reported noise.

Hope that clears it up.

Cheers, Gary

kiwimordor

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Reply # 545392 14-Nov-2011 22:20

Interesting discussions everyone,
Like KiwiNZ I fel that Gary has been put between the rock and a car crusher.

A few questions Gary:

1 Is the hard drive solid state or spinning platter?

2 When I purchased the unit I was advised that they unit currently has only 50% of the available hard drive available (250 GB used, 250 GB for future use as enhancements come on line) Is that correct?

3 Can you please advise the current memory capacity of the unit, and if the available hard drive space (refer to 2 above) has the ability to be utilised as flash memory.

4 As asked earlier - does the unit have cooling fans or heat sink units. If the latter, were these developed for the heavy load that the software seems to be putting the unit under?

Your reply would be appreciated

Kiwimordor

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Reply # 545564 15-Nov-2011 11:40

Hi everyone, thanks for the comments and feedback.

Although we’ve had about 2% of customers report issues, we are aware that others will also experience these (and not report them). We noted this figure because the question was asked. The 2% figure is about standard, and the principle is the same for most new technology at this stage of the development cycle. We know that not all users will report issues even though they experience them. We also know that many, even all, users will experience some errant behaviour from time-to-time. Heavy users (lots of recordings, series links etc) are more likely to experience these behaviours.

Even though the percentage of customers reporting (and experiencing) issues with their T-Box is about the same as for other high-tech equipment at this stage of the development cycle, we are determined to continue to improve it and fix the issues. Many of us here at TelstraClear also have T-Boxes at home (including me, and bought well before I even knew I would be working here; and all of the broadcast team who are cable-connected). We also experience the errant behaviours and understand the frustrations. We’re determined to ensure that the next update addresses the biggest user concerns (including speed of response) and that it does this properly and without introducing new unexpected or unwanted behaviour.

Digisoft.tv’s involvement as the European software developer has been on our website since 2009 and was also announced in a media release issued in 2009. They’re also mentioned in the T-Box manual: “Java based middleware from Digisoft.tv”.

As previously noted, the reported issues are related to the software and not the hardware. T-Box hardware specifications are in the user manual that came with your T-Box. Details on the T-Box and a PDF of the manual/user guide are located here (http://www.telstraclear.co.nz/residential/inhome/tv/tbox-what.cfm)

Cheers, Gary

MikeB4

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Reply # 545602 15-Nov-2011 13:12

It would seem that my T-Box really has T-Boxitis. Daily new symptoms reveal themselves. To when I turned it on it was showing "Not Subscribed" on all channels. It took several power cycles to correct this.

What is happening ?

Mike
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DS248

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Reply # 545656 15-Nov-2011 15:42

Had the "Not Subscribed" message on a number of occasions - just one of the regular 'features' (though not since the box was replaced, touch wood). Yes, goes away after a few re-boots or 'in time'. Never concluded whether it was the box or the signal.

BigBadaboom

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Reply # 545720 15-Nov-2011 19:16

Have also been getting the Not Subscribed message a lot this past week or so.

This evening I am getting it again. Changing channel does not help and the EPG is showing up all "grey". However, the scheduled recordings all seem to work fine.

Looks like another reboot is in my immediate future.

clivestart

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Reply # 545724 15-Nov-2011 19:31

Ah yes, we got the Not Subscribed on one of our T-Boxes today, but not the other. Single Reboot did not fix it. Rang 0508 888800 and spoke with Faults who did a remote refresh, and we eventually got back to working. We have also tonight had the box freeze when changing channels (only during the news!). Another reboot fixed that. We have also been having a pixelation issue, and get the screensaver during playback of material from our recordings. Unfortunately, both T-Boxes are affected.

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