Fixed: Supernet PVR playback/recording problem

[gw1]

Symptoms:
- "hard disk full" error (even though it said "52% free")
- old recordings no longer play back
- new recordings stop prematurely and fail to play back
- difficulty deleting tracks
- "erase hard disk" option has no effect

I tried repeated reboot / erase cycles but made no difference.
I tried Factory Reset.

I've owned several Supernet PVR models over the years. All have bugs involving file corruption, none of which have been fixed, so I assumed this was yet another firmware bug. I was wrong!

Cause:
Failing power supply caused hard disk to malfunction.

Solution:
Replace electrolytics adjacent to diode heatsinks in the switchmode power supply. Three 2200uF 10V, which I replaced with 2200uF 25V 105deg types.

Result:
- new recordings are now successful and play back correctly
- previously "erased" and deleted hard disk entries have reappeared! (amazing)
- old recordings now play back fine

The fact that previously deleted directory entries reappeared suggests that digenius have either a duplicate FAT or use some other kind of directory caching scheme. I wasn't expecting to be able to recover my lost recordings, so that was a pleasant surprise.

[Rugby1au]

GW1, thanks for your posting.

Mine started to play up a few months back with some of the symptoms you encountered. Mainly mine would not record, or stop during the recoding with the HDD Full message press OK to continue etc.

To get around it I had to remove from mains, wait a couple of secs, put the plug in and as soon as it booted up go pick the station I wanted to record, hit the red button to go into the record/play menu and hit the record or play button straight away.
If it was in standby or if I was waiting for the program to come on I wished to record, then it was Russian Roulette.

One time it did a total spack attack and the remote wouldn't work. I thought it was a bin job.

So I found your write up above and went to see a very good technician Mike.
Ex NEC Service Manager.

I'll digress slightly. I found a Thomson DTR-6000AU in a skip bin a few years back. It had been raining and I thought 'ohh this is not going to work'.
Being a HI-FI & video nut and a hoarder to boot, I brought it home and didn't touch it for months. Finally I thought it should be dried out by now so put the plug in x'd fingers and turned it on. It was dead, but I could hear the HDD spin up. The display was blank. Ohh well it was free.
Later.........
I was talking to Mike about it and he said "I bet the caps are gone".
So I took it to him, he took the top off and said look there, they were all bulging and had brown gunk leaking out.
He replaced all the caps and bingo she works great.
Had to buy a remote for it $75, so a PVR for $75 was good I thought.

So off to see Mike again.

Printed off your posting etc.
He took the lid off and bingo ALL the electro's [caps] were bulging at the top.

He replaced the lot, all 7 of them with Jamicon 16V and 25V 105C's and all is good.

He said the faulty caps don't filter out the power rail properly and the unit sees the noise as data and records it filling up the drive. He reckons it was caught in time as it could of U/S'd the HDD.

Thanks GW1 and Thanks Mike.