Azbox Tuner

[Apprentice]

My tuner has just stopped working. STB acts as if it is not even there? anyone seen this happen before?

 

[AcWxRadar]

Apprentice,

Please describe the situation in more detail. Below are some things you should research to start out with:

When you enter the SETTINGS menu and access SETUP/TV CHANNEL, does it display TUNER A DVB-S (above IP Channel / Always start in TV mode)? That should at least inform you that the tuner has power and that the AZBox recognizes it and is talking to it.

If the tuner shows up in this menu, select it and go to ANTENNA SETUP and select a known good satellite from the list. (If the satellite list is in tact, the orbital position and satellite name will appear in the list for SATELLITE NAME).

Then check to ensure that the LNB FREQUENCY is properly set to match your LNB's local oscillator (L.O.) Should normally be 10750 MHz or possibly Universal (or 5150 for C-Band), etc.

Check all the switch settings (DiSEqC, 22KHz, 0/12V) and ensure that they are set to match your system setup.

Check to ensure that LNB POWER is set to ON.

Now, access the TP FREQUENCY selection and scroll through the TPs in the list until you find a known good/active one. One that you know you used to obtain. Give it up to two minutes if necessary for the AZBox to register it. Then check the signal level and the signal quality. What do you show here?

If the SIGNAL LEVEL (top bar graph) is reading at least 65%, I'd say you were probably OK there. I don't know how low this can be and still operate properly, but I have a long cable run and that causes mine to read 65% and everything works acceptable at this level.

If the SIGNAL QUALITY (lower bar graph) is reading at least 35%, you should be fine here. About 32-33% is the minimum allowable for a DVB-S signal.

When in TV MODE, is your satellite/channel list still present? Or is it present, but appears "greyed out"?

RADAR

 

[Apprentice]

Apprentice,

Please describe the situation in more detail. Below are some things you should research to start out with:

When you enter the SETTINGS menu and access SETUP/TV CHANNEL, does it display TUNER A DVB-S (above IP Channel / Always start in TV mode)? That should at least inform you that the tuner has power and that the AZBox recognizes it and is talking to it.

Nope it does not show the tuner in the setup at all. It just went away. I even changed it over to the second tuner slot thinking maybe had lost the first slot on the board.

If the tuner shows up in this menu, select it and go to ANTENNA SETUP and select a known good satellite from the list. (If the satellite list is in tact, the orbital position and satellite name will appear in the list for SATELLITE NAME).

Then check to ensure that the LNB FREQUENCY is properly set to match your LNB's local oscillator (L.O.) Should normally be 10750 MHz or possibly Universal (or 5150 for C-Band), etc.

Check all the switch settings (DiSEqC, 22KHz, 0/12V) and ensure that they are set to match your system setup.

Check to ensure that LNB POWER is set to ON.

Now, access the TP FREQUENCY selection and scroll through the TPs in the list until you find a known good/active one. One that you know you used to obtain. Give it up to two minutes if necessary for the AZBox to register it. Then check the signal level and the signal quality. What do you show here?

If the SIGNAL LEVEL (top bar graph) is reading at least 65%, I'd say you were probably OK there. I don't know how low this can be and still operate properly, but I have a long cable run and that causes mine to read 65% and everything works acceptable at this level.

If the SIGNAL QUALITY (lower bar graph) is reading at least 35%, you should be fine here. About 32-33% is the minimum allowable for a DVB-S signal.

When in TV MODE, is your satellite/channel list still present? Or is it present, but appears "greyed out"?

Don't remember if the sat list is still there or not i will have to check that tonight when i get home.

RADAR

 

[AcWxRadar]

Apprentice,

You may have lost a power supply for the tuner or the cable to the tuner could have a bad connection (if it is an Elite or the original Premium AZBox). The Premium Plus AZBox tuners have a card edge connector, so simply moving the tuner to the other slot would have probably wiped the connector contacts clean be reseating them during this action. It may be that the tuner has a hard component failure on board the tuner module itself.

If your channel list is still in tact, I would back it up using the ACC 1.1 utility program first, then put the tuner back in the original slot and perform a complete factory restore and reload the firmware:

SETTINGS ? SETUP ? DATA RESET ? FACTORY SETTING and then reload the firmware, format the DOM and reload the satellite/DVBS/channel lists. Be sure to follow the procedures in the AZBox A-Z guide in the STICKIE posts. See if this makes any improvement. If not, then you will have to check the power supplies and ribbon cables and, possibly, the tuner itself. Last time I checked, a new tuner replacement was $60-$70 USD.

If you have a second AZBox, you can swap the tuner modules and retest. That might be quicker than testing the power supply voltages.

Good luck to you, hope you get it resurrected easily.

RADAR

 

[migold]

Apprentice;
Yes, I had this problem last year. The tuner would not be recognized. I ordered a second tuner to see if that would solve the problem. Result was that I still had the problem with either tuner. I could get the Azbox [Premium Plus] to work only by reloading the firmware. It would work for some time and then failed me again. My problem was extremely intermittent, it would appear within a couple of days, or maybe not again for weeks. It was very frustrating, as it seemed to know when I wanted to watch something... I can not say the exact cause of the problem, as I eventually exchanged the whole unit under warranty. Since then, I have not had a problem that a reboot would not cure.
Radar's suggestions are excellent. I only comment to let you know that you are not alone...
Good Luck.

 

[Apprentice]

Well i followed Radars suggestions but with no luck. everything formatted and loaded fine. So i thought it goes through boot and loading then just goes blank on the front of the AzBox. Should have left it alone any just used it as a HDD as it had tons of shows recorded on it

 

[AcWxRadar]

Well i followed Radars suggestions but with no luck. everything formatted and loaded fine. So i thought it goes through boot and loading then just goes blank on the front of the AzBox. Should have left it alone any just used it as a HDD as it had tons of shows recorded on it

Apprentice,

You have me a little confused here. You didn't "FORMAT" the HDD, did you? As long as you did not directly reformat the HDD, your shows should still be there - hopefully.

Although it is highly recommended that you remove the HDD whenever you conduct a format and restore of the AZBox itself (just to be safe), that action should not affect the HDD or its contents. However, in your case, there may be a more serious problem with the box and that could be doing one of two things. 1] It wiped your HDD clean or 2] It is being prevented from recognizing the HDD.

There was a big warning that I did read a long time ago regarding doing just this with a NTFS formatted HDD installed as that can wipe out the drive or cause the box to lock up. However, I also thought that a NTFS formatted HDD wouldn't work in the AZBox in the first place, so why would anyone have it in there to begin with?

I wouldn't do anything like format the HDD at this point. Just remove the HDD and concentrate on repairing the AZBox. Once its trouble is resolved and you get your tuner and channel / sat lists back, then you can reinstall the HDD and check to see if all your shows are still in tact.
I am thinking that they are still there.

There is a component on the motherboard called QF3. I am suspecting that component has turned to toast or evaporated! It is a common failure component. It is not much larger than two pinheads together in size. The loss of this component will make your tuner and your HDD invisible as they will no longer have power. However, you should be detecting an error message like "No Disk, install AS" on the front panel. This error message pops up because this component also supplies power to the DOM and if the DOM has no power, the CPU cannot detect it, so it won't boot up properly.

Use the search feature on the site for QF3 or for stuck in booting or booting issues. There are a number of posts regarding this and several with pictures to show you where this component is and how to check it.

RADAR

 

[Apprentice]

Yeah i am sure the shows are still there. most of them are on an external HDD. Both drives are formated via the azbox so not NTFS. I will take the drives out and see about recovering the shows to the network server. Then see if I can figure out the AzBox issues.

It does not show any errors on the front of the AzBox just gets to loading then never goes any further. or gets just past the loading and goes blank and then just sitts there. I will have to buy a Media player in the mean time to watch shows i have not seen yet (update: Shows are still on the hard drives. Used a linux partition reader for windows and i am able to recover and move them to another location.)

 

[AcWxRadar]

Yeah i am sure the shows are still there. most of them are on an external HDD. Both drives are formated via the azbox so not NTFS. I will take the drives out and see about recovering the shows to the network server. Then see if I can figure out the AzBox issues.

It does not show any errors on the front of the AzBox just gets to loading then never goes any further. or gets just past the loading and goes blank and then just sitts there. I will have to buy a Media player in the mean time to watch shows i have not seen yet (update: Shows are still on the hard drives. Used a linux partition reader for windows and i am able to recover and move them to another location.)

Apprentice,

It is good that you can recover your HDD programs!

I am not sure what the exact steps that you have attempted so far have been, but I will suggest the following.

If you don't already have a library of the AZBox image files (firmwares), download a good reliable version. Say like 0.9.5020 for an example.
Copy the file to a USB memory stick and rename it "patch". Since your PC could be configured to "hide known extensions", copy the same original file to the USB stick again, but this time rename it as "patch.bin". Regardless of how your PC is set up, the AZBox will now identify only the one correct file name and use that. It will simply ignore the other file.

If you can get to the AZBox SETTINGS menu, verify that the "hardware acceleration" feature is set to OFF. If you cannot, then hopefully you had never turned it ON to begin with. That feature can sometimes really mess with the AZBox. We'll just proceed as though it were OFF.

Turn the AZBox OFF and disconnect the LNBF cable. Then insert the USB stick into one of the USB ports. Sometimes one USB port may be ignored or deactivated if there is a fault, so you might have to try both ports.

Turn the AZBox on and wait for it to recognize the USB stick and the firmware image file. If the upgrade / update menu appears, select update option #1 USB and allow it to complete. When finished, the same menu will reappear. Now select option #4 FORMAT APPLICATION AREA (that is the DOM). When that is completed and the menu is once again displayed, select option #5 BOOT WITHOUT UPDATE.

If you can now get to your menus, go to SETTINGS, (ensure hardware acceleration is OFF) and go to DATA RESET ? FACTORY SETTING and press OK and follow the prompts and instructions. Once complete, do a HARD REBOOT (SHUT DOWN by the remote - then power off in the back when it tells you to). Remove the USB stick and turn power back ON.

Does it seem to reboot fully now? Or does it get stuck at LOADING still? If it seems normal, check the SETTING ? TV CHANNEL selection to verify if the tuner is acknowledged as being present. If it is, then power back down and reattach the LNBF cable and reboot once again. Does it still reboot normal? Or does it hang up? If it hangs up now or doesn't recognize the tuner, you might have a short on the cable or in the LNBF. But, if it reboots fine now, try scanning a known good satellite and see if it picks up anything.

Somewhere along the way through this mess, you should find some clues to help define the problem, or at least guide you to one specific area.

RADAR

 

[Apprentice]

I will try this when i get home tonight. Thanks so much for helping me with this. I have really enjoyed using my AzBox since i have had it. This is really the first time i have had major issues with it.