[cwerdna]

I've had my RCA DVR80 DTiVo (6.3e-01-2-121 software) for a month short of 3 years now w/o any significant probs. However, last night I was surprised to come home to find it complaining that it's unable to acquire info from the satellite/no signal. (I wish I'd written down the messages or taken pictures)

As a result, I missed the entire day's worth of recordings starting sometime after 9 am and was also unable to watch live TV. After hitting some buttons, it claimed to be trying to acquire info but never went beyond 0%. A satellite strength test showed no signal on tuner 1! I ended up rebooting the unit and everything was fine after that w/proper signal on both tuners.

This is the first time I've hit anything like this. I haven't had any random reboots or pixelation or probs w/tuner 2. I've only checked the satellite connections on the back and they were fine. I haven't had a chance to check in the garage where the dish's outputs hook to the house's internal A/B cable system wiring or at the dish but nobody's mucked w/anything.

Does this happen sometimes w/DirecTiVos? Is it a sign that my unit or its tuners are dying? How about the LNBs and the built in multiswitch on the dish? Mine's a 3 LNB elliptical dish w/4 outputs. There was either light or no rain yesterday and I've never had trouble w/rain fade causing dropouts.

 

[rbtravis]

I've had my RCA DVR80 DTiVo (6.3e-01-2-121 software) for a month short of 3 years now w/o any significant probs. However, last night I was surprised to come home to find it complaining that it's unable to acquire info from the satellite/no signal. (I wish I'd written down the messages or taken pictures)

As a result, I missed the entire day's worth of recordings starting sometime after 9 am and was also unable to watch live TV. After hitting some buttons, it claimed to be trying to acquire info but never went beyond 0%. A satellite strength test showed no signal on tuner 1! I ended up rebooting the unit and everything was fine after that w/proper signal on both tuners.

This is the first time I've hit anything like this. I haven't had any random reboots or pixelation or probs w/tuner 2. I've only checked the satellite connections on the back and they were fine. I haven't had a chance to check in the garage where the dish's outputs hook to the house's internal A/B cable system wiring or at the dish but nobody's mucked w/anything.

Does this happen sometimes w/DirecTiVos? Is it a sign that my unit or its tuners are dying? How about the LNBs and the built in multiswitch on the dish? Mine's a 3 LNB elliptical dish w/4 outputs. There was either light or no rain yesterday and I've never had trouble w/rain fade causing dropouts.

I suggest you go to www.hddguru.com and Download HDDscan run the verify and check the seek speeds. all should be 15 milliseconds or less. Otherwise the drives are growing out of spec. Because all seeks in the tests are track to track and not full drive seeks.

 

[kenr]

I wouldn't run a hard drive test as the first step in diagnosing a loss of signal. I'd first check all my coax connections and multiswitches. Perhaps a LNB is also failing.