Faulty Humax HDR1010S

[Mike Watterson]

This Humax HDR1010S Freesat box occasionally powers on with blank magenta screen. Sometimes menus are 1/4 size but entire video is magenta.
Seems like Green is failing, also something else.
It recovers if the external 12V is unplugged for a while.

I don't think it's the HDMI cable as a Manhattan SX works fine and it might be OK for a few hours or few days.

Any thoughts?

[Murphyv310]

A job for a can of freezer Michael. Years since I did satellite boxes so I really can't help..... Sorry

[Mike Watterson]

I don't think that works unless it's an IC?

It's probably a capacitor. There are little PSUs, many SMPSU, dotted all over the the board. Input is 11.97. All the leaded electrolytics except one had what seemed like sensible voltages. It was a 220uF 10V with no voltage (!) on it. I replaced it.

But it's a very intermittent fault. I suspect it's maybe one of the cylindrical can surface mount on the little pedestals type Electrolytics. The HDMI traces seem to go to the "main" chip with the heat sink.

I may remove the 1G byte SATA drive and "recycle centre" the rest of it if it isn't fixed. Discovered I can only test it and the Sky HD box I was checking on power on logo (Humax) or Radio (Sky box). Stupidly they both seem to have some sort of "macrovision" though an earlier FW update for the Humax reads "Removed Analogue Copy Protection". So had to bring Humax from Workshop to Library (it has a nearly HD screen with HDMI)

Don't these idiots know you can point an HD camera at modern Flat Screen 4K TV in a dark room? Or bribe a projectionist or a Media company worker? DRM doesn't stop pirates. Just annoys paying users.