Freesat box problems

[John M0GLN]

I bought a new Goodmans Freesat box a few months ago, only a cheap one to use in the kitchen and very quickly noticed a fault occuring, about 10 – 30 minutes from switching it and the TV on, the TV would go to a blue screen for about 1 – 2 minutes and then the picture and sound would return but sometimes on a different channel, I rang the Goodmans help line and was told the first thing to do was to check the HDMI lead, now rather than mess about going through a pile of suggestions that would probably follow this, I swapped the Goodmans box for the Sky box in another room, the fault stayed the same although it was now working with a different TV, different leads and a different coax feed from the LNB, I rang them back and they swapped the box for another one, and you've guessed it, exactly the same fault, have I missed something here? I'm very puzzled as to what it could be, can anyone please suggest?


Thanks

John

[Mark Hennessy]

Does it have an external PSU, and when it was swapped, did you get a new PSU?

[John M0GLN]

It's got an external PSU, a wall wart, but the whole package was swapped, PSU, remote, leads etc, everything was changed.

[Mark Hennessy]

OK - thought that would probably have been the case

It's just that external PSUs cause all sorts of havoc with certain set top boxes, including the sort of fault you describe. They are "subbed" out to the cheapest bidder, and sometimes they are inadequate from new (especially for units with HDDs in them).

I'd be inclined to get a refund. Whatever is going on, it might not be straightforward. Perhaps before doing so, could you borrow another box from a friend? Then at least you can argue more strongly that there is an endemic problem with that model. It can happen - have you tried searching for the exact model number to see if this is a known issue?

Needless to say, after just a few months, the retailer should take it back with no questions asked. It's their problem, not Goodman's...

[John M0GLN]

Thanks Mark,

I'll do as you suggest, I'll look on the web to see if there's anything about them and bring my other Sky box into the kitchen and see how it performs.

John

[John M0GLN]

I tried the other Sky box as a freesat box and it worked perfectly, I've now returned the Goodmans box and got a refund, it seems strange that two identical boxes should show identical faults after being switched on for the same length of time, I couldn't find anything relevant to this on the web.

John