Intermittent Tune Failed -LNB?

Exos

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Hello fellow DW'ers. It's been a while I know that I've been present/active on the forum, but I'm after a little help (and more so some confirmation of my thoughts)

Over Christmas my DM800SE decided to start to not play ball (which was great as I also had a heater and microwave and my front door handle/lock go in a few days of each other), anyway I kept getting a constant freezing at the logo screen and repeated clicking on boot up and looping; when it did eventually boot there was a problem in tuning the channels (FTA or any) with the 'Tune Failed' message appearing. The click was very much the sound of a failed HDD, so I bought a new drive, re-flashed and everything was fine for about 12 hours, before it started to do the same again....

This time I bought a new Tuner thinking that it was causing the issue, only to replace it to find the failure to boot/clicking issue continued as did the tuning. I reflashed the box with an OpentTV image, Blackhole and back to OpenPLI, in which it seemed to work for a second, before discovering that if I removed the drive all together and used a USB stick the 'clicking' and boot loop issue disappeared (which was a bit weird)

Problem is, the 'tune failed' issue seems to still be present, but it is completely intermittent; and in each or most cases its after a full hard reboot of the box, or if I disconnect any of the sat cables. I can get around it by going in and out of sat finder, changing the polarisation/frequency etc. and it eventually just comes back on.

Eventually I bought a new box (Zgemma HS.2), thinking my DM800 was literally on it's last legs. Only thing is after getting the replacement box, the same 'tune failed' issue is occurring, which now leads me to believe I had more than one issue. I'm still using the DM800SE in my living room and if I don't power the box off/take it to standby it seems to be fine.

I believe it's now the LNB or the Dish. I have another dish (on the other side of the extended part of my house which services two bedrooms and kitchen) and if i plug the Zgemma box into this the channels can be found with no problem. Other than an issue with me being able to get to the dish, because of it's location at the side of the conservatory, my feeling is towards this being the problem.

I'm only asking because of the difficulty in access (where I think the fault is). I do have a spare dish, quad LNB and and Octo LNB so I don't need to buy anything, but unsure if any sat fitter is going the be happy using these.

My options are

- Replace the Quad LNB in Dish 2 with an Octo LNB and pay for the old dish to be removed and the cabling to be run over the convervatory from the living room position
- Replace the old dish with the spare Quad LNB and/or Dish

In either case access is tricky.

EDIT: I just also realised, one of the feeds (which actually goes into my conservatory) goes through the wall, behind the skirting, behind the patio door casing and plasterboard so if option 1 was taken the cable would need to be joined. In hindsight, probably not my best idea when I was refurbishing.
 
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Dish 1 and dish 2...do the cables run in an area that you can access freely? as you could join(NOT SPLIT) cables if you have to with the correct barrel connectors and waterproofing tape if access is externally.

As for your dm800... psu issues are problamatic with pretty much all dreamboxes...if you think about it your usb stick takes much less power than the internal hdd will so it could explain that particular box messing up...however it does sound like you have a signal issue especially if your new zgemma box suffers the same signal issues...

When you get your signal fixed please dont bin your dm800...look into buying a new psu...old pc monitor 5v psu units do the trick well:)
 
I had a similar problem a while ago and i tried several things without success but mine turned out to be very simple it was the sat cable going into the back of box had gone faulty so i just striped it and rewired it and it has worked fine since , it could be the same on lnb side maybe cables have gotten wet or damaged with all the recent bad weather or maybe it is more serious as you think .
 
I had a similar problem a while ago and i tried several things without success but mine turned out to be very simple it was the sat cable going into the back of box had gone faulty so i just striped it and rewired it and it has worked fine since , it could be the same on lnb side maybe cables have gotten wet or damaged with all the recent bad weather or maybe it is more serious as you think .

Could be, but all three connections/cables are the same if I swap them and I replaced them last year with new WF100 (thats about as far as I can reach)

Sorry, forgot to mention that bit.

Dish 1 and dish 2...do the cables run in an area that you can access freely? as you could join(NOT SPLIT) cables if you have to with the correct barrel connectors and waterproofing tape if access is externally.

As for your dm800... psu issues are problamatic with pretty much all dreamboxes...if you think about it your usb stick takes much less power than the internal hdd will so it could explain that particular box messing up...however it does sound like you have a signal issue especially if your new zgemma box suffers the same signal issues...

When you get your signal fixed please dont bin your dm800...look into buying a new psu...old pc monitor 5v psu units do the trick well:)

so when you look at the rear of my house on the far left is the dish that works and on the far right is the dish that doesn't. This was my thinking with the Octo, because I need 6 connections altogether if I unify everything to a single dish.

- Only one of the connection would need to be joined (the one that goes into the conservatory as I have no choice with this).
- I would still need to find some way of securing the cable to the wall (as a large percentage of that left to right is taken up by my conservatory so still presents me with an access problem.

Hence why I'm now thinking a sat fitter is more likely to have the gear to do it, than me.
 
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Id replace the LNB to start with you dont require a installer for that and to be honest the dish alignment should not be any real hassle.
 
Id replace the LNB to start with you dont require a installer for that and to be honest the dish alignment should not be any real hassle.

I agree, and I'm perfectly capable, but getting to it is the issue. I tried today, but I had to balance the ladder on a fairly insecure fence and bunch of bushes, and even then I could only reach the bottom part of the LNB where the connections are. The gap where it needs to go is is no bigger than an medium sized adult and needs to be sideways to the wall. Any higher up and it (or rather me) is likely to topple into next door.

The dish however shall we say is in quite a state of disrepair as It's been up for 15+ years.

I'll post a pic in a second

EDIT: Sorry not great quality. In the second picture, where the cable runs down the wall is exactly where the fence and bushes/trees are (I had to cut these back to get in the gap). I disconnected the cables, cleaned them off checked they where ok etc, but it's about most I can do as it's a bit of a stretch even on the ladder. Even tried to get to it from the Window...


2016-01-10 17.10.16.jpg 2016-01-10 17.11.06.jpg 2016-01-10 17.11.19.jpg
 
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Could be, but all three connections/cables are the same if I swap them and I replaced them last year with new WF100 (thats about as far as I can reach)

Sorry, forgot to mention that bit.



so when you look at the rear of my house on the far left is the dish that works and on the far right is the dish that doesn't. This was my thinking with the Octo, because I need 6 connections altogether if I unify everything to a single dish.

- Only one of the connection would need to be joined (the one that goes into the conservatory as I have no choice with this).
- I would still need to find some way of securing the cable to the wall (as a large percentage of that left to right is taken up by my conservatory so still presents me with an access problem.

Hence why I'm now thinking a sat fitter is more likely to have the gear to do it, than me.


I would need a picture to see exactly what you mean..as ferret says dish alignment is pretty straight forward//especially if you have an official slybox..lnb could be goosed aswell tho so re-alignment on the problem dish might not help
 
Yup zone1 dishes..is the problem dish above your conservatory? if so it does not look like its a dish that can be serviced well looking at the photos but its difficult to make it out tbh with your photos...cable run from that dish looks a bit off so i assume the dish was installed after the conservatory?
 
I agree, and I'm perfectly capable, but getting to it is the issue. I tried today, but I had to balance the ladder on a fairly insecure fence and bunch of bushes, and even then I could only reach the bottom part of the LNB where the connections are. The gap where it needs to go is is no bigger than an medium sized adult and needs to be sideways to the wall. Any higher up and it (or rather me) is likely to topple into next door.

The dish however shall we say is in quite a state of disrepair as It's been up for 15+ years.

I'll post a pic in a second

EDIT: Sorry not great quality. In the second picture, where the cable runs down the wall is exactly where the fence and bushes/trees are (I had to cut these back to get in the gap). I disconnected the cables, cleaned them off checked they where ok etc, but it's about most I can do as it's a bit of a stretch even on the ladder. Even tried to get to it from the Window...


View attachment 93348 View attachment 93349 View attachment 93350

See the problem. I take it the conservatory cam after the dish ?

Can you not take the window off it's hinge and hang out
 
Yup zone1 dishes..is the problem dish above your conservatory? if so it does not look like its a dish that can be serviced well looking at the photos but its difficult to make it out tbh with your photos...cable run from that dish looks a bit off so i assume the dish was installed after the conservatory?

Yep, sorry about that. You can see the one I fitted (barely) on the far left.

It was installed before the conservatory. The last Sky guy I had out (many moons ago) refused to try to get to it.

See the problem. I take it the conservatory cam after the dish ?

Can you not take the window off it's hinge and hang out

I tried that today, it's a fire escape window so can go centre and moves over slightly, I tried to reach but was rather cautious as didn't want to go head first to the roof lol, again it was a bit of a stretch and because the dish is facing away from me, you can't get to the LNB.
 
The newer dishes are bigger and you get better reception. Is fitting a new dish under the window (not obstructing fitr escape) an option?
 
The newer dishes are bigger and you get better reception. Is fitting a new dish under the window (not obstructing fitr escape) an option?

I never really thought of that, but then I would have three dishes lol (would have to try somehow to remove the other)
 
another pair of ladders and put those across the conservatory roof so you can stand on them, done this loads of times to get to dishes and i am a fat Coont LOL
 
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