# is the vip722 crap



## packerfan31 (Oct 14, 2008)

I have the vip722 receiver, My first one had to be replaced because of bad hard drive. I had that one 2 years the replacement is rebooting unexpectanly once in awhile. I am having a tech come out to replace it. So this is going to be my third one in less than 3 years.


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## SaltiDawg (Aug 30, 2004)

packerfan31 said:


> I have the vip722 receiver, My first one had to be replaced because of bad hard drive. I had that one 2 years the replacement is rebooting unexpectanly once in awhile. I am having a tech come out to replace it. So this is going to be my third one in less than 3 years.


You've owned a 722 for three years. Why would you need to ask if it is "crap?"


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

It's a high definition video-intensive computer that runs all the time. What could go wrong?


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## HobbyTalk (Jul 14, 2007)

Actually the first one wasn't a 722 failure but a HD failure.... maybe blame Seagate or whoever made the HD. Studies have shown HD failure rates in computers average 4% per year and up to 13% on other more demanding systems. I would consider a DVR one of the most demanding systems for a HD. So in 2 years you would have a 30% chance of HD failure.

Looks like the second may have been defective from the start but that is a failure none the less. So you've really had one 722 failure in 3 years.


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## Kevin Brown (Sep 4, 2005)

Boy, splitting hairs !! 

If the hard drive fails, to me that's a DVR failure. Doesn't matter what fails, it's still a "DVR failure" to me.

With that said, you have to keep them cool. They aren't very well designed in terms of air flow, cooling, etc.

My 1st 722 lasted all of 8 months. Hard drive failure. Out in the open too. But I put 1 inch spacers underneath this one, and it is running cooler. Knock on wood. My 522 previous to the 722s lasted 2 years and 4 months. Again, a hard drive failure. So now, I consider anything over 2 years as gravy.

Me personally, I'd pay more for a more reliable hard drive, or even RAID technology. Really sucks to lose a bunch of recordings. Twice. I'd use the external hard drive more often as prevention for a disk failure except that it takes so long to transfer recordings.


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## Nick (Apr 23, 2002)

Happily, my 722 is still _running, running, running_...just like the _Energizer_ Bunny!

Ever since my first pair of _Dishplayer 7200s_, I've had exceptionally good luck with DVRs.


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## HobbyTalk (Jul 14, 2007)

Kevin Brown said:


> Boy, splitting hairs !!


Yea, you are right, but it does bring up an important point. In any given year about 15% of the HDs will fail in a DVR (extreme usage device) according to the study by Carnegie Mellon University. While it may seem we hear of a lot of HD failures here we have to consider that maybe (at most) 1% of all Dish customers (with DVRs) are members here and that maybe 5% of those members here report HD failures. That is a pretty small total of all Dish DVR customers.


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## CoriBright (May 30, 2002)

No problems with either of ours... or our 622. [crosses fingers and hopes for the best]


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## Kevin Brown (Sep 4, 2005)

HobbyTalk said:


> Yea, you are right, but it does bring up an important point. In any given year about 15% of the HDs will fail in a DVR (extreme usage device) according to the study by Carnegie Mellon University.


15% is way too high, IMO, and I hope Dish thinks so too. 

What if cars, TVs, refrigerators, etc, failed at a 15%/yr rate? That manufacturer would soon be out of business.

And another way to think about that, is that the average DVR should last 100%/15% years, or 6 2/3 years. I'd give my left nut for my current 722 to last half that long.


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## ronnald (Sep 19, 2008)

I have have had a 722 for a while. Every once in a while, the drive reformats. I don't lose any recordings, some screen pops up and says not to turn anything off. It's annoying, but overall I'm happy with it. The system is much much more stable then Media Center that I put up with for years. In addition, I save a lot of time by not having to watch commercials.


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## TulsaOK (Feb 24, 2004)

ronnald said:


> I have have had a 722 for a while. Every once in a while, the drive reformats. I don't lose any recordings, some screen pops up and says not to turn anything off. It's annoying, but overall I'm happy with it. The system is much much more stable then Media Center that I put up with for years. In addition, I save a lot of time by not having to watch commercials.


You're saying that the drive reformats and you don't lose any recordings? Can you elaborate on that?


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## ronnald (Sep 19, 2008)

Hello,
I don't remember the exact error message, but about four times in the past couple years, I've come out in the morning and the DVR is making a loud humming noise, I'm assuming the fan is going full speed. 

One the screen displays an error message (forget which one, if it does it again, I'll write it down). During this time the DVR says there was an error and has to download the software and not to unplug it. When this happened at first, the DVR would hang, and the message would stay there. Dish told me to unplug it and plug it back in, eventhough the message says not to. Once I plug it back in the error message would display, but this time the DVR would complete the install process and start working.

It seemed the like DVR was reformating the operating system partition. I never lost any shows the four times it's done it.


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

Could be two things. One is it was updating the guide and hung up. The other is that it was downloading a software update. If it happened four times in the last couple of years the latter is possible. As long as it works, fine. But don't ever unplug it until a Dish TSR tells you to. That way if it doesn't work, they can send a replacement right out.

Being the paranoid person I am, I don't keep anything I record on my internal hard drive for more than a couple of days. If I'm not going to watch it soon, I move it to my external hard drive. I like both my 722 and 612. But as they say, just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get me.


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## Goattee (Aug 27, 2007)

HobbyTalk said:


> Actually the first one wasn't a 722 failure but a HD failure.... So you've really had one 722 failure in 3 years.


I have owned the following DVR's *before* using Dish Network's equipment:


ReplayTV
DirecTiVO (a DirecTV-only DVR with two tuners, early TiVO series II)
DirecTV's own DVR

Judging not only from my personal experience with the 722 series but also from threads here and in Yahoo Groups: I conclude that Dish Network (or its manufacturing partners) must be buying the _cheapest and most trouble-prone components_. Of course hard drives fail! But I have never seen so much talk about hd failure (or experienced it) as there seems to be with the Dish DVR's.

My first 722 died after 9 months. The next two failed within days of installation. I now have a 722k which has a horrible problem with its OTA module-- any problem with OTA signal and it stops playback of recorded shows to demand attention.

I like the event logic on the Dish DVR-- it's great that it recognizes and bypasses duplicate occurrences of episodes. But that's the software. The hardware seems to be subpar.

I think once DirecTV starts shipping TiVO-branded hardware again-- probably early in 2010-- I will want to switch back to that vendor.


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## SaltiDawg (Aug 30, 2004)

Goattee said:


> ...
> 
> I think once DirecTV starts shipping TiVO-branded hardware again-- probably early in 2010-- I will want to switch back to that vendor.


It seems very odd that some folks have one problem after another and yet others seem never to have a problem. :grin:


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## puckwithahalo (Sep 3, 2007)

SaltiDawg said:


> It seems very odd that some folks have one problem after another and yet others seem never to have a problem. :grin:


:bang


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## scooper (Apr 22, 2002)

SaltiDawg said:


> It seems very odd that some folks have one problem after another and yet others seem never to have a problem. :grin:


My guess is that those with frequent "problems" have one or more issues -

#1 - DVR is in a hot space (enclosed cabinet, insufficient airflow etc.)
#2 - power issues (mostly cured with an UPS)

There are of course other things that can bring issues (lightening strikes, power surges, any one ?) .


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## Nick (Apr 23, 2002)

Kent Taylor said:


> You're saying that the drive reformats and you don't lose any recordings? Can you elaborate on that?


Obviously, the HDD doesn't "reformat" in the usual sense, but instead, let's just say it "disambiguates" itself!


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

SaltiDawg said:


> It seems very odd that some folks have one problem after another and yet others seem never to have a problem. :grin:


Not really. These things are computers manufactured to spec by the low bidder.

I've had four 722's. The first one, I'll designate it "A", came with my installation and had problems in the first two days. They sent me a replacement - "B" - that worked fine.

While working with Echostar on the difficult problem of audio drop with the Bay Area Fox and ABC stations, Dish Quality requested I send to Echostar Engineering "B" after they sent me a replacement. The specifically warned me not to send "B" until I received a replacement that worked, a warning which says volumes about the unit.

"C" arrived and didn't even function enough to download the software. They replaced it with "D" which seems to work fine so far (a year).

IMHO the 622/722 design runs too hot which causes a higher rate of failure. Us dummies who think an audio/video component ought to be designed to survive a passive but adequately ventilated A/V component cabinet obviously had nothing to say about that original design.

My 612 never gets too hot to the touch and the 722k appears to be using the same case design which has more space underneath. Just my humble opinion. Nonetheless, both my 722 and 612 are outside my cabinet and I have a laptop cooler under my 722 which I turn on in very hot weather.


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## thorrall (Oct 1, 2006)

:nono2: My first 722 failed within 4 or 5 hours of 1st use. I was watching it when poof, both audio and video stopped abruptly and there was no response of any kind from it, including any indicator lamps. It was plugged into a high quality regulated audio-video (sine wave output) battery ups from the start. Other devices plugged into the same ups, including several DirecTv receivers, have never had a problem so I doubt that had anything to do with it. The ups indicated throughout that it was operating well within rated load. The unit was sitting on a ventilated shelf with plenty of space above and all around. As an electrical engineer, taken with other comments on dbstalk, I would say the most likely problem was bad power supply design. Dish did get me a replacement within a few days and it has been working fine now for 3+ months, but I am holding my breath and getting everything onto an external hard drive regularly and quickly.

I don't think it all can be blamed on hard disks. If they have been having a 5% failure rate overall with the receiver there is likely something wrong with the design. If it's a thermal issue, that too is part of the design and likely defective.

FWIW, I have had 2 DirecTivo hard disk failures in the past, but that was over a 11-12 year history and before I placed them on a UPS, not a surprising failure rate IMHO. They do not run hot when reasonable care is taken with their mounting.

For the record, does anyone know anything about manufacturer or model numbers for the hard disks that Dish uses? IMHO there are significant differences among hard disks in terms of failure rates. 

Also, I haven't looked to see what temperature the unit should run at - does anyone have info on that, including where in the menu structure to find it?

Thanks


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## dreadlk (Sep 18, 2007)

At work we had a PC in a tight cabinet with no exhaust Fan, the Hard Drive died within 4 months. They replaced the Drive and the second one died within 3 months, Changed brands the third died within 4 months again. They called me in, I Jig sawed out a hole in the cabinet and put in a 120mm muffin fan. and 2+ years later the 4th hard drive is still running fine.

BTW I have a Panasonic DVR (HS2), it's about 8 years old and still runs fine on it's orginal 40gb HD. (I use it daily).


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