# Newly installed R15 problem



## eileen22 (Mar 24, 2006)

I installed a refurbished R15-100 for the first time yesterday, activated it and it was working fine. Today my son was watching it, and it just shut down. He called me down to the basement, and the first thing I noticed was an electrical burning smell. The R15 fan was running but no lights were working on the unit, and it wasn't providing a signal to the TV. The unit did not feel hot to me.

I unplugged it for 5 minutes or so, and plugged it back in, and the fan comes on, but no lights and no signal. I haven't called D* yet, but has anyone seen this before? I have very little experience with the R15, I installed one a week ago in the bedroom, and it is working fine.


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## bigem1 (Oct 27, 2006)

eileen22 said:


> I installed a refurbished R15-100 for the first time yesterday, activated it and it was working fine. Today my son was watching it, and it just shut down. He called me down to the basement, and the first thing I noticed was an electrical burning smell. The R15 fan was running but no lights were working on the unit, and it wasn't providing a signal to the TV. The unit did not feel hot to me.
> 
> I unplugged it for 5 minutes or so, and plugged it back in, and the fan comes on, but no lights and no signal. I haven't called D* yet, but has anyone seen this before? I have very little experience with the R15, I installed one a week ago in the bedroom, and it is working fine.


The key word may be refurbished...Do not attempt to repair the unit yourself just call dealer from which you purchased the reciever and they should give you a RA number.. for exchange or repair at only shipping charges..

Have A Great Day!!


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## eileen22 (Mar 24, 2006)

This was a free leased unit from D* - they are sending out another one and I'm sending this one back. I'm just wondering if anyone has had a similar problem before, obviously the electrical smell concerns me, as these units are left "on" all of the time. Thanks.


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## ThomasM (Jul 20, 2007)

eileen22 said:


> This was a free leased unit from D* - they are sending out another one and I'm sending this one back. I'm just wondering if anyone has had a similar problem before, obviously the electrical smell concerns me, as these units are left "on" all of the time. Thanks.


It's possible the power supply burned up in your R15.

But if you are concerned about one of these boxes starting a fire, I wouldn't worry. There are numerous fuses and safeguards to prevent this. Plus, the R15 is enclosed in a metal case. There are MILLIONS and MILLIONS of these DirecTV DVR's/receivers installed all over the country and if they posed a threat of fire there would surely be news releases warning subscribers.

Unfortunately though a lot of electronic devices emit a puff or two of smoke when they fail. Not enough to activate a smoke detector but more than enough to be aware of.


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## swillotter (Nov 7, 2008)

i would say that i replace at least 3 r-15's a week on service calls. either they won't power up or they start pixelizing and searching for satellite intermittently. maybe you can insist on an r-16.


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## HRJustin (Mar 5, 2009)

swillotter said:


> i would say that i replace at least 3 r-15's a week on service calls. either they won't power up or they start pixelizing and searching for satellite intermittently. maybe you can insist on an r-16.


I never had a problem at all with my R15 before I had to have it swapped for an R22. It was refurbished but it seemed to work great. I also had a friend of mine that had an R15 for at least a year and a half. The only reason we dont have them is because of the localswap.

I do agree though I think that the R15 and also the D11 series SD receivers should stop being installed. They are the only two receivers that are not SWM compatible. IMO all SD equipment should be discontinued and slowly replaced with MPEG 4 HD equipment. They were good while they lasted but they are outdated. At the very least just move twards R16s and D12s so everything is SWM capable. Then eliminate the legacy only capable receivers.


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## BattleZone (Nov 13, 2007)

HRJustin said:


> I do agree though I think that the R15 and also the D11 series SD receivers should stop being installed.


That's already the plan for the very near future. DirecTV is draining the supply of those older receivers, and soon it will be D12s and R16s only. The rules for SWM installs will be relaxed too.



> IMO all SD equipment should be discontinued and slowly replaced with MPEG 4 HD equipment.


That's the next step, but DirecTV will spend a couple of years offering most customers discounted MPEG4 upgrades to try to get most MPEG2 equipment replaced via upgrade (so that customers help pay for the upgrade costs). Finally, once the number of remaining MPEG2 boxes falls below a certain threshold, a forced-upgrade plan will be started, which will probably take 9-12 months to complete, that will replace all the remaining MPEG2 receivers.

Once that is finally complete, the MPEG2 SD channels will be taken down and those transponders will be used for MPEG4/HD.


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## HRJustin (Mar 5, 2009)

BattleZone said:


> That's already the plan for the very near future. DirecTV is draining the supply of those older receivers, and soon it will be D12s and R16s only. The rules for SWM installs will be relaxed too.
> 
> That's the next step, but DirecTV will spend a couple of years offering most customers discounted MPEG4 upgrades to try to get most MPEG2 equipment replaced via upgrade (so that customers help pay for the upgrade costs). Finally, once the number of remaining MPEG2 boxes falls below a certain threshold, a forced-upgrade plan will be started, which will probably take 9-12 months to complete, that will replace all the remaining MPEG2 receivers.
> 
> Once that is finally complete, the MPEG2 SD channels will be taken down and those transponders will be used for MPEG4/HD.


That sounds like a dream come true :hurah:. I hope that the R15s and D11s run out sooner rather then later :lol: Its still going to take a long time to transition to MPEG4. I really hope they dont come out with another SD receiver like the R22. It just seems like the R22 has made everything so much more confusing for average users.


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## eileen22 (Mar 24, 2006)

Okay, now something is really strange. I just tried hooking up another R15-100 in the same location. Initially it booted up fine, but I was not getting a signal in Tuner 2. I had a very short coax cable stretched to the limit on the Sat 2 input, so I disconnected everything and moved the box down a shelf to be closer to the wall and put some slack in the cable. Hooked everything back up, and got the same problem as I did with the first one - the fan would come on, but no light and no picture. These were connected via coax out to a VCR and then coax from the VCR to the TV. I know that is an old method, but it is the way the old A55 was originally installed, and I am not able to get behind the TV to change it without some difficulty. Also, I don't have an extra S-Video cable to use. The coax in and out to the VCR and TV is old white, unflexible coax. When I move the cable, the picture flickers on the TV. So I disconnected the VCR coax, and plugged the white coax from the TV directly to the R15. Still have same result.

My question is this: is the coax delivering some of the power to the R15, so that if the cable is bad the R15 wouldn't fully power up? If I am way off base on that, what would explain this situation, and what is the best way to correct it? Thanks.


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## The Merg (Jun 24, 2007)

eileen22 said:


> Okay, now something is really strange. I just tried hooking up another R15-100 in the same location. Initially it booted up fine, but I was not getting a signal in Tuner 2. I had a very short coax cable stretched to the limit on the Sat 2 input, so I disconnected everything and moved the box down a shelf to be closer to the wall and put some slack in the cable. Hooked everything back up, and got the same problem as I did with the first one - the fan would come on, but no light and no picture. These were connected via coax out to a VCR and then coax from the VCR to the TV. I know that is an old method, but it is the way the old A55 was originally installed, and I am not able to get behind the TV to change it without some difficulty. Also, I don't have an extra S-Video cable to use. The coax in and out to the VCR and TV is old white, unflexible coax. When I move the cable, the picture flickers on the TV. So I disconnected the VCR coax, and plugged the white coax from the TV directly to the R15. Still have same result.
> 
> My question is this: is the coax delivering some of the power to the R15, so that if the cable is bad the R15 wouldn't fully power up? If I am way off base on that, what would explain this situation, and what is the best way to correct it? Thanks.


Try hooking up both of your receivers back where the second R15-100 is from. If it is working fine there then most likely there is something either wrong with the cabling to your receiver, from the receiver to the TV, or the TV itself. The easiest thing to change and test would be the cable from the receiver to the TV.

- Merg


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## eileen22 (Mar 24, 2006)

I took the second R15-100 to another location in the house, hooked it up and it worked just fine. Then I took it back to the basement, reconnected to TV, this time removing the coax connection and connecting via S-Video (I found a cable) and Audio R/L. Got it to boot up, but it was hanging at the "receiving satellite info..." screen with a 0% complete status. Unplugged it for 25 minutes, came back and tried again. This time it booted up but has no signal on Tuner 2. I checked the multiswitch, switched ports just to be sure, and it was still telling me no signal on Tuner 2. 

On Tuner 2, my signal strength is 0, 92, 0, 93, 0, 92... every other number is zero. What does that mean? I guess I am at the point where I know there is something wrong with my hookups at the TV location, but the weird thing is that I had the first R15 hooked up just fine here for a period of hours, and as far as I know it was getting both tuners, it didn't tell me that is wasn't. I am stumped and VERY frustrated at this point.


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## eileen22 (Mar 24, 2006)

Update: both tuners are now working. It was apparently an internal wiring issue, I didn't have the correct cable plugged into the multi-switch. So the first R15 never had a signal on Tuner 2, but it never told me that. Maybe that is why it bagged out and stopped working, who knows?

Anyway, the issue I have now is an audio one - I can't get the sound to play through the home theater speakers, it will only play through the TV. When the first R15 was hooked up to the TV via coax, the sound played through the SS speakers. Now, I have the R15 hooked to the TV w/ S-video and Comp. R/L. I didn't change anything else on the TV or amp. If I unplug the R/L audio cables from the R15 to the TV and send them to the amp instead, I still don't get sound. Any ideas anyone? I'm going to post a question in the installation forum also. Thanks.


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## ThomasM (Jul 20, 2007)

eileen22 said:


> My question is this: is the coax delivering some of the power to the R15, so that if the cable is bad the R15 wouldn't fully power up? If I am way off base on that, what would explain this situation, and what is the best way to correct it? Thanks.


No, it's the other way around.

The R15 sends out a DC voltage on it's satellite inputs to tell the LNB or multiswitch what signal it wants. If the coax is shorted, the power supply in the R15 will simply shut down and give you the effect you are experiencing.

DISCONNECT all satellite feeds and power the unit on. If you get "your DirecTV receiver is starting up" followed by a "searching for satellite signal", your coax is in trouble.


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## eileen22 (Mar 24, 2006)

ThomasM said:


> No, it's the other way around.
> 
> The R15 sends out a DC voltage on it's satellite inputs to tell the LNB or multiswitch what signal it wants. If the coax is shorted, the power supply in the R15 will simply shut down and give you the effect you are experiencing.
> 
> DISCONNECT all satellite feeds and power the unit on. If you get "your DirecTV receiver is starting up" followed by a "searching for satellite signal", your coax is in trouble.


Thanks, yes, I believe I have discovered that the unit will work w/o the coax connections. Now I have to figure out how to get sound to come through my home theater speakers, this was working when I had the coax to TV connection, but now that I have the S-Video and component R/L audio, the sound will only come through the TV speakers. How do I correct this?


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## ThomasM (Jul 20, 2007)

eileen22 said:


> Thanks, yes, I believe I have discovered that the unit will work w/o the coax connections. Now I have to figure out how to get sound to come through my home theater speakers, this was working when I had the coax to TV connection, but now that I have the S-Video and component R/L audio, the sound will only come through the TV speakers. How do I correct this?


Apparently, your home theater system was also getting the channel 3/4 RF feed and it was decoding the audio. Now that you are using composite (not component) connections, all the audio comes out the RED/WHITE RCA jacks on the back of the DVR. (which only goes to the TV)

Does your home theater system have an optical digital audio input? If so, you can hook it up directly to the DVR and enjoy superior sound. But you have to go into a setup menu on the DVR and turn this feature on to make it work.


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## eileen22 (Mar 24, 2006)

ThomasM said:


> Apparently, your home theater system was also getting the channel 3/4 RF feed and it was decoding the audio. Now that you are using composite (not component) connections, all the audio comes out the RED/WHITE RCA jacks on the back of the DVR. (which only goes to the TV)
> 
> Does your home theater system have an optical digital audio input? If so, you can hook it up directly to the DVR and enjoy superior sound. But you have to go into a setup menu on the DVR and turn this feature on to make it work.


Sorry, I always get those component and composite terms mixed up! Yes the amp does have an optical audio input, which is currently being used by the DVD player. Could I switch this to the R15 and connect the DVD audio via composite audio to the amp? The R15 gets much more use than the DVD player. Thanks.


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## eileen22 (Mar 24, 2006)

I made a mistake on that last post - the DVD player is connected to the amp via a digital coax cable. I don't have a digital optical cable, but there is an input for this on the amp. So I guess that is an option, but I was hoping to get this up and running with the composite cables.


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## HRJustin (Mar 5, 2009)

There should be a composite *output* on the back of the TV(yellow and red, white for audio). You can just run the red and white audio cables from the output on the TV to the input on your surround sound system. Then make sure the surround sound unit is set to the correct input. I have been using a home stereo for audio like this for a long time its not technically a "surround sound" system :lol:. If you connect it this way everything thats connected to the TV will output to the stereo. It makes it nice when switching TV inputs to dvd players, video game systems, etc. I have never use the TV speakers the audio is always controlled by the stereo.

If there is a digital input on your surround sound system and a digital output on the R15(im not sure if there is on the SD DVR i know there is on the HR DVRS). This would give you much better sound quality then the method I mentioned above.


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## eileen22 (Mar 24, 2006)

HRJustin said:


> There should be a composite *output* on the back of the TV(yellow and red, white for audio). You can just run the red and white audio cables from the output on the TV to the input on your surround sound system. Then make sure the surround sound unit is set to the correct input. I have been using a home stereo for audio like this for a long time its not technically a "surround sound" system :lol:. If you connect it this way everything thats connected to the TV will output to the stereo. It makes it nice when switching TV inputs to dvd players, video game systems, etc. I have never use the TV speakers the audio is always controlled by the stereo.
> 
> If there is a digital input on your surround sound system and a digital output on the R15(im not sure if there is on the SD DVR i know there is on the HR DVRS). This would give you much better sound quality then the method I mentioned above.


Yes, there is a composite audio output already connected from the TV to the Yamaha amp, this was done in the original setup of the system years ago. Then there is composite audio connected from the R15 out to the TV in. However, for some reason this is not working, I get no sound on the theater speakers with the amp set to the TV/DBS input. The reason this has me perplexed is that when I had the R15 connected to the TV via single coax, the sound was working. The only change that I made was to remove the coax from the R15 to the TV, and replace it with S-Video and composite audio. Now the only way I get sound is to turn on the TV speaker and have sound come from the TV only.


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## HRJustin (Mar 5, 2009)

eileen22 said:


> Yes, there is a composite audio output already connected from the TV to the Yamaha amp, this was done in the original setup of the system years ago. Then there is composite audio connected from the R15 out to the TV in. However, for some reason this is not working, I get no sound on the theater speakers with the amp set to the TV/DBS input. The reason this has me perplexed is that when I had the R15 connected to the TV via single coax, the sound was working. The only change that I made was to remove the coax from the R15 to the TV, and replace it with S-Video and composite audio. Now the only way I get sound is to turn on the TV speaker and have sound come from the TV only.


Im not sure what could be wrong to cause this. It seems like it should work better with the composite rather then the coax. Coax is the worst quality for video and audio. Im not even sure if coax sends stereo sound. The next one up from coax is composite yellow, red, white next up for video is S-Video. Then everything after that is HD so that really doesnt apply here. Really for audio the main one is to use the red and white.


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## Keybounce (Jun 19, 2009)

BattleZone said:


> Finally, once the number of remaining MPEG2 boxes falls below a certain threshold, a forced-upgrade plan will be started, which will probably take 9-12 months to complete, that will replace all the remaining MPEG2 receivers.


Is this official? If so, what about people with full DVR's? It may take a month or two for people to watch all the shows. Will they have to return those before they are ready?

Worse, some people might have season 2 of a serial on their recorder, and cannot even watch them (out of order, plot happenings that will make no sense) until season 1 finishes in 14 more weeks -- that's three months before I can even start watchng those episodes, and 4 months before I could return the DVR.

How will things like that be handled?


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## Billzebub (Jan 2, 2007)

HRJustin said:


> That sounds like a dream come true :hurah:. I hope that the R15s and D11s run out sooner rather then later :lol: Its still going to take a long time to transition to MPEG4. I really hope they dont come out with another SD receiver like the R22. It just seems like the R22 has made everything so much more confusing for average users.


What don't you like about your R22? I'm very happy with mine.


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## HRJustin (Mar 5, 2009)

Billzebub said:


> What don't you like about your R22? I'm very happy with mine.


I like my R22 it works fine and has alot more recording space then the R15 it replaced. I just dont think it should have ever been created in the first place. It just doesnt make sense to me to make an MPEG4 receiver SD only. I mean they made it for markets where locals channels are only broadcast in MPEG4. So that means all equipment needs to be MPEG4 to receiver local channels. Why not just install HD DVRs in these areas instead. Thats the main goal eventually to move everything to HD so why make an HD DVR and lock it to an SD DVR? It just seems like a waste of a perfectly good HD DVR. Hardware wise the R22 is the same exact receiver as the HR21 HD DVR in every way.


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## ThomasM (Jul 20, 2007)

Billzebub said:


> What don't you like about your R22? I'm very happy with mine.


I won't go into my "laundry list" of why I don't like my R22 :beatdeadhorse:!

Just enjoy your R22 until it breaks down for then you will be rewarded with a nice, reconditioned R15....


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## carl6 (Nov 16, 2005)

Keybounce said:


> Is this official? If so, what about people with full DVR's? It may take a month or two for people to watch all the shows. Will they have to return those before they are ready?


We are years away from eliminating mpeg2, probably ten years (just my opinion). Simply too many installed receivers to change out at this point in time.

Yes, eventually it will reach a point where the straggling few receivers will be few enough to allow pulling the plug on the remainder. You will have plenty of warning. They spent at least a year doing the HD transition to mpeg4, when it actually started.


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## HRJustin (Mar 5, 2009)

carl6 said:


> We are years away from eliminating mpeg2, probably ten years (just my opinion). Simply too many installed receivers to change out at this point in time.
> 
> Yes, eventually it will reach a point where the straggling few receivers will be few enough to allow pulling the plug on the remainder. You will have plenty of warning. They spent at least a year doing the HD transition to mpeg4, when it actually started.


yet another reason IMO why they never should have even marketed the R22 as an SD receiver.


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## LOCODUDE (Aug 8, 2007)

HRJustin said:


> yet another reason IMO why they never should have even marketed the R22 as an SD receiver.


Well, I for one, am very happy that they did.....


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## HRJustin (Mar 5, 2009)

LOCODUDE said:


> Well, I for one, am very happy that they did.....


I like them they work just fine its just strange how DirecTV marketed them. Now that they have been released whats not to like about a cheaper MPEG4 HD DVR:lol:. It just sucks not knowing whats going to happen with them. It would just make them so much better to just use the hide HD channels option. Its really just a waste for DirecTV to disable the format and bar color options. I have gotten used to the gray bars on my locals. I would still rather have the ability to change them without HD access.

Oh well :lol:  if directv doesnt enable all the HD options its just a loss to them. I am glad they were released if they do indeed stay HD enabled from now on. If they keep SD and other options locked out its just a loss to directv. :lol::grin:


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## Jhon69 (Mar 28, 2006)

ThomasM said:


> I won't go into my "laundry list" of why I don't like my R22 :beatdeadhorse:!
> 
> Just enjoy your R22 until it breaks down for then you will be rewarded with a nice, reconditioned R15....


With no "First Air Date" in the program description in the guide!:ramblinon


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## ThomasM (Jul 20, 2007)

Jhon69 said:


> With no "First Air Date" in the program description in the guide!:ramblinon


...like my RCA DRD450RGA gave me FIVE YEARS AGO!


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