# 921 Won't Recognize DPP44 Switch



## Skates (Apr 15, 2004)

I have a DPP44 switch and sats looking at 110, 119, 129 & 148. Everything has been working relatively well on my 921. I turned it on this morning and now it doesn't know what kind of switch it has. Tried soft reboot, then power plug reboot - at one point I left it unplugged for 3 hours. It comes up not recognizing the switch - for tuner one it thinks it has an SW21 recognizing only 119 & 129. For tuner two it says 'no switch'. I get a different result each time I try the check switch.

I've done check switch on both my 501 and 811, and both are reporting all four satellites and the proper DPP44 switch. I also tried pulling power on the switch for just a moment, but this didn't have any effect.

There is one more thing - it doesn't appear to be rebooting the way it used to. The sequence was, I get the medallion, then it comes up with 'system is rebooting' or something like that, then 'acquiring data from satellite', then it would complete the reboot. What's happening now is, on reboot I get the medallion, then for a second I get a black screen with a black 'X' (BSOD?) in the middle (you can see it because it's surrounded by a white border), then it doesn't give the 'system is rebooting' screen but goes straight to 'acquiring data from satellite', and when that finishes, I only get something if I'm tuned to 119 - otherwise, nothing.

Now I'm also getting 'matrices don't match'. I know I've seen that before...

Any ideas before I go to tech support hell? This doesn't sound good...


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## lujan (Feb 10, 2004)

Skates said:


> ...
> 
> There is one more thing - it doesn't appear to be rebooting the way it used to. The sequence was, I get the medallion, then it comes up with 'system is rebooting' or something like that, then 'acquiring data from satellite', then it would complete the reboot. What's happening now is, on reboot I get the medallion, then for a second I get a black screen with a black 'X' (BSOD?) in the middle (you can see it because it's surrounded by a white border), then it doesn't give the 'system is rebooting' screen but goes straight to 'acquiring data from satellite', and when that finishes, I only get something if I'm tuned to 119 - otherwise, nothing.
> 
> ...


Sounds pretty similar to what happened to my 921. The boot sequence started taking a much longer time and the order of the information displayed during the boot changed as well. The switch screen says "no switch" for both satellites but I get all of the channels that I subscribe to. The only thing is because of this, I can no longer gets any software updates. I'm still at L273 and E* is sending me another 921 by UPS two-day delivery. I should get it on Monday.


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## Skates (Apr 15, 2004)

UPDATE - 

Well, there was just no way of knowing if it was the switch or my 921, so I went ahead and brought my 811 down to the living room and took my 921 up to the bedroom and swapped everything. 

And the verdict is (drum roll, please):

It's the switch - or connection to the switch - coming to the living room. My 921 worked fine upstairs (booted and detected the switch) and my 811 can't see the switch downstairs. Spoke to E* and a tech is coming out Tuesday (which isn't too bad). Luckily, this is also a recent install because I just moved in here so it's all covered under the 90-day warranty.

Imagine that! The 921 ISN'T the problem for once...


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## invaliduser88 (Apr 23, 2002)

Skates said:


> What's happening now is, on reboot I get the medallion, then for a second I get a black screen with a black 'X' (BSOD?) in the middle (you can see it because it's surrounded by a white border),


Sounds like the X windows logo.


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## boylehome (Jul 16, 2004)

Do you have the power inserter in use? Be sure that output 1 from the DPP44 is making a good connection to the inserter.


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## Skates (Apr 15, 2004)

It's not a problem with the power inserter - that was one of the first things I checked.


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## boylehome (Jul 16, 2004)

There is a posted procedure from many months back for resetting the switch and receiver. I performed it once and all worked well afterwards (until my 921 hard drive gave out). Maybe someone will remember and can suggest the exact steps for the procedure.

I disconnected both satellite inputs to the 921. I then performed a check switch and it converted to the old switch format (it took several minutes). I also disconnected the power to the inserter for about 30 seconds. After hooking it back up I did another check switch and all four satellites returned.


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## Skates (Apr 15, 2004)

I'm willing to give anything a try - however, when I hooked my 811 up at the living room location, it couldn't see the switch either - it now comes back as "no switch detected".

We've had a lot of rain lately. It may just be a short. I'll let you know what the techs find on Tuesday.

Moderator: Since I've confirmed this isn't a 921 problem, please feel free to move this to another category.

Thanks,

Skates


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## David_Levin (Apr 22, 2002)

Was the switch disconnected from the reciver when you pulled it's power?

Perhaps the switch couldn't reset because it was getting power from the reciever. Also, if you just pull the plug on the switch transformer it may take a few minutes for all the voltage to bleed off.


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## Skates (Apr 15, 2004)

I've been doing a search of some old documents and I see that they recommend disconnecting all receivers before pulling power on the switch. I hadn't tried that, but I will do it now.

When I did pull the power on the switch, I left it disconnected for half an hour before I plugged it back in, so I'm going to do that again this time.

I'll let you know...


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## David_Levin (Apr 22, 2002)

I've had problems with one of my 921s losing the switch.

To get it back I would sometimes have to reboot with 921 without the switch connected. Do a switch check. Reboot the 921 (maybe not needed). All reboots are power cord pulls.

Then reconnect the 921 to the switch (while powered up). Then, the switch check would sometimes get it back.

Booting the 921 without the sat feed is also sometimes necessary when it gets into some kind of confused reboot loop.

The problem would reoccur. I eventually rewired the 921 to a different DPP44 port. It's been ok since. Perhaps the DPP44 port is going bad, but I think it's probably something flakey with that 921 (but then I blame most gremlins on the 921).

Hmmm, I should try my other 921 on that "funny" port.


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## Skates (Apr 15, 2004)

I've already confirmed that it's not the 921. If you go back to my original posts, I swapped the 921 with my 811 and the 921 was fine in the 811's location and the 811 also lost the switch at the 921's location.

Anyway, I just reconnected everything and it still doesn't work - I think I'm out of luck until the tech shows up Tuesday.


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## David_Levin (Apr 22, 2002)

Please let us know what the tech determines.


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## Skates (Apr 15, 2004)

Absolutely - and thanks for the help.


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## Skates (Apr 15, 2004)

I'm back in business.  

First of all, I was lucky to get a really good tech on this visit. Basically at this point, knowing the tests I'd already run, he agreed that it had to be either the connection from the switch to the living room or the switch itself. He also thought it might be the diplexers, so we removed them as a test - that didn't solve the problem so we re-attached them.

Upon inspection, he didn't like some of the connections on the roof so he decided to start by replacing all of the connectors up there. And that's all it took, the problem disappeared and the 921 began recognizing the satellites as soon as he accessed the "point dish" menu - before he even ran a "check switch".

Then, he went back up and silicone-sealed all the connections. He even re-aimed and tightened my OTA antenna because we'd had some nasty wind and rain lately that had knocked it a little out of position.

Some on this board may have read my horror stories about the original install that was done here about two months back, but this was like the polar opposite. I was very pleased with this tech and thought he did a great job.

Thanks again to everyone for your suggestions.

Skates


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