# Help me Confirm that one of my DECA adapters is failing



## Citivas (Oct 25, 2006)

Here's my setup:

-- 3 HD-DVR receivers in different rooms, all using SWM and whole home viewing.
-- The room with the cable modem has an HR24-500. The other two have HR22's
-- The 2 HR22 rooms have DECA adapters. The sat coax from the wall goes to the DECA, then further coax from the DECA to the DirecTV receivers. An ethernet cable goes from the DECA's to switches, with outputs to the DTV receivers as well as the TV's and blu-ray players or Roku/Apple TV's depending on the room. This has worked flawlessly since install in the very early days of DECA installs. No room has more than a few other devices on the switch and most are dormant (i.e. off) at any one time.
-- The HR24 takes advantage of the fact that I originally had two wires before SWM. One coax goes from the wall straight to the HR24 which has SWM and DECA built-in. The second goes to a DECA adapter that connects by coax to a switch (same as other rooms, but one of the ethernet's from the switch goes to the main WAP/ROUTER that connects to the cable modem.
-- All cabling is Cat 6, all switches are unmanaged gigabit, the WAP/Router is an Apple Time Capsule with gigabit capacity.

It's worked beautifully until a few days ago. Absolutely no equipment changes, etc. preceded the change.

Here's what's happening now. The HR24 in the same room with the DECA that connects by hardwire eventually to the cable modem still connects to the Internet but in the diagnostic gives an error that the router signal is compromised. It lists the serial Number for the DECA adapter in that room. All internet connectivity to the HR22's and all other devices in the other rooms is completely dead.

Here's what I have done in terms of ruling out other things besides the DECA adapter in the main room:
-- Reset every box and DECA between each step.
-- Took all the switches out of the equation so only the DirecTV boxes and DECA adapters were connected.
-- Hard-wired the main DECA adapter directly to the cable modem, by-passing the WAP/Router
-- Swapped ethernet cables with cables I know to work and tested with other devices
-- Plugged by laptop into the cable modem using the same cable I direct-tested to the main DECA just before and after it and got consistent, stable results above 50mbps

No change in behavior.

It seems to me that my problem is a failing DECA adapter in the main room that hardwires (through a switch and router path) to the cable modem. It's a bit odd that while it kills connectivity from the remote rooms it only compromises it in the local room. But it seems like that DECA, which is in the critical path of connectivity from the remote rooms, is the common link to the problems and is called out in the local boxes diagnostics. The only two thing I have not tried yet is taking the DECA out of line on the local box and using the ethernet port to try and get connectivity, or swapping the DECA in that main room with one of the secondary rooms and seeing if it at least solves the problem for the main room and one of the two remote rooms.

Does this sound like the right diagnosis? If so it seems like a replacement DECA adapter should fix it.

Thanks.


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## peds48 (Jan 11, 2008)

Citivas said:


> or swapping the DECA in that main room with one of the secondary rooms and seeing if it at least solves the problem for the main room and one of the two remote rooms.
> 
> Does this sound like the right diagnosis? If so it seems like a replacement DECA adapter should fix it.
> 
> Thanks.


That would be my next step, and after if problem persist, check connections and look for water damage to them


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## slice1900 (Feb 14, 2013)

Swapping the DECAs would have been my first step if I suspected one was failing.


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## Citivas (Oct 25, 2006)

peds48 said:


> That would be my next step, and after if problem persist, check connections and look for water damage to them


Do you mean water damage to the DECA's or to the coax/sat connections outside? The DECA's are all indoors and I am confident have no water exposure (no reason for them to but I also have been in contact with them all for this testing and they are near a lot of other components and hardwood that would show any signs of water too).


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## peds48 (Jan 11, 2008)

Citivas said:


> or to the coax/sat connections outside?


Connectors


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## Citivas (Oct 25, 2006)

peds48 said:


> Connectors


Still in the process of swapping DECA adapters but had a question. When I disconnected the two adapters from each side, in both cases the connection between the coax that comes from the wall connects to the DECA adapter was so hot that i had to use a cloth to safely touch it to unscrew it. Is that normal? If not, what could cause that? The connection of the coax to the wall and the connection from the adapter to the receiver is not hot -- just the point where the wall cows meets the adapter.

UPDATE:

I checked the third DECA Adapter and it too was extremely hot at the same connection. The wall connections and the connection from the adapter to the receiver are all normal, just the connection between the wall cable at the adapter. It's a bit concerning these would run so hot. Never touched them before after use so not sure if this is normal, but on the other hand it's pretty odd that all three in three different rooms would run similarly hot if it is not normal. Two are powered by the receiver and one is powered by an AC adapter.

I found a spare DECA in my supplies in the basement when I was getting spare coax to swap out at the same time as the DECA switch. Trying the spare now and waiting for the boxes to reset (which takes about 15 minutes each these days).

UPDATE 2:

Network connectivity restored. It was either a bad DECA or coax connected to the DECA which I also swapped for good measure. Still concerned about how hot these things run though...


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## peds48 (Jan 11, 2008)

Citivas said:


> . Still concerned about how hot these things run though...


They do run pretty "hot" to the touch


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## DaaQ (Aug 21, 2008)

They should't run so hot you need to use a cloth to unscrew them. In which case you should also check the connectors at the splitter for "water damage" or the beginnings of it, as peds mentioned above. 

Other note, even just a loose connector can mess up your DECA connectivity while still allowing Sat signal through for regular viewing.


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## slice1900 (Feb 14, 2013)

DaaQ said:


> They should't run so hot you need to use a cloth to unscrew them. In which case you should also check the connectors at the splitter for "water damage" or the beginnings of it, as peds mentioned above.
> 
> Other note, even just a loose connector can mess up your DECA connectivity while still allowing Sat signal through for regular viewing.


I don't know, I have one of the old white ones and it runs damn hot. I thought maybe it was because I'm feeding it 24 volts when it is supposed to range from 9 to 18 volts, but even using a 12 volt power supply it is still very hot. I have a second one as a spare and I swapped them, and it was equally hot. I think those old white ones just run hot. Maybe the black ones are cooler, I don't know how their power draw compares.


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## Citivas (Oct 25, 2006)

Yeah, all of mine are the white ones, including the spare I swapped. They all run extremely hot. One is drawing power straight from an adapter and the other two from the coax. Doesn't matter. All are too hot to hold for any length of time and for all I use a cloth to protect my fingers if unscrewing the coax. After the swap they all work fine again, though I am not happy about how much heat they generate. Perhaps I should ask for the new black ones if they definitely run cooler?


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## slice1900 (Feb 14, 2013)

Citivas said:


> Yeah, all of mine are the white ones, including the spare I swapped. They all run extremely hot. One is drawing power straight from an adapter and the other two from the coax. Doesn't matter. All are too hot to hold for any length of time and for all I use a cloth to protect my fingers if unscrewing the coax. After the swap they all work fine again, though I am not happy about how much heat they generate. Perhaps I should ask for the new black ones if they definitely run cooler?


I don't know whether they do or not, but they're newer so "probably" do. You can buy them on Ebay for like $3.99 shipped, so rather than trying to get Directv to swap them, it might be easier to do yourself.

There's really no reason to worry about them running hot though, unless you keep a can of gasoline next to them


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## BubblePuppy (Nov 3, 2006)

Just wait till yours catches fire like mine did, then you'll know it's going bad. 

Sent from my SGH-I317 using DBSTalk mobile app


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