# VIP922 dead?



## thec (May 10, 2010)

I've had the receiver since 5/3. On 5/9 morning, I turned it on:
1. No output from the receiver
2. Press reset button, box reloaded with initial splash screen...then goes dark again...no output
3. Put receiver back in standby and went out to lunch with family...came back, everything was working again
4. Left for night out with family, came back and the receiver again has no output
5. Reset shows splash screen....two hours later, still nothing. 
6. Call Dish up and they say they are sending out a new receiver because without output, they obviously can't access or troubleshoot anything

Other than it dying, it's a great receiver , leagues ahead of the 722 in my room.


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## BattleZone (Nov 13, 2007)

How is it connected? Did you try a different connection type?

It does sound like a video output failure, which is a rare but not unheard of failure mode.


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## thec (May 10, 2010)

BattleZone said:


> How is it connected? Did you try a different connection type?
> 
> It does sound like a video output failure, which is a rare but not unheard of failure mode.


HDMI to audio receiver. Connection shouldn't be bad cuz I can see the initial splash screen. But no, I haven't tried the other outputs yet. I have no wish to fit a component cable plus an optical from the vip922 cabinet through a 1.5 inch hole that's almost plugged with other cables to the other cabinet.

Anyone know if heat is would be an issue here? I guess I could try to remove my DVD player from this cabinet to clear up another inch of vertical space.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Yes, a heat is always an issue for dish DVRs especially for ViP series.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

It still *could* be a connection issue...

For folks that might not have noticed... The initial Dish splash screens come up in 480i, regardless of what mode you might have configured for viewing.

The receiver at some point during startup (just before going to the standby screen saver) then switches to whatever configured resolution you set the receiver in the Menu.

I had a receiver configured for 1080i once that I then connected to an HD monitor that only accepted 720p... so once it got past that initial part of the splash screen, it would go black and I had no video. It was an adventure trying to reconfigure for a proper video output mode.

So, I'm curious... when you say "no output"... do you just mean no video? Or if you turn your receiver "on" from standby, do you hear audio?

It could be a handshaking issue... perhaps even a compatibility problem with your audio receiver. You might try connecting directly to your HDTV.


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## thec (May 10, 2010)

Stewart Vernon said:


> It still *could* be a connection issue...
> 
> For folks that might not have noticed... The initial Dish splash screens come up in 480i, regardless of what mode you might have configured for viewing.
> 
> ...


Yes, I have alot of experience dealing with this with my HTPC running mythtv...especially as I was one of the early adopters of the Intel X4500 GPU and its premature Linux drivers. At this point, I have not tried direct connection between TV & receiver. My audio/video receiver is definitely set correctly; and it's not getting both audio & video signals from the 922 over HDMI. For everyone's interest, I'll see if I can find some extra cables tonight to swap connection types, etc, etc....I don't see myself doing the direct connection test as it involves moving too much junk to access the back of the TV.

I guess if I could actually get Remote Access to actually work reliably, I could try to see if I can watch sling content over the web....but if I use to think AT&T's Uverse web management is a joke, I can't find enough bad words to say about Dish Remote Access. It's actually funny that I haven't had time to actually complain to them that RA doesn't see my receivers more than 50% of the time....for example, the receivers (both 722 and 922) just turned grey minutes after I logged in with both of them green (2:30 PM PST, 5/10/2010). No way it's my network connection as I am ssh'ed back to my home server at the moment typing in real time.


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## thec (May 10, 2010)

I got home last night; lo & behold, the VIP922 started working again with no changes to the setup. I am more and more suspecting it to be a heat problem. Each of the previous times, I tried to turn on the receiver during or after recording events. The receiver was sitting idle for over 12 hours before I got to it last night....

Anyway, my replacement 922 is coming tomorrow. The current one has about a 1 inch vertical clearance in the cabinet - front opened, but enclosed otherwise. I am planning to move some equipment to give it an extra 3-4 inches when the new one arrives.


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## loves2watch (Mar 27, 2006)

thec said:


> I got home last night; lo & behold, the VIP922 started working again with no changes to the setup. I am more and more suspecting it to be a heat problem. Each of the previous times, I tried to turn on the receiver during or after recording events. The receiver was sitting idle for over 12 hours before I got to it last night....
> 
> Anyway, my replacement 922 is coming tomorrow. The current one has about a 1 inch vertical clearance in the cabinet - front opened, but enclosed otherwise. I am planning to move some equipment to give it an extra 3-4 inches when the new one arrives.


I would suggest adding a cooling fan to the same shelf in your cabinet as well...


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

thec said:


> I got home last night; lo & behold, the VIP922 started working again with no changes to the setup. I am more and more suspecting it to be a heat problem. Each of the previous times, I tried to turn on the receiver during or after recording events. The receiver was sitting idle for over 12 hours before I got to it last night....
> 
> Anyway, my replacement 922 is coming tomorrow. The current one has about a 1 inch vertical clearance in the cabinet - front opened, but enclosed otherwise. I am planning to move some equipment to give it an extra 3-4 inches when the new one arrives.


I had a 722 in a cabinet with _no back_, about ½" space around the glass door, about 1" around the sides, two inches of top clearance. It was always at the upper temperature margin or above. When I put it on a laptop cooler, I could keep the temps down but it was noisy.

When I simply moved it out of the cabinet onto a shelf with full room air flow, average temp dropped 15 degrees.

I love Dish equipment, but I believe they just don't allow for A/V cabinet installation in a warm environment. You're may have to create air flow through your cabinet if you want to leave it there. While there's a lot of discussion about this and the 622/722, scan the thread Cooling off the 622.


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## thec (May 10, 2010)

loves2watch said:


> I would suggest adding a cooling fan to the same shelf in your cabinet as well...


Good advice, especially since my onkyo audio receiver in the other cabinet runs pretty hot. Just ordered up 4 120x120x25mm USB fans from coolerguys.com via amazon.


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## thec (May 10, 2010)

Well, I got the new receiver today....everything seemed fine after I swapped them out. The software that came with looks like the interface on the 722. But after activation, it went and downloaded new firmware. After it rebooted to install that firmware, my screen went black again! Exact same symptoms...no signal over HDMI.

I hooked up a set of component cables and the video show up through there. Swapped back to the same HDMI cable...only touched the end connecting to the 922. Signal is now received over HDMI again! 

I am one confused dufus. Do I have a flakey HDMI cable?


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