# Dish 508 Remote Craziness



## SandyG3 (Nov 29, 2002)

I've had my dish pvr 508 system for almost 2 years and love it. Just starting 2-3 days ago my system will not respond to my remote commands after a period of time. Either 10 seconds or 1 hour or more. The remote has new batteries and still controls my tv just fine. Also while I am switching channels sometimes the dish system will just continue to automatically change the channel and not stop; as if I have the channel up or down button pressed down; which I do not. 

Things I have tried.

Pulled the card for 10mins for a reset(yellow card)
Powered the system down for 30mins by unplugging
Pressing the powerbutton down for 5seconds and resetting will bring remote back shortly.

Any ideas?

Thanks

P300DCKD-N

We also have 2 dish 301's on the account and they are fine.


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## scooper (Apr 22, 2002)

Any neighbors with a new Dish setup ? If so, your remotes could be set to the same address. There is a procedure in your owner's manual for changing the address

It's also possible that your remote may be going bad - in which case replacement would be necessary.


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## SandyG3 (Nov 29, 2002)

I am guessing it could be the remote but I am not sure. It still works fine for my other devices. Also the dvr will only start acting crazy when I press a button on the remote; not just randomly; so that rules out others controllers control my box.


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## billravani (Nov 14, 2004)

Hi Sandy,

My 508 does nearly the same thing. I reported the same symptoms here and got the usual 'mine works great' and did you change the batteries, is your neighbor using the same ..... It's none of those. What you have is a POS.

Some people have great luck with a box, others seem to have terrible luck. It's not luck, it's problems with a particular board level revision and the latest software revision. My problems change everytime I get new software. Here are some I have with my 508 right now:

Updating the guide. When the guide finishes downloading, I have to push cancel to do anything else. My 501 doesn't have this problem. My 508 gained this 'feature' about a dozen revisions earlier.

Remote issues.

Wild thing. This one changes from software revision to software revision. I am scrolling the DVR Recorded Events screen up or down. I reach the show I want and the thing keeps right on going past it. I give it a quick push up or down and it jumps 3 lines. A reboot cures this for about 48 hours. (Obviously not the remote)((my spares do it too on the 508, not on the 501))

Slow response. I'm in the guide changing channels up or down. It can take a full 3 seconds to advance 1 channel. A reboot cures this for a day or so. This one comes and goes too. It will be fine for a month, them slow as hell. Sometimes a reboot makes no improvement. Eventually, if I don't reboot, it reboots itself.

I have tried 3 different remotes that work perfectly on other systems. It is not the remote, not the remote channel, not the neighbor and not the batteries. It's a buggy board with a poor uhf circuit and it gets better or worse with each software revision.

The only fix that works for me is too relocate the remotes antenna far away from the box itself. If I move mine 15 feet in any direction away from the box, it works fine. I can actually improve performance even when moving the antenna 15 feet farther from the remote.

Bill

ps I love Dishnetwork regardless of it's flawed DVR boxes. I'll never pay good money to buy another one of these boxes, but I will gladly lease them and string up coat hangers or whatever to make them work. I absolutely hate cable tv.



SandyG3 said:


> I've had my dish pvr 508 system for almost 2 years and love it. Just starting 2-3 days ago my system will not respond to my remote commands after a period of time. Either 10 seconds or 1 hour or more. The remote has new batteries and still controls my tv just fine. Also while I am switching channels sometimes the dish system will just continue to automatically change the channel and not stop; as if I have the channel up or down button pressed down; which I do not.
> 
> Things I have tried.
> 
> ...


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## SandyG3 (Nov 29, 2002)

THanks for the response Bill, I will try relocating the antenna for the remote. This is my 2nd 508 as the first one I had for about 3 months kept crashing. This 2nd unit has been just great until the latest software update. I'll let you know how it goes.


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