# Refurbished R15/R16 issues



## lschwarcz (Sep 1, 2006)

ARRGGHHH! Sorry if this sounds like I'm frustrated with DirecTV and need to blow off some steam but&#8230; _I'm frustrated with DirecTV and need to blow off some steam!_

I've been with DirecTV since '06 and have been happy with them for the most part. But, once the R15 in my living room took a dump I've had issues with them. Every time I call the CSR I speak with seems unable (i.e., doesn't have the authority) to resolve my call and I need to speak with a supervisor. They usually just swap the R15 for another refurbished unit. Of course, I've done all of the various resets ("Reset Everything" and the "02468" method in addition to the little red button). But, with each swapped unit it seems that all I get is someone else's broken R15. They can't seem to send a unit that'll last more than a few months. And, it doesn't seem to matter if it's a 100, 300 or 500 (my latest is an R15-500).

I've come to the conclusion that DirecTV just doesn't have any new (non-refurbished) SD DVR's any longer! I'm guessing they figure that the demand is with the HD units and don't want to invest into the SD market. So, all they do is take back the old broken units, take a cursory shot at a fix (maybe replace or format the disk) shine it up, repackage it and send it out to the next unsuspecting customer and hope that they don't hit the bug the previous user found!

I finally gave my story to another supervisor (latest R15 resets occasionally and then freezes towards the end of booting and I have to "little red button" reset it) and he says he'll see if they can send me a different model! WHOO HOOO! Maybe this'll fix it! A few days later FedEx leaves a box on my door step and I open it to find an R16-300C-R. I open it up and find that the unit rocks when sitting on a flat surface (I think it's missing one black rubber foot) and the flip down cover on the left has a broken hinge so it's always hanging by the other hinge. I'm wondering if they even bothered to check it out before packaging it. I doubt it was damaged in shipping since the shipping box looks fine.

I'll give them a call tomorrow (Mon) to have them swap it out again but this is just getting to be too much. I'm on the verge of just paying the early termination fee and switching to the AT&T U-verse service with their 4-channel DVR.

So, on to my question and yes, I actually have one ;-). Am I alone here with these problems? From looking through the posted threads people do have issues but how about complete failure to have a unit last more than 6 months? Is it just my run of bad luck or are all of these R15/R16 units broken and DirecTV is just passing them around in hopes of stalling all of their SD customers until they move up to HD?

Thanks for letting me vent ,
Larry.


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## RobertE (Jun 10, 2006)

I suggest having someone come out to troubleshoot the root of your issues. That many failures, while possible, is highly outside the norm.


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## BattleZone (Nov 13, 2007)

lschwarcz said:


> Is it just my run of bad luck or are all of these R15/R16 units broken and DirecTV is just passing them around in hopes of stalling all of their SD customers until they move up to HD?


This is the closest thing to the truth. While there *are* R16s still in production, it is low-volume production compared to the HD-DVRs, and the vast majority of what is being sent out to the field are used (and sometimes worn out) R15s and R16s. The numbers of people upgrading to HD are huge, so it doesn't make sense to make many new SD-DVRs. Even folks who earlier upgraded their primary DVR to HD are now upgrading secondary DVRs to HD, so there is a huge pile of these things that need to be turned around.

Of course, it sucks that you got a couple of bad ones, and it's likely that with your history, and a bit of escalation on your part, you could get a new (or at least newer) R16 instead.


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## lschwarcz (Sep 1, 2006)

RobertE said:


> I suggest having someone come out to troubleshoot the root of your issues. That many failures, while possible, is highly outside the norm.


Good idea. In fact, DirecTV sent out a tech when I got my current broken R15-500. He looked over my whole setup from dish to receiver. He ended up changing my dish mount but he said that everything else looked fine.

Thanks!
Larry.


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## litzdog911 (Jun 23, 2004)

Are you powering your DVR with a UPS. That might help protect the drive from flaky AC power issues.


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## lschwarcz (Sep 1, 2006)

litzdog911 said:


> Are you powering your DVR with a UPS. That might help protect the drive from flaky AC power issues.


Yes, I'm powering it with a UPS. I bought a TrippLite unit from Costco.

Thanks!
Larry.


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## lschwarcz (Sep 1, 2006)

Just a quick update this morning: I called DirecTV yesterday (Monday) and they're sending me a new unit. I called again this morning (Tuesday) for the tracking number and it's scheduled to arrive tomorrow (Wednesday). I'm guessing that it'll be an R15 based on past experience.

I also mentioned above that I thought the rocking was due to a missing rubber foot. This is wrong. I placed it upside down on a flat surface and it rocked then too! Turns out the whole chassis is tweaked! I really can't imagine that anyone did anything to this unit when they got it back other than repacking :-(. Is this typical of DirecTV quality control these days? I sure hope not!

And, my current R15 has gotten a bit worse! It now has died a few times and the red button reset didn't do anything. I did find that unplugging it from power and plugging it back in brought it back to life! Hopefully I can hobble it along until I get the new one installed.

Thanks, again!
Larry.


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## ThomasM (Jul 20, 2007)

lschwarcz said:


> Just a quick update this morning: I called DirecTV yesterday (Monday) and they're sending me a new unit. I called again this morning (Tuesday) for the tracking number and it's scheduled to arrive tomorrow (Wednesday). I'm guessing that it'll be an R15 based on past experience.
> 
> Larry.


After reading your horror stories I'm being very nice to my R15-300's!

It's a shame that DirecTV is abandoning the SD market which I'm sure has many loyal long-term customers who are NOT ready to commit to another 2 years or pay an HD upgrade fee (me).


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## lschwarcz (Sep 1, 2006)

Well, the good news is that my replacement DVR is on the FedEx truck out for delivery! Hopefully this one will work and last more than a few months like the last few!

The bad news is that when I turned my current DVR on to watch the morning news it was frozen (again) and the "red button reset" didn't work so I unplugged it and plugged it back in to power. During the boot up it decided that it needed to reformat the hard disk! So, I've now lost the programs that were on it . Thank you DirecTV . The sad part was I was planning on burning those shows to DVD today in preparation for the replacement DVR setup. Oh, well. I've sent out e-mails to some friends to see if anyone has them or I guess we can try watching some on-line if available.

I'll let everyone know how the replacement one goes! Maybe I'll get lucky this time :bang.

Thanks!
Larry.


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