1014 and "brown" sim card

[agentsmith]

OK, so our box has been crashing recently when upping or downing channels, and until now a reboot has always sorted it.

So after several attempts tonight where it just sits on the "We're currently updating blah-d-blah-blah..." we eventually got a 1014 error "no service found"

During the course of these reboots etc my wife removed the sim card to clean it, and discovered it to be rather brown on the end that inserts into the STB, like its got fairly seriously hot at some point.
Just to confirm only 1 small device sits atop the STB, and the vents aren't blocked by videos, dvd's or dead rats etc etc.

Service is obviously coming into the house still as the SACM is working fine as usual.

Any ideas peeps? Are these symptoms related to the brown card?

fanks

[paulyoung666]

possibly , which set top box is it , some are well known to fry the cards

A 1014 error means the box has failed to lock to signal, the brown card is not going to cause the error.
However the box overheating can certainly affect its ability to pick up signals, and will cause the smartcard to 'brown'.
Have you tried powering off the box (not in standby) for an hour or so? This will allow it to cool down.
It may already be in silicon heaven tho.

[agentsmith]

thanks for the repies.

after waiting for 45 minutes on a 01582 phone number we were informed the whole area is down. Why oh why didn't their recorded messgae say that then? It mentioned 3 other areas

[binary]

I also get browning on my sim card, and it's very hot when I take it out of the STB sometimes.

I occasionally turn off my STB, to let it cool down. I do this because I presume it will lessen any problems, such as picture freezing and pixellation (I have no interactive service or broadband as it's not in my area yet).

So, more questions...

(1) Is the STB a fire risk if left turned on? NTL don't advise turning it off.

(2) In fact NTL advice keeping it turned on so it get's updates from the network. If I turn my STB off for a lenghly period (i.e. if I go on holiday) will I encounter any problems on turning it on again?

(3) What does SACM stand for?

[paulyoung666]

can you lift the box clear of what it is stood on to let more air around it ????????????


sacm is stand alone cable modem

[Xaccers]

Originally posted by binary
(1) Is the STB a fire risk if left turned on? NTL don't advise turning it off.

Not from it's normal heat production (which is rather hot).
No more chance than your TV or VCR

(3) What does SACM stand for?

Stand Alone Cable Modem

Originally posted by binary
I also get browning on my sim card, and it's very hot when I take it out of the STB sometimes.

I occasionally turn off my STB, to let it cool down. I do this because I presume it will lessen any problems, such as picture freezing and pixellation (I have no interactive service or broadband as it's not in my area yet).

So, more questions...

(1) Is the STB a fire risk if left turned on? NTL don't advise turning it off.

(2) In fact NTL advice keeping it turned on so it get's updates from the network. If I turn my STB off for a lenghly period (i.e. if I go on holiday) will I encounter any problems on turning it on again?

(3) What does SACM stand for?

1) No it shouldn't be. The box needs good ventilation space all the way around, if theres no airflow then the heat can't escape. Hence brown heat damaged smartcards.
2) Depending on how long you are going away for, if it is turned off for a while the entitlements to products on your smartcard may time out. They will then require a refresh hit from CS. If I am going away I usually turn everything off I can.
3) Stand Alone Cable Modem.

[agentsmith]

The engineer who came out to look at the STB said the brown smartcard is typical for this model of STB.
Turns out some workman had put an axe thru the cable feeding TV to ½ of Bedford but our box, along with loads of others, wouldn't latch onto the frequency when it all came back. Up til that point we were getting the terrestrial channels (still got a STB with the analogue pass thru ) once the cable was sticky taped back together.