Possible Samsung Box Error?

Rob2005 · 09-07-2005, 18:37

Hi, I recently got a new Samsung box, but was having lots of problems with it crashing and not picking up all the tv channels. After reading this forum, I pulled out all the wires including the coax connection into the the box and reconnected them and on the whole this seems to have sorted most of the problems out.

I went into the engineer menu today and on Page 5 called Installation Status there is one error there. Next to Overall Status, in a red box it says "Possible Problems". Under the word Page is the number "10", under the word Field it says "IF AGC (%)" and under the word Status in a orange box, it alternates between the numbers 70 and 71.

Does anyone know what this means?

Many thanks

quadplay · 09-07-2005, 19:18

AGC is Automatic Gain Control. 70/71% is nothing to worry too much about as long as you're not having trouble with your pictures. If you are, give Faults a ring - don't try adjusting anything in the engineering menus yourself, as there are some things in there which, if changed, can stop your box working properly.

Rob2005 · 09-07-2005, 20:32

Many thanks for your reply Jimbo. I was having a lot of problems with picture quality, but since I unplugged all the wires and reconnected them, its a lot better. Don't worry, I won't fiddle with the menu screens, I've no idea what they mean anyway!

Re your reply, does AGG affect how grainy the picture looks, or is that just the MPEG compression? Also, does it affect picture freezing, as I do get this from time to time, but not as much as before? Out of interest, what is normal/the opitimal AGC level? Thanks.

quadplay · 09-07-2005, 20:45

AGC affects the signal before it reaches the MPEG decoder - more gain means a weaker signal is coming into the box. If you're still getting picture freezing, I'd suggest a call to Faults tomorrow to get it checked out.

A better way to find out what's going on is the Pre- and Post-RS error rates - from broadcast TV, press Page Up, Page Down and then Blue on your remote control. Any Post-RS errors mean you're going to see picture break up, freezing and pixellation, and are likely to need an engineer to correct.
__________________

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rob2005

Out of interest, what is normal/the opitimal AGC level? Thanks.

There's no "normal" as such, but lower is better. Optimal, I suppose, would be 0%, but that's practically impossible. More information on AGC is available from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_gain_control

Rob2005 · 09-07-2005, 20:47

Thank you again. I've done the page up/down thing to get the other menu up. It says for both Pre and Post RS Errors: 0 per 0.5s. So I'm assuming all is well there. On the same menu screen it says AGC Signal Level: 41.

Can I be greedy with another question? I have a ntl cable modem and ntl installed a splitter with signals going both to the stb and modem from the splitter. Could the splitter or quality of cable be affecting the AGC level? Many thanks for all your help.

quadplay · 09-07-2005, 20:50

It will indeed affect the signal quality - the splitter will have a loss printed on it - if it's only a two-way splitter, it should be -3.5dB. You might need the power down your cable line increased to support two devices.

Rob2005 · 09-07-2005, 20:54

Thank you for taking the time to answer to my questions. Much apprieciated. Thanks for the link too.

Rob

quadplay · 09-07-2005, 20:55

Not a problem!

spiderplant · 09-07-2005, 22:31

AGCs of 40 or 70 are fine. Nothing to worry about at all.

As Jimbo says, if your pre-RS error rate is low, and the post-RS is zero, everything will be fine.