STB all channels freeze every few seconds

agentsmith · 24-11-2004, 07:46

have had a bit of a route around the forums for an answer, but haven't found anything conclusive...

but our STB (4000 iirc) suffers momentary picture freezing on all channels ev ery 5-10 seconds, making viewing very difficult indeed. Its been about 3 weeks now, and my hopes it would go-away/fix-itself have all but disappeared.

We've tried nemurous reboots/power-cycles with and without holding the down-button for the better reset thingy.

The engineers page reports...

SNR = 24.7dB
Pre RS Errors = 4.1E-04 per 0.5sec
Post RS Errors = 0.0E+00 per 0.5sec
AGC Signal Level = 53

the event log lists several lost IB lock in the last few days

I reckon that SNR is a tad low - dunno what on earth the rest of it means.

Could some acceptable levels be put in this sticky?

thanks in advance for any help/advice

Paul K · 24-11-2004, 08:12

Time to get on the phone, that sort of behaviour from the STB is not good and if you delay getting an engineer sent out you will be watching very little telly over xmas

There have been posts made on forums with the SNR levels etc in them but I'm sure someone can post the relevant info again and then it can be added to the articles list

There is some mention on Robins site here
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/robin.d....html#pacediag
and here
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/robin.d...ps/signal.html
also there is information here
external forum link
but the CS/ TS people that pop in will be able to give you a more definate answer.

agentsmith · 24-11-2004, 08:34

many thanks for your post - I'll ring CS now its past 8am

agentsmith · 24-11-2004, 09:31

man, haven't CS improved

I rang at 08:30 and got straight through - I was then put straight through to Faults who within 3 mins had arranged an engineer to come out before 1pm today!

There's been a problem with our STB for several months in that it'll only ever succesfully power up with the "hold the down button" method, and the faults guy seemed to think there was a bigger problem than could be fixed from their end...

so my question is: if we get a replacement STB, will it be a PACE (and lose our RF passthru - hope not) or will we get a Samsung? BTW, I'm in Bedford, part of the Luton area.

agentsmith · 24-11-2004, 10:11

right, its 10.07 and the engineer has been and gone - an amazing result for NTL!

...and problem fixed too!

seems there's a problem with CR3 on the Bromley platform caused when CS send a reset signal - the frequency is reset to the default, but this isn't the frequency needed, so as the box ranges trying to find the signal it causes the freeze every 6.7 seconds (iirc what the engineer said)

Apparently there's a patch planned for release to CR3 in Jan'05, removing the unwanted stuff thats crippling the PACE boxes, and fixing this incorrect default frequency.

SMHarman · 24-11-2004, 10:20

You get what the man (or woman) has one thier van. If you lose the pass through they have widgets, make sure one is fitted.

Lost IB Lock is a business as usual message, it means you changed channels and the box dropped the lock on one channel signal to aquire the lock on the new channel.

agentsmith · 24-11-2004, 11:47

thanks SMHarman, I'll try and remember that if the box gets swapped

this time fortunately he spent 3 minutes in the engineers menu's and got it working - just had to re-tune it!

gavnad · 24-11-2004, 16:43

I've had this problem in the past,turned out it was a dodgy co-axial connection,engineer removed the said cable gave it a blow and hey presto no more problems,i've even managed to fix it myself and i'm completely technophobic,always worth a try i find to reconnect cables etc

GR1978 · 26-11-2004, 10:26

Hi guys,

I'm having a similar problem but only with some channels. about half my channels are fine but a few are stopping and starting every couple of seconds. Is this a problem to do with my cables or is it a temporary problem on ntl's side?

Thanks

SMHarman · 26-11-2004, 11:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by GR1978

Hi guys,

I'm having a similar problem but only with some channels. about half my channels are fine but a few are stopping and starting every couple of seconds. Is this a problem to do with my cables or is it a temporary problem on ntl's side?

Thanks

Possibly a NTL, Signal strength problem some of your channels / frequencies are strong enough to play out to the box well, others are not.

If you list the specific channels one of the teccy NTL bods on here may be able to tell you which MUX they all belong to (if they do all belong to the same one that is).

GR1978 · 26-11-2004, 11:34

Cheers.

Incredibly enough, after two days of suffering, it cleared up almost immediately after me posting! Bizarre.

agentsmith · 01-12-2004, 15:07

UPDATE:

after suffering a deteriorating service since the last engineers visit we had another engineer out today (Tony - nice chap

) and he installed a Samsung. Without doing anything to the cabling our SNR went from 24.6 to 41.3, the picture is dead smooth, the channel hopping much much quicker - all in all a great little box

Only problem, its silver, so doesn't match the vcr and dvd

gooner4life · 01-12-2004, 18:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by GR1978

Hi guys,

I'm having a similar problem but only with some channels. about half my channels are fine but a few are stopping and starting every couple of seconds. Is this a problem to do with my cables or is it a temporary problem on ntl's side?

Thanks

Are you in GU12 Postcode area by any chance? we had a problem there today.

Jonboy · 02-12-2004, 04:44

my chan's have been a bag of spanners from when ntl done the last software upgrade about 6 months now aint it the eng has been out twice says their is nothin wrong i am moving to another part of the ntl area soon and if its still the same they and finally shove it and i will be forced to go to sky i dont want to i really dont but i am now really pig sick of haveing to reboot this damm box on a daily basis