PVR Playing Up?

My PVR, a rather old Topfield 7160, has been playing up for a while. The time on the front has been showing 00:00 and not changing. I don't use it a lot because it is far easier to watch on iView or to download them. The machine worked fine when manually started to record a program and stopped again at the set time but it didn't record when it was programmed to.

However having something not working eventually annoys the shit out of me so finally I decided to take it apart and see if I could find the faulty component (ie hopefully a swollen or burnt capacitor or resistor because I don't have a circuit diagram for it).

However after taking the cover off the machine (easy - 4 screws) the problem was obvious immediately - behind the front panel was a 2032 battery in a holder, common as muck; every supermarket stocks them.

Changed the battery and all is well again - the 3v battery I took out had 0.25v.

Now my brilliance at changing the battery is not why I am reporting this - the problem is that nowhere in the supplied user manual is there any reference to a battery, not only that but as long as the power is on then you would expect it to keep time like a computer (even with a dud CMOS battery) but for some reason it doesn't.

So if your PVR seems to be fine but not doing timed recordings there may well be a battery in there that needs changing. Check first before shunting it off to a repairer - the battery only costs a dollar or two.

Re: PVR Playing Up?

Good tip Bruce. Aren't Topfield the Roll-Royce of receivers ? I watch mainly European satellite channels via a receiver, but I record via a USB 1Tb HD plugged in the back of the machine, so the timer is controlled by the incoming signal.

Re: PVR Playing Up?

We had a TV that was only about three years old, when returning home from holiday that year the TV had lost all of it's tuned stations, after retuning them all in again as soon as we switched off it lost them all. Similar problem to you Bruce, after removing the back and discovering a small button battery in the circuit board I checked and replaced it.....Problem solved. How many people would have had to pay an arm and a leg to some repair bloke, or even have had to buy a new TV?

Re: PVR Playing Up?

Years ago (CRT television days) Philips televisions had a battery in them for channel memories. Changing them involved removal of a panel and a soldering job. It needed a fairly good soldering iron too ..and a solder sucker or solder wick to remove/replace them. Not a customer job all in all. I never charged an arm and a leg though. I was happy with just an arm. I never got rich.

Re: PVR Playing Up?

I don't know about it being the Rolls Royce. It didn't cost any more than other brands and I notice that Topfield Australia filed for bankruptcy a few years ago so they are now supported from Korea.

It is the second Topfield I have owned and still goes well (now I have changed the battery), they are very versatile, easy to upgrade (ie change HDD for larger one), can run scripts and add on programs and supports FTP. I certainly wouldn't discourage anyone from buying one.

The battery holder was far better quality than the ones you see in computers with a very positive grip on the battery and hence a very good connection.

Re: PVR Playing Up?

You must have been one of the good ones Mart, you should give some advice to those money grabbing waste of spacers down at PC World.....

Re: PVR Playing Up?

There were once quite a few small repair/secondhand TV and video recorder shops in our area. I was on good terms with a number of them and used to work on a freelance basis mending items that their own engineers either couldn't find the fault on or they didn't have the time/inclination to do it.

I'd have to keep my prices down in order that they could make a little on top. Seeing as how this was on the more difficult faults, some hours could be spent on them for very little money. They got the glory from the customer but I was the backroom boy who'd found the fault. I didn't mind.

I also had my own customers who used me and recommended me to others for doing a good guaranteed repair at a reasonable price. All in all, I do like to think I was one of the good ones.

Then again, so were the owner-engineers in most of the small shops I did the work for. I think they all charged reasonable rates for repairs.

Years after I stopped repairing, I'd get the occasional phone call from someone who wanted something repairing. I used to get ex-customers come up and talk to me while out and about saying they were sorry I didn't do the job anymore.

I still miss the job and being highly thought of. Everything passes though eh?

If this sounds like a boast, I suppose it is ..but it was a fact too.

Re: PVR Playing Up?

I have a Triple Dragon satellite receiver sitting in its box glaring at me. An SD box with an HD which I installed easily. Linux propelled and one of the best quality pictures for its time. No USB in/out and rather large. Very expensive new, but now available new for a few tens of pounds.

Re: PVR Playing Up?

I had a Topfield "Black Panther" 5800 PVR for many years. It was way ahead of the crappy Sky+ boxes that Murdock was shipping out at the time. Excellent manufacturer and had the benefit of being open source so there was a plethora of user designed utilities and applications available for it (TAPS).

However, it IS a well known fact now that after so many years, the main set of capacitors on the motherboard begin to wear out and fail. You get symptoms like the sound volume rising and falling and crackle etc.

It's a simple enough job to replace all those capacitors provided you're happy wielding a soldering iron. There's a lot of brilliant help and support on the Toppy forum as I am sure you are aware.

Hope your PVR runs for many more years to come.

If however, it starts to creak after years of faithful service then I would recommend to you the MIRACLEBOX PVR which can be bought from the same kind of retail outlets that used to supply Toppy's. World of Satellite etc.

The Miraclebox is small and hugely powerful. I paid about £300 and got a 1TB hard drive and 3 Freeview Tuners. You can mix and match tuners according to your needs. For example if you have cable you can have 1 or 2 cable tuners plust a third Freeview or Freesat. Whatever mix suits you.

With 3 dedicated Freeview tuners, each of which is easily capable of recording upto 4 channels simultaneously, I can record up to 12 different programmes at the same time (provided they are all on the 3 multiplexes that the tuners are covering).

It makes for a very powerful machine.

Like the Toppy it is open source so you can load it with a variety of oprating systems and facilities. There's a lot of support for it.

Massively configurable. All the expected features like series recording, searching for key words, and so on.

Worth a look