Messages

Lol, there's a reason we are WA...

Wait
Awhile

Deleted.

It's normal for the front to be cold, the mainboard and thus SOC sit at the back of the case.

It means nothing in relation to the power supply, you can only try the replacement power pack, but it's unlikely to resolve your issues sadly.


Mark

Hello,

I understand what you are trying to do, but I think it is unlikely you will be able to achieve what you want to do (bigger heatsink).

As for your comment that it's a fire hazard, that's really not true and is very alarmist...

In short, the SOC is the main IC for the unit, it is made up of multiple processors – including the CPU – and other controllers, all built into the one chip. On those units that are having the freezing issue, it appears that part of the SOC is shutting down, ie possibly a single processor (video for example), but the remainder of the processors and controllers appear to stay up, this is evident by the fact that you can still access it via DLNA even when the unit is non responsive.

Sadly, the SOC is soldered directly onto the mainboard, so there is no socket. The Heatsink is attached to the top of the SOC by Thermal Adhesive, and it is extremely strong. Should you attempt to remove the heatsink without proper tools and a LOT of care, you will almost certainly destroy the SOC, or even rip it straight off the mainboard causing permanent damage. It takes a lot to get the heat sink off properly without causing damage. Believe me the adhesive is very strong.

Now hypothetically if you did get the heat sink off, no damage to the SOC, cleaned it up, and had replacement thermal ADHESIVE on hand (good quality stuff, not your cheap Jaycar crap – and NOT standard thermal paste) then yes you could replace the heat sink. Trouble is that there is literally ZERO room in / around the SOC to allow for a heat sink that is bigger, perhaps you "might" be able to get a marginally bigger heat sink in there with a lot of stuffing around, but honestly, it's not worth your time.

Those finding that lowering the voltage down works for them are lucky. You could try that. Certainly by reducing the voltage in the unit down, it will generate less heat, and if the SOC is borderline and very sensitive to heat and voltage, it definitely could help, but 3 units I have tested were not fixed with lower voltage input, going down as low as 9v.

BTY, the only reason that it is possible to reduce the voltage input on this unit is because the HDD is a 2.5" drive, and they only use the 5v power rail to run, even though the standard SATA power cable is plugged into the drive, the 2.5" drives simply don't use the 12v rail. On an Altech 9600, which uses a 3.5" HDD, you can't do this as the HDD requires the 12v rail, and dropping the power down to 10.5v on my test bench Altech 9600 caused the unit to fail immediately. (The Altech 9600 is near identical internally to the Skippa, but older SOC).

Anyway in short, I understand your frustration, but my honest opinion is to give up and find an alternative unit, like Humax 4 Tune or similar. I wish I could be of more assistance...


Mark

Could definitely be a hard drive problem, it sounds like an odd problem...

Personally I haven't had a single issue with my 9600 Altech, no odd or mystery problems with mine.

So you don't loose all your recordings in case it is not a hard drive issue, have you got a spare 2.5" drive you can pop into the unit as a test, because if you do you can use that to test and see if the issue goes away, remember though that whatever is on that HDD will be wiped the moment you install it into the SKIPPA, as it self formats on first power up.

Mark



Mark

That's probably because I haven't posted a lot on the T series and their hardware.

The T3 was actually the first released in the T series, and the hardware is less than impressive, IMHO.

The T4 and the T2 are both way improved in terms of hardware, but unfortunately I have never personally tested the tuners in the T2 or the hauppauge either so can't really comment on how they perform.

The Skippa has a different CPU, and whilst the mainboards are the same, the firmware for the 9600 does NOT work on a Skippa.

I doubt that UEC are interested in any way in assisting with a hybrid firmware for the Skippa.

Oh well, never say never I guess, maybe one day they will...

If they ever release the stockpile of skippas they have as some other model and it has FTA support, then perhaps there might be hope one day...

Mark

Playing .iso files isn't going to affect all that many people and besides that if they really wanted (Beyonwiz that is) Im sure they could have updated the firmware to fix it but development stopped sadly.

Either way now you have no choice, update to a 1.07 series firmware or have issues with mpeg-4 broadcasts...

So all that guff on the wiz website is because of changes in the CPU revision on the P2 machines in some batches...

It goes like this...

1.05.xx was released for the S1, H1, P1, P2, when release these units had a REV B CPU in them. Over time they came out with a Revision C CPU in newer batches, and 1.07.xx came out to go on these units with the newer revision CPUs in them, if I recall it was a codec change or something like that.

Anyway the reason for the warning on the wiz website is because if you installed 1.05.xx firmware onto any wiz that had a REV C CPU in it, you would kill it, and need to do a firmware recovery procedure that only seemed to work on a Windows XP machine. See 1.05.xx firmware works only on those units with a REV B CPU in them.

The 1.07.xx works in any machine whether REV B or REV C so I'm not quite sure why Beyonwiz at that point didn't just remove 1.05.xx altogether and provide a 1.07.xx for each model across the board so that it was not ever an issue and people then didn't need to be caught up in checking serial numbers.

Suffice to say, whilst 1.07.xx is available for the P2, Lite, L1 on their web site, it is not for the P1, but I do have it so if you want it I can email to you...

Mark

Yep correct 1.07 broke DVD iso playback.

The 1.07.xx firmware I refer to for the P1 is not publically available, DTC or Beyonwiz never officially released it, not sure why not, but I do have a copy.

Mark

On that note Paul,

I have in my possession if anyone wants it...

1.07.xxx firmware for ALL Beyonwiz units on the market except S1 & H1.

This includes genuine (not hacked) 1.07.xx firmware for P1, P2, L1 (freeview restricted and unlocked).

I believe that the 1.07.xx firmware supports MPEG-4 broadcasts so with that firmware it should be smooth sailing...

On another note, I believe you can technically run the P1 1.07.xx firmware on an S1 as it's the same mainboard as the P1, so that will overcome any problems encountered there but unfortunately in doing so you will loose WIFI and the DVD drive, but if these are not important to you then it's not an issue. I have personally not tested the P1 firmware in the S1 but I know someone else that has, and being as the mainboard in the P1 and S1 are identical other than WIFI I see no reason that it wouldn't work.

That really only leaves the H1 with issues sadly, I have no firmware that is likely to run on that box.

Mark

Ok, well that's a fair call I guess Simon, it does depend on whats important to you i suppose, looking at it from your perspective you have a valid point...

Having said that, I'm looking at it more from a review point of view in terms of differences.

There is NO WAY that the T3 should have rated higher than the T4 and there is NO WAY i would ever recommend a T3, like ever, over a T4...

I think choice have it very wrong...

 :o

How did your friend notice little difference? OMG...

This is a  simple explanation of the difference between them, there's a lot more to it than this, but ill be brief...I have both units BTY..

The T3 hardware is poor. It's like the S1 when it first came out, almost a beta of a P1 and P2. Lots and lots of areas of common fault and breakdown, especially the tuners. The T4 is HUGELY improved hardware wise. That alone is not "testable" without choice taking them apart and evaluating them, but even then without real world experience about the hardware its impossible to properly test that point, so in other words no review like Choice completed will ever reliably report these things...

So hardware quality aside lets look at the T4 differences... Well compared to the T3, the T4 has...

* Gig LAN vs 100mb
* HDMI IN vs no input
* WAAAAAAYYYYYY FASTER CPU vs SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW - I cannot believe that your friend didn't notice a difference in boot time alone, its close to 3 times faster at booting up from deep standby.
* Hardware quality improvements beyond belief
* IMHO better quality tuners
* 4 of them too vs 3 in the T3
* Way better OLED front display vs similar crappy display to the older wizes, that on many machines has uneven brightness from one side to the other (another wonderful quality control issue on the T3)
* Vastly simpler and improved PSU
* Actual 1080p output vs 1080i

I really am amazed he couldn't notice any difference... They are like chalk and cheese.

I've been testing a T3 to train up my wife on it before I purchased the T4, and even she has noticed a huge difference.

I doubt that it would have rated any higher at all...

They show how they came out with the scores, and being in administration, whilst definitely an issue that I would consider important if i was choosing a new unit, is not part of their scoring matrix. Possibly it lost a little bit for that but when looking at how they score them, you can see that it didn't really come into it.

I personally don't think that the review is worth 2 knobs of goat turd, so anyone that puts faith into its findings is going to find that out the hard way.

PVR units like this need real world testing, not just scores based on feature sets and power consumption. The review is worthless. Look at the T3 scoring higher than the T4...

Lol. Thats a joke right there let alone anything else. The T3 is a POS compared to the T4 in terms of both hardware quality, speed and features.

It's a typical choice review, completed without any actual experience of the products themselves.

Your playing games...

Just because 1 of 3 players of the old IceTV is no longer involved, doesn't mean the other 2 aren't...

Stop being pedantic.

It's the same owners, simple!