- This topic has 17 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 9 years, 2 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Evening all,
We’ve just got ourselves a 2000T and after updating to the latest firmware (1.01.06), which resolved regular signal cutout issues, we’re left with an ever so slight annoyance. The box makes fairly frequent irregular noises that sound like the hard drive being accessed. The noise is quiet – you can only hear it during quiet scenes – but just audible enough to irritate. While there’s no real pattern to it, I’d say it happens every 10 seconds or so on average. We previously had a 9300t that didn’t noticeably do the same, though that could’ve been due to it being an overall noisier box.
I’d just like to know if this is something others have experienced and that’s just how it is with this model, or if I’ve got a dodgy box. And any advice on sorting it would also be much appreciated if anyone has any suggestions.
Thanks in advance!
not really too sure,
the disk should be spining all the time for chase-play i.e. the 2 hour buffer for pausing and rewinding so no idea as to why it would be spinning up or sound like it every ten seconds or so.
I’d be tempted to switch power saving on or off depending upon what it was set to before to see if it made a difference. If that doesn’t help then a factory reset, not formatting, but take a note of the recording schedule, easiest via camera phone. I like a proper power cycle and if that doesn’t help a factory reset, not formatting, after any software update as it just gives a clean baseline.
If that doesn’t help then tactile measures, does the box vibrate to touch first of all, what happens if you lift it up with your knuckles facing down and the box resting on your fingertips. If you’re still getting significant noise then I’d suggest getting it swapped over, if you’re not then consider getting a strip of blu-tack, making 4 glass marble sized balls to put under each corner and resting the box on these, you may find that something the box is stacked on or something stacked on the box (in which case try blu-tack on top or both), obviously position different to the 9300T, is causing problems. Transient harmonics springs to mind, no idea why but sounds good; however blu-tack can be really useful in situations like this and doesn’t require a technical explanation if it works.
If it’s still noisy after this, and if nobody else has any suggestions and if you can’t live with it, remember if you can hear it now then it won’t get any quieter after your return rights have run out, and it’s bugging you then swapping it over would make sense.
Thanks for the reply, damian – I shall give your suggestions a go and if there’s no joy send it packing back to John Lewis. Merry xmas to you!
I bought my 2000T 1T/B from Richer Sounds about 3 weeks ago and am having a similar problem.
When recording, the noise is pretty constant – as you said Beej78, it is very quiet but irritating. It makes the same noise in standby when recording. When not recording, the noise is more infrequent but still there when watching a programme. I must admit I’d never noticed it when I wasn’t recording, but after reading this thread, I put the TV on mute and then I realised it was there. Changing the power setting as damian suggested didn’t change anything unfortunately.
I’m not sure what to do. I don’t really want to change it, especially as I have a lot of recordings on there now, and this is actually an exchange for the Panasonic I bought in the first place, but I don’t want a faulty product if that is the case.
Did you resolve the issue Beej78?
What electrical devices are near (2m or less?).
There’s a small lamp and an electric fire which is switched off.
Galactic – 19 minutes ago »
I bought my 2000T 1T/B from Richer Sounds about 3 weeks ago and am having a similar problem.
When recording, the noise is pretty constant – as you said Beej78, it is very quiet but irritating. It makes the same noise in standby when recording. When not recording, the noise is more infrequent but still there when watching a programme. I must admit I’d never noticed it when I wasn’t recording, but after reading this thread, I put the TV on mute and then I realised it was there. Changing the power setting as damian suggested didn’t change anything unfortunately.
I’m not sure what to do. I don’t really want to change it, especially as I have a lot of recordings on there now, and this is actually an exchange for the Panasonic I bought in the first place, but I don’t want a faulty product if that is the case.
Did you resolve the issue Beej78?
Hi Galactic,
I (shamefully) didn’t try all the positioning/balancing/blue tac suggestions, instead just returning it for a replacement. However the new box does exactly the same, so I’m currently of a mind that that’s just what this box does. Might break out the blue tac for the hell of it at some point, will update if it makes a difference.
Hi Beej78,
I did try just lifting the box up from the stand and it didn’t make any difference, but I might try some of the other suggestions.
Well, in some ways I’m relieved that it’s just a quirk of the box – I couldn’t face going through the whole exchange thing again. It seems strange that no one else (on here or AV forums) seems to have come across the same problem – maybe we have super sensitive hearing or something
Hopefully we won’t notice it anymore after a while.Thanks for letting me know.
The thing is Galatic noise is a very personal thing, what bothers or irritates one person may not have the slightest impact on someone else. I have a Humax 1000s and recently downloaded the app to control the box from my phone. What I didn’t realise is the app wakes the box up every 20 minutes bringing it out of standby.
I only ever used to hear the ‘wakeup squawk’ every once in a while if I turned the box on prior to the TV being switched on. Once I had downloaded the app I was hearing it every 20 minutes throughout the day when the TV was switched off. It started driving me to distraction after a few days and have since disabled the app, so I can sympathise.
I suspect though that what you describe will very quickly sound normal and may no longer bother you after a couple of weeks – fingers crossed.
I’ve just bought an HDR-2000 as well, and noticed the noise immediately.
It’s the mechanism that moves the heads in the hard drive – that’s why it’s more noticeable when recording.
In my last PVR(Sony), the hard drive was mounted on rubber anti-vibration mounts. Don’t know about the HDR – I’m not opening it up while it’s still under warranty!
I’d be surprised if the drive weren’t on some sort of anti-vibration mounts; however it’s not going to stop a noisy drive.
Thanks Galatic for confirming your drive to be 1TB, I’m guessing Stewpy and Beej78 also have 1TB models and not the 500GB.
The drive is spinning and recording all the time when the Humax is on, the heads will be postioned over the section where the 2hr chase-play/buffer is on the disk enabling the pause/rewind function. When a scheduled recording starts the heads have to move backwards and forwards from the buffer section to the new recording section many times a second.
Some drives are simply noiser than others and there’ll be clackety-clack or clickity-click noise as the heads constantly move to reach different sections on the drive. Anti-vibration mounts, blu-tack or similar measures may help (worth a try before condemning), but will be of limited benefit as they mainly help against the constant whirr or drone vibration noise of the drive motor.
As Faust points out, noise is very personal and it’s impossible at lower levels to say whether it’s excessive or something to worry about or not. If it can be heard over the TV then I’d be worried and investigate further.
The original poster (OP) mentioned a noise every 10 seconds on average and the replacement box does exactly the same. Humax will be getting drives in different batches from several manufacturers and even the same drive will have different firmware over time and hence operate differently.
It’s possible that the current batch of drives has a 10 second head auto-park function (a bit like lifting the needle/arm off a record/lp/vinyl whilst it’s playing and putting it back on its rest/stationary postition every 10 seconds before moving it back to play again) set in its firmware.
On a pc, laptop or similar it would be dead easy to confirm this however; Humax have locked down the boxes making it impossible to check even the most simplest of things.
If the OP can confirm a regular 10 second or so hard drive noise that sounds like the heads are being parked then I’d suggest contacting Humax CS as it would seem to be a hard-drive firmware (not Humax firmware) issue that will prematurely wear the drive out.
Hi damien,
Thanks for your reply. My box is a 500GB, and while I’d say the noise is every ten seconds or so on average, it’s not actually regular. It does increase in frequency when properly recording something as opposed to just buffering for pause/rewind.
Either way, I reckon I’ve decided to send it back and get a refund. I’ve already got a “quirky” Humax box that this was intended to replace, I don’t need a second one!
If you’re looking for a bog standard reliable freeview HD box that works well then take a look at the older hdr-fox-t2:
http://humaxdirect.co.uk/Direct/Prod/e4cdfbf3-14c2-4f8f-ac60-b08241aeacef
It won’t do any of the unreliable apps/internet nonsense that my tablet does when its not constantly updating itself, but will do bbc’s iplayer reliably.
Put custom firmware (CF) on it and upgrade to a suitable 2TB when you’re ready and enjoy…
(this is where you tell me your ‘quirky’ Humax is a hdr-fox-t2? ooops, shouldn’t be quirky if it is, put CF on it)
If you’re after a reliable apps/internet all singing/dancing box that also doubles as a freeview/freesat HD pvr then personally I don’t think it’s even possible to make one at the moment.
Manufacturers stopped using the term ‘future proof’ a few years ago and any that still do also have a good line in snake oil
Heh, the old Humax is a 9300t – has the odd senior moment with recordings where the sound goes (and remains) wonky. I appreciate the suggestions, though with the amount we now watch through catch-up on the various PS3 apps I think the only thing I’d miss now is pausing live tv, so I reckon I’ll just hook the old one back up and tolerate its lovably unreliable nature.
not too sure what you’ve tried so far however; make sure the 9300T is on the latest software/firmware, factory reset it and if you’ve nothing worth keeping on the hard-drive then format it as well. Make sure the box is only tuned to one transmitter, take a look here:
http://www.ukfree.tv/maps/freeview or elsewhere and pick the channels you actually want to watch, channels are grouped in Muxes and manually tune the 9300T to these only. Two or more transmitters definitely cause problems and the concensus is that on the older boxes too many Muxes do as well.
The drive may be failing however; unless it’s terminal you’re not going to know without taking it out and testing on a pc or similar, new 500GB drives aren’t that expensive. There’s plenty of information regarding manual tuning and drive replacement in this forum. If you’ve a full HD TV then it’s probabley worth while looking for a newer box instead of repairing the old one and if you’ve a HD or HD ready TV then there’s no problem sticking with the 9300T. As lovable as it is, the 9300T shouldn’t really be quirky
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.