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When I switched my 4000T on last night the picture on live TV (all channels) was really dull – it looked like the brightness had been turned down. Similarly the EPG was very dull and almost unreadable.
I did a test by recording one of the dull TV programmes. When I pressed HOME to go to recordings the icons was bright as usual. When I played back the recording of the dull broadcast, the recording played back fine.
I powered OFF and ON and the TV picture was now bright and normal and all was OK.
It appears therefore that live TV (all channels) and EPG were being displayed at reduced brightness. However a recording was recorded at correct brightness and was displayed at correct brightness.
At no time did I make any change of the TV brightness or contrast controls. Also I could switch between dull live TV > bright recording of that dull TV > dull live TV > bright recording of that dull live TV.
Strange …
Not really that strange at all. That sort of thing happens fairly frequently to different people.
It’s just a computer that gets its knickers in a knot and a good old fashioned ‘mains cycle induced’ reboot frequently sorts it out.
A mains cycle should always be the first ‘port of call’ for a miss-behaving device as frequently, that’s all it needs to ‘fix’ it.
Yes Trev, these odd things happen. Yesterday, I noticed that the volume bar on my 5000T was looking rather unusual and I thought the new update had been installed and that this was one of the changes. But no, still …45. I went to standby and back on and it was back to normal.
I occasionally lose the “mute” symbol above the volume bar. Mains off/on always does the trick.
It is very much apparent that Humax and The IT Crowd are the same company
SSThing – 6 minutes ago » …
It is very much apparent that Humax and The IT Crowd are the same company
The IT Crowd was at least entertaining. As a product I have never found my Humax 1000S boxes to be in the least entertaining. More like… disappointing, frustrating, exasperating, irritating, maddening, annoying, baffling and other “ings”. Reliable, yes definitely. I hope they stay that way until the non-Humax G3 boxes are about 2 years in from launch, and all the bugs are apparent, when I might buy.
I did a bit of digging. The wiki article on soft errors is interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_error
Quote:There are two types of soft errors, chip-level soft error and system-level soft error.Chip-level soft errors occur when particles hit the chip, e.g., when the radioactive atoms in the chip’s material decay and release alpha particles into the chip. Because the alpha particle contains a positive charge and kinetic energy, the particle can hit a memory cell and cause the cell to change state to a different value. The atomic reaction in this example is so tiny that it does not damage the physical structure of the chip.
System-level soft errors occur when the data being processed is hit with a noise phenomenon, typically when the data is on a data bus. The computer tries to interpret the noise as a data bit, which can cause errors in addressing or processing program code. The bad data bit can even be saved in memory and cause problems at a later time.
Errors can also be induced by cosmic rays striking chips. I know that electronics for use in satellites etc uses specialised “radiation hardened” chips.
Having spent a long career in Telecommunications, Electronics and Computing and experience in the full spectrum from manufacturing through programming to world-wide project implementation I read that wiki article and in the context of consumer electronics I had a hearty laugh.
As we are unlikely to be mind readers you might want to tell us why you laughed.
I presume it was because you understand that consumer electronics are not protected against soft errors.
Or was it because you did not believe the article?
JohnH77 – 26 minutes ago »
As we are unlikely to be mind readers you might want to tell us why you laughed.
I presume it was because you understand that consumer electronics are not protected against soft errors.
Or was it because you did not believe the article?
In the context of consumer electronics the article is nonsense. The reason you have problems with Humax boxes is simple, the hardware design and software coding are both very poorly implemented. They are the only boxes I have ever purchased that have given the level of problems that I have encountered.
In what way is the article nonsense for consumer electronics?
JohnH77 – 3 hours ago »
In what way is the article nonsense for consumer electronics?
It was the Cosmic Ray bit that did it. These events are so difficult to capture they have to bury the detectors way underground.
That’s not the same as a solar flare hitting the Earth which can knock out massive power supplies areas due to the induced voltage in overhead connections. Like most of Canada).
Mains borne inteference can cause bit errors in NV RAM, in virtually all conditions the problem is down to induce voltages in the UK grid system by close up lightning strikes and current chopping in the circuit breakers designed to clear the fault interuppting the fault current at other than current zero. This leaves entrained energy in the the distribution system.
This is a particular problem with High Voltage Circuit breakers like air blast and SF6 designs that are able to chop off the generated re-strike voltages at other than current zeros.
I don;t agree with Pollensa 1946 either. No UK mains system is immune to transient mains interfered pulse interference.
Anyone here never had to re-boot a locked up PC ?
grahamlthompson – 1 hour ago » …I don;t agree with Pollensa 1946 either. No UK mains system is immune to transient mains interfered pulse interference.
Anyone here never had to re-boot a locked up PC ?
Yes, that would be what is causing all the problems that people report with the 4000/5000 series. Of course, how could I not have realised that. BTW, I for one have never had a locked up Windows PC caused specifically by mains borne interference.
Pollensa1946 – 1 minute ago »
grahamlthompson – 1 hour ago » …I don;t agree with Pollensa 1946 either. No UK mains system is immune to transient mains interfered pulse interference.
Anyone here never had to re-boot a locked up PC ?
Yes, that would be what is causing all the problems that people report with the 4000/5000 series. Of course, how could I not have realised that. BTW, I for one have never had a locked up Windows PC caused specifically by mains borne interference.
Which problems specifically.
I Have a 5000T which over Christmas has recorded flawlessly so far everything I asked it to. Despite a 2TB drive it’s hard to stop it getting full of recordings.
How would you know if if a lock up was caused by maims born or other causes.
Had you said you never had a a PC lock up on you I might have believed you. Suspect loads more will have experienced this.
Never seen a post by you that I or others could replicate other than widely experienced issues in most cases proved to be external issues.
Frankly, vague most people reports that others cannot replicate or never report similar carry no credence whatsoever.
If you wish to report a issue with enough information that other members can try and repeat perhaps those of us without such obvious bias might try and reproduce.
Frankly quoting vague widespread problems means sod all.
In future if you wish to report a issue, you should post enough information as to give anyone a chance to replicate the problem.
Please stipulate what particular problems you refer to, otherwise your posts are rather pointless and cannot possibly help to improve the product.
Other than the slow UI since I got the FVP-5000T recording wise it has
It’s no good for instance posting my box can’t log into say ITV player, when others including myself have no issues.
Basically stating my box has issues without and many others without any sort of information is as they say (Fake News
How about you help by posting a detailed analysis of any problem. and then recognise if others do not it’s likely not be a box problem but rather a local issue. (Or do you think anyone not finding the issue is not telling the truth). If so speaks volumes as to your attitude.
Given a repeatable set of circumstances I am the first to try and replicate, can you sat the same, I think not.
There are other posts on here from members that are well satisfied with their FVP-50O0T boxes particulary with the reliability of recording except for well known broadcaster screw ups which of course is not a Humax Issue.
You also ignore that only owners who have issues tend to post on forums like, this and mostly do not include enough information as to find out whether the box is likely to be the issue.
Frankly Your post to which I am replying adds precisely nothing to this thread as does your vague and totally undocumented assertions.
It’s well known that amongst all Kit that a power off will often restore full operation. Interested to know why you think this is not likely to be memory corruption. So Why do you think that Humax Kit is any different ?
Pollensa1946 – 3 hours ago »
The conditions cited do not apply.
What conditions cited don’t apply? I read the article thoroughly and I didn’t see any conditions. Everywhere on earth is bathed in cosmic rays.
I am somewhat familiar with Zeigler’s work at IBM Research first having come across it in the 70s. In 1996 he estimated that 256MB of RAM in a typical PC experiences 1 soft error per month because of cosmic rays. If we assume there are 1 million Humax boxes with about the same area of memory, that’s 1 million soft errors a month. In fact it’s probably far more because memory cells are now much smaller than in 1996 that they require far less energy to be flipped.
Cosmic “rays” are high energy particles from outer space. They are abundant and many particle physics experiments are buried deep underground so as to shield the experiments from these particles. Particles having an energy of 1 TeV (remember the LHC has an energy of 7 TeV so 1 TeV is very powerful!) arrive at a rate of 1 per sq metre per second everywhere on the earth’s surface. 1 GeV particles arrive at a rate of about 10,000 per sq metre per second. Remember it takes only 13 eV to remove an electron from a hydrogen atom and create a free conducting electron.
In an IBM mainframe computer about 25% of the circuitry is for error detection and error correcting which is one reason they are so reliable. I had a customer who had two IBM mainframes, both of which ran continuously for 7 years without being rebooted.
Many companies sell radiation hardened components – for example BAe Systems (https://www.baesystems.com/en-us/our-company/inc-businesses/electronic-systems/product-sites/space-products-and-processing) and Renesas (https://www.renesas.com/eu/en/solutions/key-technology/rad-hard.html).
And then, as Graham says, there is interference borne by the mains. A few years ago a lightning strike 1/2 mile away destroyed the church tower flagpole … and my PC.
And I agree with Graham about Humax. I have had an 8000, a 9200T and a 4000T and, except for the slow remote control on the 9200T, I have been extremely satisfied with them. I post this on another forum when a dogmatist insists there is a problem with the software:
Quote:You do need to do a little maths.[the software] has been downloaded by some 200,000,000 people. You say it does not work for you.
Do you think the problem lies with the software the other 199,999,999 people find is OK? Or do you think that, just possibly, the problem might lie with your understanding (or lack of understanding), your installation, your unique PC configuration and/or your way of working?
We are here to try and help, not to waste our time listening to your complaints. Please read [the] Survival Guide for the forum.
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