Interesting 5540 reboot problem/solution

[brian7972]

Came home from 5 days of vacation to find 5540 in infinite reboot.

Tried all the tricks...unplugging cables, etc. While the replay was unplugged, I noticed that the cable box wouldn't pass a signal to the TV while it was on. Now I'm thinking we had a lightning strike/surge or something since the Replay *and* cable box were on the fritz.

However, I swapped the 5540 with my 5516 and determined that the Replay was working fine on another TV and with another cable box. (Also, noticed a 15 hour recording of a movie which only should have been 2 hours in the Replay Guide. So, something funky happened while we were away.)

But, once I put the 5540 back with the *bad* cable box, infinite reboot again. Thus, it appears something's up with the cable box and has affected the Replay.

I thought these events were thread-worthy because I was on mikeyboy's page ready to send the 5540 for a new drive when I decided to run the control test of swapping it with my 5516. I had all of the symptoms of the classic infinite-reboot-from-hell but had no idea such a problem could be caused by a faulty cable box.

Just one more thing to check before you declare your Replay dead.

[plyons10]

Did you try the 5516 in place of the 5540 and not just the '40 in place of the '16?

Did this "bad cable box" screw up your 5516 too?

I can't see how the cable box is making this problem.

[l8er]

[QUOTE=brian7972]I had all of the symptoms of the classic infinite-reboot-from-hell but had no idea such a problem could be caused by a faulty cable box.[/QUOTE] FWIW, it's about a .01% chance it was caused by the cable box. (99.99% chance it was not caused by the cable box).

[Jeff D]

yeah you gotta look at all the other variables there too... network cables, shorts in cables from cable box to replayTV, etc. If you only tried the bad replay in a good location and not the good replay in the bad location there's something to try. If you did that and the good one worked in the bad location and that's a real puzzle.

[brian7972]

Yep, your comments (and percentages) above are exactly why I was stumped (and thought this was threadworthy). This threw me, too.

FWIW, I got a new cable box yesterday and everything works fine (using the exact same cables, inputs, setup, etc).. In hindsight, as Peter and Jeff suggested, I should have tried the "bad" cable box on a "good" RTV, but didn't have the time/motivation and wasn't inclined to take the chance just for the sake of experimentation. That would have been more helpful if I was more daring (and not so fried after a long trip home).