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hi, just wondering if anyone has had a sky hd reconditioned box, i am having one soon as my thomson box is turning itself off on it's own. Do these boxes last. They cant have much confidence in them if they are only giving them a 3 month warranty.

no but i need one i have a thompson hd box two and if it aint crashing it needs reseting because it frezzes or goes at snail pace when navagating the menu,still not as bad as my first standerd sky box that used to let of a high pitched noise when you turned it on you had to reset that to.

Yep, 2, both Thompsons.  All 3 boxes exhibited the same symptoms described by nodnarb, and Sky had absolutely no answers, that much was clear.  Still they stringed me along until the warranty was over then helpfully suggested that I pay for an engineer to come out - presumably so that I could be told that I needed to pay full price for a new box that they were giving new customers for £50!

Anyway, I got fed up and jacked it in and got a Humax freeview PVR instead.  I'll miss HD broadcast TV, but the only thing sky-specific that I regularly watched was Sky-1 and I can download (in HD) anything that I would have watched on there.

Thomson boxes have always been problematic due to the fact that they use(d) sub-standard components(capacitors) in their PSU's and one of the reasons Sky no longer supply/use them for new install's.

Of all the most common faulty out of guaarntee SKY boxes I get to repair are the Thmoson's...  Power supply capacitors substandard. Replacing them with 130 working temperature rather than 105 or even 85 and lower impedance ESR seems to do the trick. I tend to use 'Samwha' brand cheap but so far touch wood reliable.

 

Although I accept that there are problems with Thomson power supplies. I was able to significantly increase the reliability of mine by adding some rubber feet to increase the air flow under the machine. The boxes usually sit on three long rubber strips which don't allow any airflow underneath. By adding the feet and lifting the strips off the supporting surface my box was transformed from one which crashed every couple of days to one which can now run for several weeks without a problem.