Also, how long did it take to get it repaired? I just took a look at the capacitors. The specs on them are the same, except the problem ones in the picture (C1270 & C1271, which you also had a problem with) are 16v, while mine (C1260 & C1261) are 10v. They also look practically the same, except mine are slightly shorter.
I think he charged me $10 - there are several little electronics/TV repair shops here in SW Houston TX - took him about 5 minutes - call a few up and ask about $$how much$$ to replace a couple of capacitors on a circuit board, if you are just taking in the board itself and the new capacitors.
Awesome, I'll try a couple places out and see. One place quoted me $20, so far. What would suck is if they repair it, but it turns out something else was the problem and the two damaged capacitors are a result of the problem.
could be - but if the capacitors are showing the 'classic' signs of failure (brown/orange/rust crud leaking out) and you replace them, can only say that for me and the vast majority of people here (if not all), that fixed it.
You guys are on the right track. Nobody can be good at everything, but for a few bucks you can get a good soldering guy to swap those capacitors out. I would get the guy to do it. EVen if you later learn some other issue is causing trouble, at least you have new capacitors. And yep, the rusty capacitors from the shower water hitting the unit was my idea of a joke. See? I'm not a tv geek, heheh.
Had it done for $20. I have it at home and it powered back up, but it's stuck with this on the display of the machine itself: ch Test*L1
OK, I feel kind of stupid about the Test*L1 thing......When re-opening the machine, I realized I forgot to plug in those 4 wires (red/black/black, and I think the last one's yellow) to the hard drive. So, I don't get the Test*L1 display anymore.......Now it's just back to U99, aaaaaahhhhhhhh! I'm going to try the CD drive thing mentioned earlier. I'll just detach the CD-rom on my computer, attach it to the machine, then remove the connection to the CD-rom, and attach it to the original hard drive, and see how that works.
sorry - all out myself - but yes you have to be sure that all is hooked up again correctly - after guess its a different problem.
Yeah, kind of sucks. It's looking like I might need to get a new machine. Don't know if I want to try replacing the motherboard. Took out my cd-rom drive, but it turns out it doesn't take the same connection-type. I might check out another computer we have at the house. That'll probably be my last try.
as a next step pretty soon I'll probably get a centrino 2 (dual core) laptop and a digital TV tuner usb thumb device with recording software and start experimenting with that - of course cheaper would be a regular desktop computer.
Max66, your battle plan sounds good to me. I used actually a fairly old machine to stretch over the power supply line from a cdrom to my panasonic. As I recall, I may have used a knife to shave down the plastic module from the old computer line to help it fit. Then I turned on both the panasonic power switch and the computer power switch and let them run for a few minutes.In that time, I was finally able to get the dvd tray to open on the panasonic and i think I slipped in a panasonic disk at that time too in case I later wanted to update the panasonic. All I remember for sure is the power from the computer did light up the leds a bit in the panny, and the next morning,I saw that all theprograms on my hard drive came back. It was so cool.I also noticed at some point that the plastic web belt that runs from the hard drive to the dvd tray had come out. I had to carefully replace that in its slot. I suspect that once you restore the unit to its own power supply you will get happy results within a day. Good luck.
You may not even need to hijack power tonight.If you already got to a test L*1, I think it probably will be up and running tomorrow if you leave it off overnight.
Some of the power supply capacitors are known design weaknesses of the E85H. Posts as far back as a year and a half (mine was one of the first) detail the issues. C1270 and C1271 are by far the usual suspects. They filter the +12V line that eventually ends up as the DR12V line that powers the DVD and HDD. Some have been successful in using an external power supply to power the HDD, but I should point out that with those capacitors bad, other circuits are affected too. Although the DVD is powered by the same voltages as the HDD (DR12V and DR5V), its connector is not standard (it plugs on its bottom to the PCB beneath it). Now the C1260 and C1261 feed a +5.8v line that is in turn used to supply other voltages (5.2v, several 5v, 3.3v). So if they are bad, the E85H is toast until you replace them. Generally, the capacitors are the cause, not the effect, of a failure. If they look funky (and/or smell funky), chances are they ARE funky. Electrolytic capacitors in general are one of the weakest links in a power supply--having the shortest life span (they tend to dry out). Panasonic has exacerbated the problem by using under-rated voltages on their capacitors. C1260 and C1261 are rated at 10V--which isn't too bad (better than C1270 and C1271 which are handling 12-13v with a 16v rating). But couple a marginal rating with being in a hot area and the lifetime is shortened. 2-3 years seems to be about average. If your unit is in a closed entertainment unit, open it. Make sure it gets good airflow. Also check to make sure the fan is operating. If you do replace C1260 and C1261, I would strongly urge you to replace C1270 and C1271 at the same time. Odds are very good that they will be the next to go. Most have replaced them with 35v rated capacitors, which should be plenty of margin. Also, all four capacitors are 680 uF. Anything larger than that is OK. These are filter capacitors--so value is not critical. Higher is better (but unnecessary). Just make sure that unusual mounting arrangements don't block airflow too much.
I didn't have to change my cable box and I have Comcast. I just did the channel up/down reset. Went through the setup procedure. If you get the same channels as downtown Boston, I used 02118 or 02116 as the zip. Waited a few days and it's fine.
I have Comcast in Calif, & yes, TVG is not coming in at the moment. But don't panic, this happens EVERY year for about 1-2 weeks. Could be why some people are having weird things happening. Use clicktv.com, find the stuff you want to record & you can still use your TVG screen to select what to record, you just won't have a name on each program.
The engineering manager at WBZ--bless his heart--followed through on my problem with Comcast. He emailed me today that Comcast had traced my TVGOS issue to a problem in my local Comcast area--something about the way the WBZ signal is processed at a transmission point in Woburn. The data's being stripped out. They haven't fixed it yet, but they're working on it. He asked me to let him know when it's working again. Isn't it great when someone actually takes the trouble to help you get to the bottom of a problem? Half the relief comes just from knowing that the problem isn't in my Panasonic.
Good advice. But sometimes there really is a problem, and if you can just figure out who to tell about it, you can get someone working on it. Couple of years ago, something else was going on, and I somehow got through to the TV Guide people in my area--a minor miracle in itself. They fixed it when I told them about it. Then there was the time my unit came back from the repair center--about two days before they got a new firmware upgrade, brought on by some change Comcast had made in the signal. So you just never know. That's why it makes me happy to know for a fact that there's a problem somewhere else.
I like that suggestion about using click tv. Actually any tv guide can help because you can read and see what is coming on your favorite stations etc and just select those boxes to be recorded on the pana. However, there is one minor drawback. You do have to check several boxes on the pana for a two hour movie, for example. And you end up with four separate files on your HDD for a two hour show etc. Still, it did help me being able to just read the time out of a tv guide and choose my shows when the tvgos went down. It was down almost six weeks here in calif. desert.
They're right. Call whichever local station was carrying your feed and ask to speak to a broadcast engineer. They're the ones who actually know what's going on, and who talk to the people at the cable companies who know what's going on. They both have to get it right to make it work. But the customer service people are (as the engineer I talked to put it) about three levels of competence away from even knowing what you're talking about.
