Thomson: Sky+ 160

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Steve, East Anglia on November 18th, 2009
If you're willing to have a go at fixing it, then do so... i've had my sky+ box for 6 years now... my hard disk started freezing... the problem was the cooling fan power supply failed and it all over-heated.... i bought a new coolling fan on-line from a spares website... only to find the fan was actually fine, but the power supply had failed to it. If you have some time, find a 12V output from the PCB and wire this to the rear cooling fan.. may be also worth fitting an internal fan to blow air over the hard disk.... I did and the box is now 6 years old... Good luck

vinny on March 6th, 2009
sky+ box is a waste of time if your thinking of upgrading to any other package and then downgrading after a month or so,as everything you have recorded onto your hard drive on the sky+ box gets wiped when you downgrade,for example,if you have taken out the movie package or the sports package and have recorde loads of movies and or football games but you cant watch them at the time and this is why you have recorded them,then you decide to downgrade and get rid of the movie package and the sport. well dont think you will be able to watch the things you have recorded onto your sky+ because you won't,they will also get wiped aswell,even though you paid for them at the time you had these movies/sports or even any of the 6 packages,you will not be able to watch the things you have recorded unless you upgrade again,this is an ongoing issue with sky and we will be taking this further as its daylight robery,we have spoken to a manager but even she couldnt tell us where in the terms and conditions that it states that sky would wipe all ur recorded programmes if you downgrade a package,i will be curently trying to get my money back for the sky movies,hope this helps sombody else that wants to take out any other package and then decide to downgrade,i would think very carfully b4 you get any other package,i will not be upgrading my sky ever again because of this,thanks for reading ☺

Tam, Scotland on April 23rd, 2008
I have worked on the Sky Tech line now for 2years and I have to say DONT GO FOR SKY!!! Trust me its not worth the money! If you want the Rec and live pause go for the BT Vision Box! same size of hard drive and you dont get the osm No Sat Sig! All the sky boxes tend to do is break if you start getting a freezing pic it will soon come up with No Sat Sig! And dont even start me with the hard drives! If you start getting failed rec switck the box off at the wall take the dish inputs out leave it for a bit, put them back in and switch it on! if that dont work go for a full system reset but that will get rid of everything on the hard drive! services ,4, then 0,1 select! If that dont work DONT PAY for some third party cowboy to come out and bust it even more! Cancel and get a BT Vision box! do the same and they dont bust!

Freddie S, SE London on December 6th, 2007
Towards the end of the 1 year Guarantee period, I was bombarded with calls from an Asian call centre telling me I had to buy an extended warrantee. They got quite pushy and I got quite annoyed that I had to repeat time and again that I did not want to even be contacted about this. Well you can guess the rest. After 18 months I started to get all sorts of hard drive problems. The Sky helpdesk have now informed me that the hard drive needs to be replaced. Of course it’s not related or the fact that you have to keep your phone line connected – a similar thing that I need for remote access that I use in my work when administering servers remotely, applying patches and uploading scripts. Just who do they think they are?

Phil, Manchester on July 24th, 2007
I have had the 160 box 2 years now with lots of trouble. Many times it just switches itself into standby mode. The only way to get it to work again is to unplug and replug at the mains. No the picture started jerking and sound screeched so much so that now all I can get is the message NO SATELLITE SIGNAL BEING RECEIVED on a blue screen.

Norman, Belfast on May 7th, 2007
I have recently noticed poor sound quality i.e a very annoying hissing from my Thompson Sky+ 160 box the more the volume is increased. Has anyone out there had a similar problem and if so how was it resolved.

Tim, nr Bath on March 30th, 2007
Not impressed at all by the box. I have had at least one freeze up every week and the EPG is slow, so much so that I keep deleting my saved programmes in error. Finally I experience the SM1, 2, &3 sound issues. Sky+ is fantastic when it works, but this box is too buggy. On demand should be good when I get it though.

Mike, Knutsford on March 3rd, 2007
The box has worked fine since I got it 8 months ago. The only problem I get is that it stops working on the HDMI output about once every three weeks and needs a complete power off, leave of for a minute and switch back on. Always seems to happen on those rare occasions when there is something good on Sky.

Rhys, Cardiff on February 15th, 2007
I have Sky HD and Sky plus in the same open cabinet (feeding different TVs in different rooms). The problem being that the Sky plus remote activates both boxes - the sky HD only activates the Sky HD. Anyone know where the infrared receiver is on a sky HD box; or know how to disable a sky plus handset??

Greg, Northern Ireland on February 10th, 2007
I have been having a problem with a Pace2500 sky box will not come out of the reboot mode. So what is wrong? By the way your web site is great and very informative.

Bob, Wales on January 27th, 2007
I suffer from the same as Colin's point above also with regard to the amplification on RF2. Does anyone have any hints on how can help rather than buy a PACE box! ????

Mike, Sittingbourne on January 12th, 2007
Awful - continually freezes. Only option is to reboot at the mains.

Colin, Christchurch, Dorset on January 12th, 2007
The Thomson SKY+ box is NO GOOD if you wish to use it with a distribution system fed from the RF2 output. The RF modulator/loop through amplifier's performance is really poor resulting in patterning and grainy pictures. It's worst at channel high channels (68 is the default and really bad) but pretty grim all the way down to 21. IF YOU'RE GOING TO FEED A DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM, DON'T GET THOMSON - THE PACE IS MUCH MUCH BETTER!

Steve, Cornwall on January 10th, 2007
Well I am a sky engineer, have been doing it over a year now, so I know what I am talking about. I have read most of these comments about the sky plus boxes, firstly I agree that trying to get hold of them is at sometimes a joke....and that these sky plus boxes’ are prone to problems.... but I do think, that problems can occur from number or reasons....maybe the engineer could not source the original/right problem.... is the customer, confident enough to actually work it, have they been given a demo on how to use the box..... you have to all remember its a delicate piece of equipment...there are lots of reasons for different problems, it makes you laugh coz the customer thinks there right but there not always...some of the time its the person and not the product, I’ve had my 2 sky plus boxes’ from new 5 years ago before I started working for them, I’ve had one problem... if you do book a service call, ask for a sky engineer, don’t have a sub contractor.

bailey eastbourne on January 10th, 2007
after exacly a year this box is useless sky say it is not repairable they do not install it now as parts are no longer available avoid it with a bargepole

Martin, Devon on December 26th, 2006
Well, reading this I wonder how long my new purchase will last. I bought it reconditioned from a local supplier, and they have said it is an early model which has a different firmware from the faulty batch? Umm....lets wait and see! So far working very well - and I am working it hard. I have 12 months warrenty, so will take it as it comes for now!

Q Mayberry, Scotland on December 4th, 2006
Our Thomson 160 box is exhibiting the same problems everyone else is getting. We are also getting the flashing screen on recordings. i.e. the recorded program goes to a blank screen then back to the recording, it does that about 3 to 5 times at around half second intervals, really irratating.

Rosie, Corby on August 19th, 2006
Upgraded to Sky+160 Thomson DS16210 in Jan 2006. We thought picture didnt look so sharp right from the start. engineer said as we had kept our other sky + box and moved it into other room he would replace dish to improve picture- it didnt, but his opinion was that existing dish systems just are not designed to run more than one sky+ box.They dont tell you that when you ask about multiroom! It is very noisy, even when its doing nothing! we have also noticed a lot of discrepancy on volume settings particularly on movie channels. Why?! problems have slowly started to appear over the last few months: recordings failing- apparently loss of signal/unknown reason being most common cause, failing to respond to remote and having to be rebooted,( this is starting to happen a lot), but the most recent is beginning to drive us mad- the picture starts to flash, stops and starts and turns black and white for about 20-30 seconds. At first it was only happening on recorded programmes but now it is also occuring on live tv, and just this morning I was reading the news headlines on BBCi when it happened. has anyone else had this problem? I will be contacting Sky once I have watched the recorded material I have, as I know that once they run "housekeeping", I will lose everything. I dont intend to phone them as I am fed up with the waiting. Instead I will send a recorded delivery letter to the CEO of SKY ( just google to find his name) stating that this box is not fit for the purpose for which it was intended- and yes if Sky knew they were selling faulty boxes and the complaints I have read seem to indicate this, you certainly do have six years to claim your money back under the sale of goods act. I was very interested to see the last comment about Sky saying the 160 box doesnt exist any more- I have thought for some time that these boxes were being got rid of quick at Xmas because there was something wrong with them, that and the fact that HD was just around the corner! So people, now is the time to do something- get in touch by letter and/or email with SKY's CEO and show him we are not the mugs he took us for!

Mo Styles, Walton on August 19th, 2006
Even when brand new, the 160+ box started to play the sound out of sync with the picture, but now after 14 months the box has chosen to end its days in standby, like it seems most of them do. Sky charge £55 for an engineer to fix a box outside of warranty. Maybe they will fix it or maybe I will enjoy more pleasures and frustration!

Tom, Derby on July 3rd, 2006
Just called sky about a possible upgrade from the standard 80Gb Box to the 160 and they told me that the 160 no longer exists!!! That didn't last long did it!

Phil, Manchester on May 27th, 2006
Had the box about 2 months. Now it keeps switching itself into STANDBY mode. This happens at least twice a week now. When I managed to get it back on I often find I can only get BBC1 through to Channel 5 then Sky 1, 2 & 3 with nothing else. I lose planned recordings. As the engineer showed me how it worked I didn't need to look at the instruction manual. Since this happened I looked in the box and found that I haven't even had an instruction manual. Can anyone please tell me how the COPY mode on the planner works. For this I had also to upgrade my Sky package which is around £35 a month even though I don't watch the upgraded channels. I wouldn't mind if the box worked OK and was reliable.

Roger, Chester on April 18th, 2006
Usual problem with my sky+ 160 stuck in standby, its only 6 months old.Bought of a company via the internet who are no longer trading, Thomson and sky don't want to know. this really is a dreadful piece of kit. Replaced it with an 80gig box.Steer clear. As sky are now punting the new HD box I can't see them investing in inprovements ets to the 160's sound and operating issues. You have been warned

Scott, Northumberland on April 6th, 2006
had my 160 for about 8 months now onto second box as sound kept dipping on movies.im onto second box had the same problem but went away after few weeks.it started playing up again when sky where doing there overhall in febuary but fine now,touch wood.mine got stuck in standby a while ago but after unplugging about 5 times came back on.but i can suggest a fix to stop this problem,dont put it in standby at all.as i live in large household the box is nearly always on day and night.on the rare ocassion it was put in standby it locked up.i also have epg problems after being in standby.our old box was always on and we never had any trouble with it all five years we had it...also has many of you contacted bbc watchdog about this box with the amount of complaints we have you would think they would do a article about it..

ijd, Surrey on March 31st, 2006
Excellent box, very easy, runs silent (in wooden av unit) never missed a recording, live pause got stuck once, ten minuite phone call to sky resolved this. "sky did a tweak their end, followed by reboot" 5.1 sounds spot on. I can only sing praise for this box, had it for about 8 months now

Steve, Portsmouth on March 29th, 2006
I recently got 160 as a "reward" for recommending a friend. It's been more like a punishment. First box was awful, sound was bad, box froze, couldn't toggle through favourites, probles rewinding/ffwding, so now I'm on my second. Sound still "clicks" when I change channel, picture goes out of focus when i RW/FF. It has lots of annoying little things that my previous PACE box didn't. I've written to Sky and am awaiting their reply. I don't want the 160 box anymore, I'm going to put my old PACE box in. Less disk space, but at least it works....

P Swash, Colchester on February 25th, 2006
Had Sky installed for 4 months. Now onto our second Thomson box. Continues to crash (4 times a week at least and increasing). Sky engineer will come and replace box only to have same problems once again. Latest problem is when deleting recordings, it freezes then you have to do a major reboot. When it comes on again, all previous recordings have failed.

I Gardner on February 24th, 2006
2nd Sky+ Box just froze. Pity as the concept is fine. Sky responsible under Sale of Goods for faults due to poor design, workmanship, parts etc - possibly for up to 6 years from date of purchase. Class action soon? Or will Watchdog take up?

Mike, Milton Keynes on February 21st, 2006
Only 4 weeks old and the HDD cooling fan is making more noise than it should (I can hear it from upstairs!). I e-mailed Sky and they chose to ignore my observation that it is the fan and instead informed me that they will soon be doing a software upgrade that will reduce the "clicking" noise coming from the HDD (I know the difference between drive noise and fan noise! Unfortunately Sky think all their customers are idiots). I have managed to find a 40mm fan and will replace it myself when it arrives.

John, Chelmsford on February 21st, 2006
Now on my 4th 160 box. Sound has dropped out on recorded movies on each box. Last one took 1hr 30minutes on 0870 number queue to just report the fault.

Shezad, Glasgow on February 15th, 2006
When playing movies most of the sound is missing. I thought it might have been because of bad weather. Now I am wise to the damn problem. Sky engineer said it was good twice when installing it. I ignored him the 1st time when he said it but he repeated now that I think back, I think he was taking the piss.

Martin, Oxford on February 14th, 2006
I have lost all faith in the power of the intranet, why can't we find out why this 'stuck in standby' happens and how it can be fixed? Is there a graveyard at this Thompson company where all the Sky plus 160 boxes are dumped, never to come out of the 'stuck in standby' coma?...my 2nd Sky plus 160 just failed again like the first, stuck in standby. I've tried all the tricks, forced the software update, opened it up, checked all conenctions, but it's clear that it won't start becasue the hard disc dosn't start spinning when I plug it in. The only sign of life in this box is the red standby light. Such a pain, these Sky/Thompson people must be made respsonsible!

Jason, Aylesbury on February 14th, 2006
Obviously much improved from the Amstrad unit aside from the capacity most notably the instant responce to the remote down TVlink. The first digibox suffered the 'stuck-in-standby' problem when engineer tried to install so had to be replaced.

Rob, Great Yarmouth on February 10th, 2006
My Thomson Sky+160 Box is changing channels of its own accord. I am watching a programme when it shows channel numbers being entered by someone in the house with a remote control. But I live alone and no one else is in the house. Sky are not aware of this problem.

Ron , Whitchurch , Shropshire on February 8th, 2006
Recently aquired a Thomson 160 through the recommend a friend scheme, reading the comments on here whilst waiting for the installation got a bit concerned and as it turned out I was right to worry. I have had a Pace V2 box for 2 years what a clever piece of kit, my wife thinks more of it than she does me and its been really good, just the occasional lock up (easily remedied). The Thomson has been a nightmare freezing, lost recordings,noisy in fact totaly unreliable my wife was putting things in a suitcase! Our belove Pace was reinstalled and tranquility was resumed. Oh and my wife has decided to stay. THOMSON SKY + 160 AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE!

Alan, Billericay on February 7th, 2006
Has ANYONE found the answer to the "stuck in standby" problem so obviously inherent to this box. Just had box No 5 changed (warranty runs out in 4 wks so big problem). Does anyone know of an alternate. Sky is just not interested and simply lies about the reliability of the 160+ box. They always state we have had a very few reports of this problem. As for the engineers well they simply delivery drivers whose knowledge extends to the installation for new customers, or how to change an existing box. Isn't sky's monopoly a wonderful thing!!

K Dinshaw, Gerrards Cross on January 23rd, 2006
Got the sky+160 in september. Froze in standby, replaced in November. Yesterday, froze in standby again. Unimpressed with the engineers who have come out so far. Also, Sky had nerve to tell me that this is not a common problem with this box - have they read these pages at all?!?

Min, North Shields on January 18th, 2006
Ive had my sky + for 2 years now and had hiccups at 1st but no major problems. wheever they do downloads to it it usualy plays up for a while but save your money and switch off everything wait 5 mins and reboot usualy works and its all they tell u when u ring up anyway

Mary, Ireland on January 11th, 2006
Logged a call with sky as 160 + box stuck on standby... took day off work to wait for all day engineer call out - engineer did not come as out of stock on sky+ 160 boxes.. was on phone to sky to rectify matter - they refuse to compensate for loss of day and refuse to give a time of day when engineeer will replace same. They must really think we are fools to waste day on them.. very poor service.

Dave Wilson, Saffron, Walden, Essex on January 7th, 2006
Bought this box when first come out, 15 months ago. Have just had 5th replacement box fitted (freezes on standby) and guess what Sky now want £65 call out as year warranty has elapsed. (Warranty is on the deal not the kit) happy to replace box each time but I now have to pay. (Unbelievable) This product is unstable. I am going to try and change for the smaller box and try and get the money difference back from sky. (I am not holding my breath) This box needs to be upgraded and tested before they continue to sell the system. Lost everything I have recorded each time. TEDIOUS

Steve, Ipswich on January 5th, 2006
Had my sky plus box since mid sept. Not had any of the bad problems others seem to have suffered. Keeping my fingers crossed. Gripes so far: 1) RF picture quality isn't very good. Signal is either too strong or too weak, either way it don't look right! Scart output is fine though. 2) Noise from the hard disk is louder then you'd like in your lounge. Soon as mine is over a year old I'm planning on swapping the disk. 3) Sound level. I usually have the TV volume set fairly low. Sometimes when turning the TV on, the volume coming from the box is really low.. I have to turn the TV way up. Some times it is really loud and you can't turn the TV volume down enough. A quick trip to standby fixes the problem. Never had this problem from my Panasonic sky box, so i don't think its the TV at fault. 4) No Satellite Signal Received. Had this message twice now in the 4ish months I've had the thing. Checking the signal test shows both signals strong and locked. A power cycle is needed to fix this one. 5) EPG, recording and series link. Sometimes series link doesn't find episodes of something, so you have to manually set the recording of something. Good points: Being able to set it to record stuff with series link is brilliant! Pausing and rewind live TV, excellent! But i think our favourite feature... skipping adverts at 30x fast forward! For me the good points are out weigh the gripes right now. if you can get a reliable 160 box, its well worth it!