How to fix the FVRT100 internal 5V HDD supply? - Digifusion

immcinto · 14-12-2005, 12:15

My FVRT100 packed in for the 3rd time (stuck in hold) but this time it isn't the power supply nor is it the 1.7.5 bug that requires a reset by holding in the two RH buttons when powering up.

I phoned Fusion and I just got commiserations so it seems like I am going to have to delve into the box. I have seen users in the forum suggesting that a very common problem is that the 5V internal supply dies (possibly due to the caps drying out). Has anyone found the actual weak link (i.e. where should I start looking)?

Any guidance would be of great help. If no-one has actually fixed a genuinely dead box then I suppose I will have to be the guinea pig

.jim.

CJL · 14-12-2005, 12:17

How do you know "this time it isn't the power supply" ??

In 99 cases out of 100 it IS the power supply that leads to "stuck in hold" problems.

Cliff

immcinto · 14-12-2005, 12:21

Quote:

How do you know "this time it isn't the power supply" ??

Hi CJL, I know it isn't the PSU as I used a Thurlby Thander 4A Bench Supply to power up the box.

.jim.

CJL · 14-12-2005, 13:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by immcinto

Hi CJL, I know it isn't the PSU as I used a Thurlby Thander 4A Bench Supply to power up the box.

.jim.

Oh right - yup that'd be a pretty fair test then

Did you try probing the 5V/12V lines to the HDD with a DVM or 'scope? Is the 12V "sagging" by any chance?

Someone previously suggested that it may be heat damage to large the electrolytics on the main board.

Cliff

(personally I use a second PC ATX PSU connected direct to the HDD to make the 160GB Seagate I use work in my Fusion - even with a DigiDave PSU the 5/12 from the PCB will not get my drive out of "hold")

immcinto · 14-12-2005, 13:18

Quote:

Did you try probing the 5V/12V lines to the HDD with a DVM or 'scope? Is the 12V "sagging" by any chance?

Thanks for the response CJL. I will get into the guts of the machine tonight or tomorrow. I will have a look at the 12V & 5V line with a scope.

.jim.

Dave101 · 14-12-2005, 16:16

Hi,

Yup, had the same problem here, I managed OK for about 4 months with a "Digi Dave" supply but have since had to supply the HDD directly.

I did not waste a lot of time checking out what exactly the problem was with the onboard supply to the drive, other than to stick a DVM on the pins... This however did not prove a lot - the voltages seemed normal, aslo going back 4 months when I ditched the original PSU, again just checking the voltage proved nothing.

I did notice that the capacitors near the output pins do seem to get very hot, which is why I suspect them to be a possible cause of the problem. ( To my knowlege capacitors do not like too much heat! )

Unfortunatley due to the box being in constant use, I have not had the opportunity to replace them, and chose the quickest route to get it back working.
I used an old PC PSU, changed the PSU fan to run off 5V to make it silent, (the FVRT100 will not cause this PSU to run hot anyway) and I cut the old plug lead off the original PSU and connected it to one of the spare PC PSU HDD plugs and one of the others goes directly to the HDD.

zombie woof · 14-12-2005, 18:28

My HDD has been running successfully on a separate external PSU for ages.

Does anybody know what the 12V and 5V supplies to a HDD do?

CJL · 15-12-2005, 10:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by zombie woof

Does anybody know what the 12V and 5V supplies to a HDD do?

Errr... they power it?

The 12V is used to spin the motor while the 5V is for the board of digital control electronics. The current on the 5V line wil be miniscule (handful of milliAmps) while the current drawn on the 12V will be considerable - one or two amps.

Cliff

immcinto · 15-12-2005, 13:15

UPDATE
------
I tried powering up the unit in the configuration that Dave101 suggests (PC PSU directly into HDD with PCPSU 12V supplying the Fusion box) but had no joy.

I did manage to get the unit working for a bit (clock came up) by putting a 220uF cap across the 12V HDD supply line (this was when the Fusion was providing the power for the HDD). What I did exactly was--->
1) Powered on unit and waited until <hold> had been displaying for too long
2) Put a fully discharged 220uF across +12V to GND (PCB to HDD). This sounded like it cycled the power on the HDD and loa nd behold the clock came up! Clock stayed up even after I removed Cap. This worked 2 or 3 times.

All in all it sounds like I have a dodgy HDD (anyone disagree?).
I think that the fact that the fault was intermittent for a while also points to a HDD failure.

Anyway, I am going to try another HDD in there - is it true that I can stick any working HDD in there and something should happen (getting as far the clock displaying at least)? Also, if it id a faulty HDD would any of you upgraders out there be up for selling me their old Maxtor 40GB for £20 (or there abouts)? I'll Paypal you!!

zombie woof · 15-12-2005, 13:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by CJL

Errr... they power it?

The 12V is used to spin the motor while the 5V is for the board of digital control electronics. The current on the 5V line wil be miniscule (handful of milliAmps) while the current drawn on the 12V will be considerable - one or two amps.

Cliff

That's the answer I'm after. Wasn't sure what each supply did. In that case it's unlikely to be the 5V supply that's deteriorating. Just need to find out what is throttling the current on the 12V supply.

I was aware that the supplies powered the drive, but thanks for the reassurance anyway.

CJL · 15-12-2005, 13:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by immcinto

is it true that I can stick any working HDD in there and something should happen (getting as far the clock displaying at least)?

Yup any HDD, jumpered as "cable select" should work and the Fusion will think its unformatted and go through the whole first time installation process all over again (which includes putting "4TV format" on the drive)

Cliff

immcinto · 16-12-2005, 11:26

I swapped the 40GB Maxtor for an old 4.7GB HDD. I powered up the box and the hold stayed on for a bit long bit long but then the clock flashed up quickly then the display went blank (except for dull red LED). I left it for half an hour but the display remained blank (HDD still whizzing away). I assume that the Fusion was trying to format but the HDD is to slow and small. I hope so anyway!

Also, when I put the old HDD back in. It stayed in hold as usual but I left it for 10 min and when I came back the clock up up

This was repeatable. I will take the box home and see if I can squeeze a few more days use out of it with the old HDD until I get the new HDD.

.jim.

zombie woof · 16-12-2005, 11:47

Another drive will work, just make sure you read the upgrading the HDD thread. Many ordinary drives draw too much power and cause all kinds of strange problems.

red16v · 18-12-2005, 20:39

Hi, if you access to capacitors - do you also have access to an ESR meter ? if you did you could very quickly 'run it' across the caps on your PCB and see if any of the caps were duff ?

immcinto · 29-12-2005, 12:12

Hi All, finally managed to fix the machine - I bought an identical replacement 2F040L0 HDD from
www.upgradeit.co.uk
and the machine now works fine.

red16v - I don't have an ESR meter, only a network analyzer which won't work inline. Didn't need to change the Caps anyway (probably will soon though)!

I now have the frigging 1.6.3 EPG crash every night though

- at least it isn't my machine.

Hope this help others with debug

.jim.

red16v · 08-01-2006, 14:08

Hi, I see it was way back in August when I first alerted members of this board to the potential problems and limitations with the 2A powerpack supplied with some Digifusions. Reading the ongoing threads I'm glad that quite a few members have been able to nail down quite of few of the Digifusion problems to the psu. Digifusion seem to help when they can (ie, in warranty) and many have found a cure buying alternative power supply 'arrangements'. I see that a few people have bought new PSU's and it has not solved the problem and in a couple of posts above I have suggested that maybe some internal capacitors on the motherboard might have become hot and 'given up the ghost' ? I haven't delved inside my own box for many months now since it has settled down to become reliable - (that's not to say that I don't still have misgivings about Digifusions backup) so I don't know if the inside of the box gets hot or not or whether some of the internal capacitors have suffered due to heat or not. To try and get some sort of definitive answer to this I will take my box along to work in a couple of weeks time and check the internal capacitors with an ESR meter (this device can give you a very good indication of whether a capacitor is ok or not - or, on the way out or not) I'll post again on this thread with my findings - but it will be a couple of weeks. Regards, yt.

KenG · 26-01-2006, 19:06

Anyone know what the 1858 number means in the display when on standby?
This is all I get now after buying the Digidave PSU because all I had was HOLD. Now I get only channel 1 via the remote (at least it now turns on). Nothing works on the front panel either! Remote is working as the led flashes on the panel. This is the second one I've had but now this one is out of warranty.

How does one format the drive?

zombie woof · 26-01-2006, 19:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by KenG

Anyone know what the 1858 number means in the display when on standby?
This is all I get now after buying the Digidave PSU because all I had was HOLD. Now I get only channel 1 via the remote (at least it now turns on). Nothing works on the front panel either! Remote is working as the led flashes on the panel. This is the second one I've had but now this one is out of warranty.

How does one format the drive?

It wasn't 2 minutes to seven when you looked at it by any chance?

180dukebox · 08-02-2006, 18:04

The 2A PSU is right on it's limit but. The hold problem is down to the 5V rail mainly.

After fitting a new 160GB disk all I got was the hold message. After scoping the supply rails inside I discovered that the 5V rail to the disk dips quite dramatically and becomes very noisy (ripple) at boot up for a short time, but long enough to cause a reset of the disk electronics, by then the Digifusion has booted and the disk is now not yet ready again.
immcinto was on the right track. I put a 6800uf capacitor at the output of the 5V regulator and now all is well again. It holds the 5V rail up for long enough to ride over the brown out.

I think this was also the cause of my box occasionally locking up before. When the disk was being accessed heavily it would lock up and need a power down reboot to get it going again.

The small 5V on board switching regulator is again right on it's limit and the tiny smoothing caps used on the output are just not big enough.

Also but maybe not necessary I moved the 12V rail for the disk to directly from the 12V input from the PSU.
For some strange reason the 12V for the disk comes from the rear connector then passes through an inductor and a diode before reaching the disk. So If the PSU is supplying exactly 12V (on a good day) then the disk only ever sees 11.3V of it.

Since then it has been very reliable.

180dukebox · 08-02-2006, 18:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by zombie woof

Another drive will work, just make sure you read the upgrading the HDD thread. Many ordinary drives draw too much power and cause all kinds of strange problems.

Yep I agree, the 160GB Maxtor I have fitted draws almost twice as much current as the old 40GB, but with the capacitor mod I did above, it works perfectly.

However I do have the new type 3A SMPSU. I would imagine that this would all be too much for the old 2A SMPSU's

CJL · 09-02-2006, 10:46

180,

That's brilliant info but as I'm more of a bit basher than a nuts and bolts man can you provide more details of the exact spec of the 6800uF cap and exactly where it should be connected as I'd like to try this mod so I can ditch the secondary PSU (USB caddy) I have to power my upgrade 160GB drive?

Cliff

180dukebox · 09-02-2006, 15:16

Ok,

Well the 6800uf cap was what I had to hand at the time, but I would expect anything around that value would do it, maybe even as low as 4700uf. But obviously the bigger the better. 10 Volts or higher is fine.
The cap I used was robbed from an old ATX PC power supply that blew up. As it was too tall for the case I just taped it to the case an ran a couple of wires to it. Messy I know but it works.

Here is a few pics
Case Pic
Pic1
Pic2
Pic3

The last picture being the most usefull I guess.

The +ve side of the cap goes to the 5V+ marking on the motherboard, there is a nice big solder pad next to the black inductor in the picture. The -ve side goes to either of the pads marked 0V in the picture.

As you can see I have lifted the 12V wire for the disk out of the connector and run it to one of the pads marked 12V+ on the motherboard.

The fan mounted in the case top is a temp controlled job from panasonic. As the airflow warms up the fan spins faster. It is very quiet and the case is always cool to touch, the disk seems to run nice an cool too, pity it looks a bit ugly cut into the case top, but you can't have everything

Hope this helps.

zombie woof · 10-02-2006, 14:40

Thanks duke for sussing it out, I think that's the mod everyones been waiting for. I'm certainly grateful.

Are you still using the small fan under the HDD as well? Also, can you post the details of the Panasonic fan?

180dukebox · 13-02-2006, 15:07

Pretty sure that this will sort out most peoples "HOLD" problems.
I just bought a FVRT150 off ebay with a 2A psu and stuck in "HOLD"
I did the mod I talked about above, still using the 2A psu and it now works fine.

Digifusion fvtr 150 mod

Slightly neater than the one it did on my 100.

BTW. The fan I fitted on the 100 was a Panaflo FBA08A12V, don't seem to be able to find anywhere you can get it now though. Also no I don't have the small original fan connected any more.

mikemikemike · 13-02-2006, 16:06

you will be loading the driving circuit a fair bit more with a cap that size on such a circuit possibly putting a strain on components upstream

If you are changing or even checking PSU caps - ensure the temp rating is 105 if it gets warm in there.
Also bear in mind electrolytic caps dry out over time (even if they aren't used)

14-12-2005, 12:15	#1
immcinto Forum Member Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Longniddry, East Lothian Posts: 78	How to fix the FVRT100 internal 5V HDD supply? My FVRT100 packed in for the 3rd time (stuck in hold) but this time it isn't the power supply nor is it the 1.7.5 bug that requires a reset by holding in the two RH buttons when powering up. I phoned Fusion and I just got commiserations so it seems like I am going to have to delve into the box. I have seen users in the forum suggesting that a very common problem is that the 5V internal supply dies (possibly due to the caps drying out). Has anyone found the actual weak link (i.e. where should I start looking)? Any guidance would be of great help. If no-one has actually fixed a genuinely dead box then I suppose I will have to be the guinea pig .jim.

14-12-2005, 12:17	#2
CJL Forum Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Finchingfield, Essex Services: Fusion100+Fusion200 PVRs, Streamium SL300i, Panasonic E55, Plusnet 8Mb ADSL Posts: 5,511	How do you know "this time it isn't the power supply" ?? In 99 cases out of 100 it IS the power supply that leads to "stuck in hold" problems. Cliff

14-12-2005, 16:16	#6
Dave101 Forum Member Join Date: Jun 2004 Posts: 181	Hi, Yup, had the same problem here, I managed OK for about 4 months with a "Digi Dave" supply but have since had to supply the HDD directly. I did not waste a lot of time checking out what exactly the problem was with the onboard supply to the drive, other than to stick a DVM on the pins... This however did not prove a lot - the voltages seemed normal, aslo going back 4 months when I ditched the original PSU, again just checking the voltage proved nothing. I did notice that the capacitors near the output pins do seem to get very hot, which is why I suspect them to be a possible cause of the problem. ( To my knowlege capacitors do not like too much heat! ) Unfortunatley due to the box being in constant use, I have not had the opportunity to replace them, and chose the quickest route to get it back working. I used an old PC PSU, changed the PSU fan to run off 5V to make it silent, (the FVRT100 will not cause this PSU to run hot anyway) and I cut the old plug lead off the original PSU and connected it to one of the spare PC PSU HDD plugs and one of the others goes directly to the HDD.

14-12-2005, 18:28	#7
zombie woof Forum Member Join Date: May 2005 Location: Hannington trans. Services: FVRT 100, 160 Gb HDD, Cap. mod., Flashed modified 200 FW + No scenes patch Posts: 6,023	My HDD has been running successfully on a separate external PSU for ages. Does anybody know what the 12V and 5V supplies to a HDD do?

15-12-2005, 13:15	#9
immcinto Forum Member Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Longniddry, East Lothian Posts: 78	UPDATE ------ I tried powering up the unit in the configuration that Dave101 suggests (PC PSU directly into HDD with PCPSU 12V supplying the Fusion box) but had no joy. I did manage to get the unit working for a bit (clock came up) by putting a 220uF cap across the 12V HDD supply line (this was when the Fusion was providing the power for the HDD). What I did exactly was---> 1) Powered on unit and waited until <hold> had been displaying for too long 2) Put a fully discharged 220uF across +12V to GND (PCB to HDD). This sounded like it cycled the power on the HDD and loa nd behold the clock came up! Clock stayed up even after I removed Cap. This worked 2 or 3 times. All in all it sounds like I have a dodgy HDD (anyone disagree?). I think that the fact that the fault was intermittent for a while also points to a HDD failure. Anyway, I am going to try another HDD in there - is it true that I can stick any working HDD in there and something should happen (getting as far the clock displaying at least)? Also, if it id a faulty HDD would any of you upgraders out there be up for selling me their old Maxtor 40GB for £20 (or there abouts)? I'll Paypal you!!

16-12-2005, 11:26	#12
immcinto Forum Member Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Longniddry, East Lothian Posts: 78	I swapped the 40GB Maxtor for an old 4.7GB HDD. I powered up the box and the hold stayed on for a bit long bit long but then the clock flashed up quickly then the display went blank (except for dull red LED). I left it for half an hour but the display remained blank (HDD still whizzing away). I assume that the Fusion was trying to format but the HDD is to slow and small. I hope so anyway! Also, when I put the old HDD back in. It stayed in hold as usual but I left it for 10 min and when I came back the clock up up This was repeatable. I will take the box home and see if I can squeeze a few more days use out of it with the old HDD until I get the new HDD. .jim.

16-12-2005, 11:47	#13
zombie woof Forum Member Join Date: May 2005 Location: Hannington trans. Services: FVRT 100, 160 Gb HDD, Cap. mod., Flashed modified 200 FW + No scenes patch Posts: 6,023	Another drive will work, just make sure you read the upgrading the HDD thread. Many ordinary drives draw too much power and cause all kinds of strange problems.

18-12-2005, 20:39	#14
red16v Forum Member Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 1,122	Hi, if you access to capacitors - do you also have access to an ESR meter ? if you did you could very quickly 'run it' across the caps on your PCB and see if any of the caps were duff ?

29-12-2005, 12:12	#15
immcinto Forum Member Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Longniddry, East Lothian Posts: 78	Hi All, finally managed to fix the machine - I bought an identical replacement 2F040L0 HDD from www.upgradeit.co.uk and the machine now works fine. red16v - I don't have an ESR meter, only a network analyzer which won't work inline. Didn't need to change the Caps anyway (probably will soon though)! I now have the frigging 1.6.3 EPG crash every night though - at least it isn't my machine. Hope this help others with debug .jim.

08-01-2006, 14:08	#16
red16v Forum Member Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 1,122	Hi, I see it was way back in August when I first alerted members of this board to the potential problems and limitations with the 2A powerpack supplied with some Digifusions. Reading the ongoing threads I'm glad that quite a few members have been able to nail down quite of few of the Digifusion problems to the psu. Digifusion seem to help when they can (ie, in warranty) and many have found a cure buying alternative power supply 'arrangements'. I see that a few people have bought new PSU's and it has not solved the problem and in a couple of posts above I have suggested that maybe some internal capacitors on the motherboard might have become hot and 'given up the ghost' ? I haven't delved inside my own box for many months now since it has settled down to become reliable - (that's not to say that I don't still have misgivings about Digifusions backup) so I don't know if the inside of the box gets hot or not or whether some of the internal capacitors have suffered due to heat or not. To try and get some sort of definitive answer to this I will take my box along to work in a couple of weeks time and check the internal capacitors with an ESR meter (this device can give you a very good indication of whether a capacitor is ok or not - or, on the way out or not) I'll post again on this thread with my findings - but it will be a couple of weeks. Regards, yt.

26-01-2006, 19:06	#17
KenG Forum Member Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 31	Anyone know what the 1858 number means in the display when on standby? This is all I get now after buying the Digidave PSU because all I had was HOLD. Now I get only channel 1 via the remote (at least it now turns on). Nothing works on the front panel either! Remote is working as the led flashes on the panel. This is the second one I've had but now this one is out of warranty. How does one format the drive?

08-02-2006, 18:04	#19
180dukebox Forum Member Join Date: Feb 2006 Posts: 85	The 2A PSU is right on it's limit but. The hold problem is down to the 5V rail mainly. After fitting a new 160GB disk all I got was the hold message. After scoping the supply rails inside I discovered that the 5V rail to the disk dips quite dramatically and becomes very noisy (ripple) at boot up for a short time, but long enough to cause a reset of the disk electronics, by then the Digifusion has booted and the disk is now not yet ready again. immcinto was on the right track. I put a 6800uf capacitor at the output of the 5V regulator and now all is well again. It holds the 5V rail up for long enough to ride over the brown out. I think this was also the cause of my box occasionally locking up before. When the disk was being accessed heavily it would lock up and need a power down reboot to get it going again. The small 5V on board switching regulator is again right on it's limit and the tiny smoothing caps used on the output are just not big enough. Also but maybe not necessary I moved the 12V rail for the disk to directly from the 12V input from the PSU. For some strange reason the 12V for the disk comes from the rear connector then passes through an inductor and a diode before reaching the disk. So If the PSU is supplying exactly 12V (on a good day) then the disk only ever sees 11.3V of it. Since then it has been very reliable.

09-02-2006, 10:46	#21
CJL Forum Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Finchingfield, Essex Services: Fusion100+Fusion200 PVRs, Streamium SL300i, Panasonic E55, Plusnet 8Mb ADSL Posts: 5,511	180, That's brilliant info but as I'm more of a bit basher than a nuts and bolts man can you provide more details of the exact spec of the 6800uF cap and exactly where it should be connected as I'd like to try this mod so I can ditch the secondary PSU (USB caddy) I have to power my upgrade 160GB drive? Cliff

09-02-2006, 15:16	#22
180dukebox Forum Member Join Date: Feb 2006 Posts: 85	Ok, Well the 6800uf cap was what I had to hand at the time, but I would expect anything around that value would do it, maybe even as low as 4700uf. But obviously the bigger the better. 10 Volts or higher is fine. The cap I used was robbed from an old ATX PC power supply that blew up. As it was too tall for the case I just taped it to the case an ran a couple of wires to it. Messy I know but it works. Here is a few pics Case Pic Pic1 Pic2 Pic3 The last picture being the most usefull I guess. The +ve side of the cap goes to the 5V+ marking on the motherboard, there is a nice big solder pad next to the black inductor in the picture. The -ve side goes to either of the pads marked 0V in the picture. As you can see I have lifted the 12V wire for the disk out of the connector and run it to one of the pads marked 12V+ on the motherboard. The fan mounted in the case top is a temp controlled job from panasonic. As the airflow warms up the fan spins faster. It is very quiet and the case is always cool to touch, the disk seems to run nice an cool too, pity it looks a bit ugly cut into the case top, but you can't have everything Hope this helps.

10-02-2006, 14:40	#23
zombie woof Forum Member Join Date: May 2005 Location: Hannington trans. Services: FVRT 100, 160 Gb HDD, Cap. mod., Flashed modified 200 FW + No scenes patch Posts: 6,023	Thanks duke for sussing it out, I think that's the mod everyones been waiting for. I'm certainly grateful. Are you still using the small fan under the HDD as well? Also, can you post the details of the Panasonic fan?

13-02-2006, 15:07	#24
180dukebox Forum Member Join Date: Feb 2006 Posts: 85	Pretty sure that this will sort out most peoples "HOLD" problems. I just bought a FVRT150 off ebay with a 2A psu and stuck in "HOLD" I did the mod I talked about above, still using the 2A psu and it now works fine. Digifusion fvtr 150 mod Slightly neater than the one it did on my 100. BTW. The fan I fitted on the 100 was a Panaflo FBA08A12V, don't seem to be able to find anywhere you can get it now though. Also no I don't have the small original fan connected any more.

13-02-2006, 16:06	#25
mikemikemike Forum Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 50	you will be loading the driving circuit a fair bit more with a cap that size on such a circuit possibly putting a strain on components upstream If you are changing or even checking PSU caps - ensure the temp rating is 105 if it gets warm in there. Also bear in mind electrolytic caps dry out over time (even if they aren't used)