Sun 10th February 2008
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Yep, the Thomson Sky+ box we had installed just last week failed. I asked the installer if he had a Pace box on the van, but again, no he didn't.
This time, we have the ugliest of the Sky+ boxes, the Amstrad.
Fingers crossed that this one lasts longer than the normal week-long lifespan of a Thomson.
UPDATE: Well, seems I spoke too soon, the Amstrad has now just given up the ghost. It's making one heck of a racket and the screen keeps going black with a vertical green line across it. It's lasted no more than 2 hours after installation. Got to wait until Wednesday for our 5th Sky+ box to be installed now :( |
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Sun 3rd February 2008
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Well it had to happen didn't it? Sky turn up and fit the Thomson box and now we have problems (again)
The first box we ever had installed (which was replaced within the week) was a Thomson and it wouldn't boot up and wouldn't record anything.
This got changed for the lovely jubbly Pace box (which was quick and quiet) but a stroke of bad luck meant the Hard Drive failed :(
Now this new Thomson they have fitted is giving us trouble. When turned on after a long period of being in Standby, the hard drive spins up twice and you get the message on screen saying "There is a technical fault with this channel". After about 10 seconds this clears and the channel starts working properly but OMG it is soooo annoying.
Did a bit of digging on the web and it seems a recent Sky software upgrade has caused this fault. Apparently, it should get fixed in the next software update - but no idea when that is going to happen :( Got the same problem with your Sky+ box? Then clicky here. |
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Wed 30th January 2008
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A sad day indeed, our second Sky+ box in less than a year gave up the ghost overnight.
It's now making a low growling noise whilst turned on and will no longer record, rewind or pause - I suspect the hard drive has died.
Went through the normal troubleshooting over the phone but to no avail.
This also means that all of our stored programs and series links have been destroyed. The only saving grace is we managed to watch the new Prison Break episode last night before the box gave up the ghost.
Roll on Friday, thats when they're coming to fix it! I just hope the engineer has another Pace box on his van. |
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Tue 29th January 2008
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Yep, that's right, I finally retrieved my wallet from under the fridge, prised it open, and splashed out on a brand new PC.
The old one wasn't a bad spec to be fair, it just had this bizarre ability of not turning on if you looked at it funny. Or simply not tipping your hat and saying "Good day" when walking past it would cause it to beep randomly like one of those 1980's mobile phones. Maybe its due to the fact that it's spent the last two years in sub-zero conditions inside our conservatory?
Anyhoo, the new one is a DELL Vostro and comes with a 2.33GHz C2D 1333FSB Processor and 2GB RAM. When I received it, I tried running World of Warcraft and whoa there nelly! Jerkovision. So, I had to purchase a new 430W PSU and a sweet Sapphire Radeon HD3850 Graphics card.
With the upgrades, I get a steady 75FPS in WoW - just got to wait until April now to get my hands on a copy of Call of Duty 4. Then I can really push the card to it's limits. |
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