Thomson Sky HD Box (DSI8215)

Power Supply Unit and Hard Drive upgrade

Last updated: 16 September 2010
Video instructions coming soon

Think you've got a tuner problem?

Not locking on one signal?
Loss of some channels?
Juddering picture?
Blocking/Digitising?
Failed recordings?
Switching into standby?
Fans on continuously?
Stuck in standby?
The original Sky HD boxes, manufactured by Thomson (model number DSI8215 or 902020 or with serial
numbers beginning 4E300) are notorious for developing problems between 12 and 36 months old. This is
usually due to capacitors dying on the power supply unit (PSU). Either the combination of increased
processing power and a larger hard drive allegedly appears to have caught Thomson out or most people are
stacking their equipment without proper space for ventilation (see the numerous forums on this subject). Some
boxes never experience any problems, but often the first signs are that the box will tell you that there is a
problem with one of the input signals, followed by some channels missing then freezing, no picture at all,
switching into standby not coming out of standby or even not coming on at all. If the box is still under its 12
month warranty, Sky will simply come out and replace it altogether, but if it's outside its warranty, then Sky
typically charge 65 for a call-out and will give you a refurbished box with a 3-month warranty [these have
terrible track records] or will charge something in the region of 200 for a new one.
Gladly, there is a solution which is far more cost effective:
Satcure have developed a replacement set of capacitors with Digifix. You have three choices here:
1. Take out the PSU and send it to them for replacement.
2. Ask a local/national repairer to fix it for you - MY OWN REPAIR SERVICE IS AT THE BOTTOM
OF THIS PAGE. (Click Here).
3. Order a capacitor kit and do it yourself. (You need soldering skills for this one).
I am a local repairer and can do this for a small fee, but many people could do it themselves, so I've put
together this page to show how it can be done. You will need the following tools:

25watt Soldering Iron

Soldering Pump
Snips
Long-nosed Pliers
Philips Screwdriver
Flat Blade Screwdriver
Pronged 'grabber'
Craft Knife
Solder
Soldering Braid
Can of Pressurised Air (not essential)
Can WD-40 (useful)
Baby Oil (ooh-eer)
Of course, you'll also need Relkit33j or Relkit33js from Satcure

PSU UPGRADE

UNPLUG THE UNIT FIRST AND LEAVE IT FOR AT LEAST AN HOUR...

so that the capacitors discharge. If you don't do this and accidently touch the PCB terminals (even when
unplugged), you will be thrown across the room. [I will not be held responsible for your death]. Undo the
centre top screw on the backplate.

Using the flat-blade screwdriver, carefully lift the catches underneath one-by-one, whilst gently prising the
black cover away from the metal boxing. Note that you don't need to undo or loosen the six screws holding
the black casing together. If you do, you might find it easier, but it's then more difficult to put back together
afterwards.

Slide the black casing about 1.5cm away from the metal casing. Gently pull the sides outwards and lift the
metal box away.

Move the plastic cover away from you so that you don't sit on it, and carefully turn the metal case over. Note
that one of the front panel PCBs (with the lights on) is raised on legs. Be careful not to nudge this as the lights
won't be aligned when the cover goes back on.

Remove the two silver screws holding the top buttons PCB in place and gently lift the end furthest away from
you, towards you. You will be lifting the top cover next,
so this PCB needs to be out of the way.

Undo the three black screws on the left-hand side where the fan is and lift up the cover.

Inside should look like this... The PSU is the left-hand PCB - yes, the one with the fan in the way.

The main molex connector has a little hook on each end and they can become brittle and snap easily, so either
prise out the catch with a screwdriver and pull gently upwards, or warm up the plastic with a hairdryer, then
spray a little WD-40 on the plastic to loosen it and remove the cable.

Then the fan can be removed by hand. Simply pull it slowly to the right and the rubber plugs will stretch and
pop through. TOP TIP: Don't remove the rubber pins from the metal casingg.

With the fan removed, you will see a black screw in each corner of the PCB. Remove all four screws.

...and the one holding the power socket in place with the back panel.

Then the PCB can be removed.

Here you can actually see the culprits. In this example, there are four 'domed' or 'bulging' capacitors, with
three of them showing signs of leakage.

Here's a normal one on the left and a bulging one on the right to see a comparison

If your box was dead with no red light on the front, chances are, the resistor with the tail coming out the top
(R15) would have blown. This one is ok..

However, this one is blown and your Relkit33j will not be enough. You also need Satkit33j, which is a little
harder to fit and is also quite expensive.

Another sign of more damage than a Relkit33j will fix is D21 might have blown. This one is ok...

Whereas this one has flashed and died.

This is the area underneath a failed C14 capacitor (the big one). This PSU is toast, literally, and is completely
unrepairable. It's a wonder the unit didn't catch fire. Amazingly, the fuse was OK, although the glass was
broken!!!

So assuming you have the right kit(s), then you need to desolder each of the solder joints of all the capacitors
and remove them. Not some, but all. Just because they are not bulging, it doesn't mean they are ok. It's better
to replace the lot if you've come this far.

If you need to, tidy up the hole with some solder braid.

So they start to look something like this...

After you've removed them all, you will notice that the board is marked with a cross-hashed side under each
capacitor - this is the negative and where the SHORT leg of each new capacitor goes. Before you start, gently
and carefully, cut and scrape away the remaining white glue from where the old capacitors were.

When you put the new ones in, you should deliberately leave long legs on C21 so you can bend it away from
the heatsink. Make sure the legs are not touching.

When you've replaced all the capacitors, do a visual check to make sure all the joints are ok and also that they
have been placed in the right way (negative to the cross-hashed area).

Before replacing the PSU, put a small star washer over the metal mount for the top left screw. This is a
ground, so needs to be a good connection. a bad connection here can sometimes show the same symptoms as
before. Use a little blu-tac to hold it there if you don't have steady hands!

BEFORE YOU REPLACE THE PSU...

Put the wire connector onto the PSU first. If you don't do this, you may bend and damage the PCB
permanently. If you've got big sausage fingers like me, this yellow tool is great. It grabs the screw head and
helps you place it in the right place.

Now here's the fun bit. Dap a tiny bit of Baby Oil on your fingers and lubricate the rubber fan mounts.

Then push the rubber pins through the mounting holes in the fan with some long-nosed pliers. You cannot
order new rubber pins, but plastic bolts are available from Satcure. I wouldn't advise this though as they can
be noisy. The rubber dampens the noise well, so try and preserve them.

The final step is to carry out a Forced Software Update. A problematic PSU can sometimes cause problems
with the software.
That's it. You're done. Putting it back together is a reversal of how it came apart. At this point, it would be a
good idea to give the system fan and the drive fan (accessible underneath) a good blast from the pressurised
air. This helps to prolong the life of the fans.
Be careful when putting the box back in the plastic casing not to nudge (a) the lights on the front panel and (b)
the rubber fan mounts.
Forced Software Update:
To reflash the software, start with the box unplugged at the wall, but with both satellite feeds plugged in. Press
and hold the 'Backup' button on the top of the box and plug the box in at the wall (assuming you can still
reach!!). Keep the Backup button pressed and after 10-15 seconds, all the four lights on the front panel will
light up and the box will download the latest software from the skies. It takes about 10 minutes and then the
box will reboot. This is a bit like re-installing Windows again over a corrupt operating system. Note that this
will not reformat the drive, so your existing recordings are safe - although God only knows why you want
to keep four X Factors, a repeat of Only Fools and Horses and two episodes of Coronation Street ...
If you've got this far and the box doesn't spin up the hard drive after a couple of minutes after a system reflash
and reboot, and the box still won't come out of standby, then try unplugging and plugging in again. If this fails
too, then the hard drive has failed - see below.
Assuming all is well, delete any failed recordings and do a Planner Rebuild. After this, it should be ok.

HARD DRIVE UPGRADE

Not always, but sometimes, a failed PSU can cause problems with the Hard Drive and the new EPG appears to
be causing problems too (see below). However, the typical life of a hard drive in these machines is about 2-3
years. If you've got the lid off, you might as well do this too. If you're this far and fancy increasing the size of
the drive, this is how to do it.

Firstly, undo the Power and SATA cables from the left-hand side of the drive.

...and remove the drive fan wire from the main board on the right-hand side.

Undo the four mounting screws for the caddy and gently lift it out. Unscrew the four drive mounting screws
(one is under the warranty sticker) and gently remove the drive. Give the fan in the caddy a good blast of
pressurised air to remove the dust.

HD boxes (apart from Amstrad at the moment) only recognise drives up to 1,000GB, so a 1.5TB drive will not
work. Also, anything above 500GB will be reformatted to 500GB after a Full System Reset (this is not a
Forced Update), so be aware that only half the capacity of a 1TB drive will be available if an FSR is done.
This one is a Samsung Spinpoint F1 (1GB) drive (a popular choice, but there are better ones now). Anything
above 500GB needs to be prepared by some special software before being put into the box. There is a free
online download for this. More details are below.

Put the drive in the caddy and put the caddy back in the box, being careful not to pinch the fan wires. Replace
all cables and secure with the screws. Then replace the rubbery mat that was on the old drive. The lid keeps it
in place.
That's it. You're done. Putting it back together is a reversal of how it came apart. At this point, it would be a
good idea to give the system fan and the drive fan (accessible underneath) a good blast from the pressurised
air if not done already. This helps to prolong the life of the fans.
The drive in the Thomson boxes is either a Maxtor 6L300S0, a Western Digital WD3000JS or a Seagate
ST3300820SCE (rare). All of them are quite hot when running and typically run at about 42-50 degrees
Centigrade when in use. Of course, this kind of heat is not good inside a small case, hence the two fans. BUT
if the bottom of your box sits on an amp or DVD player, then the heat rising from that will impede the outflow
of hot air from the drive fan underneath. Likewise, the system fan on the side needs at least 10cm of space to
dissipate the heat away. The cooler you can keep the box running, the better really.
The Maxtor drives need 1.5A to startup (!) and the new EPG caches to the drive every hour, even when the
box is in standby, which puts additional strain on the drive and PSU, so I would always advise replacing the
drive with a more efficient, low power drive if you are thinking about replacing the PSU.
My personal preference for a replacement drive is the Samsung F2 EcoGreen. The drive is perfect for the Sky
HD box.

Western
Samsung
Maxtor
Digital
EcoGreen Comment
6L300S0
WD3000JS F2
1,000GB is
the max
capacity the
Capacity 300GB
300GB
1,000GB
HD box can
currently
handle
140GB is
reserved for
Available
Anytime
160GB
160GB
860GB
Space
(whether
enabled or
not)
SATA-150 is
what the HD
Connection SATA-150 SATA-300 SATA-300 box reads at,
so higher is
irrelevant
Very
Buffer
16MB
8MB
32MB
important
Very
Seek time 9ms
8.9ms
8.9ms
important
Slower spin
speed means
quiter. This
Spindle
7,200RPM 7,200RPM 5,400
has no effect
on the
performance
in this box.
Not so
relevant as the
data is stored
Latency
4.17ms
4.2ms
4.17ms
in chunks
when
recording
Very
important particularly
Startup
1,500mA 900mA
550mA
when
Power
considering
the new EPG
requirements

In my experience, the slower spindle means that the drive runs about 12-18 degrees cooler than the other
originals, which means two things:
1. The system fan and drive fan will not be on all the time. In fact, they will probably be on less (depending on
where you site the box).
2. The life of the box will be prolonged due to the cooler environment and less strain on the fans.
The performance is indistinguishable from the factory fitted drives, except you get over 5 times the original
storage space. This equates to 400 hours of SD recording and 150 hours of HD recording. Or to put it another
way, 133 VHS videotapes!
Note that a Full System Reset will cause the drive to be reformatted to 500GB, so don't do it if you can
help it...
Note that transferring programmes or fitting any drive with a capacity over 500Gb will need to be prepared
with Copy+. You'll also need at least one USB HDD caddy and a few hours if your drive is nearly full.