DM500 Total Box Failure

[AirShowNut]

Went to bed last night ... left box running on itv 2.

Got up this morning ... channel is still on ITV 2 and working fine.

When I went to change channel using the remote - no response.

Removed power plug, hoping a reboot would solve the problem - it didnt - all I get is a blue screen - I don't even get the usual dreambox splash screen when powering up. It just leaves me with a blank blue screen and hangs.

The box has been freezing on channels lately and the only way to solve this was to remove the power plug.

Can anyone help?

[shady77]

firstly. dont panic until youve exhuasted all avenues!
lets try a reflash first

[Devilfish]

Yip...a reflash usually cures most problems.

http://www.digital-kaos.co.uk/forums/f34/guide-flashing-dreambox-dreamup-33/

[AirShowNut]

Have got to the point where Dream up is telling me:-

Connection prepared - now switch on the dream box.

I have powered up the dream box - green light on front comes on ... and nothing happens...

Any further suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[shady77]

Power adaptor on way out maybe? maybe its not pumping enough power to box.
suggest a multi voltage adaptor from argos?

[AirShowNut]

As it turns out I have a spare power supply ... well one with same output as original dream box ps - although the spare one is for an external hdd.

Have tried that - again green light comes on on front of dream box but hangs.

I'm beginning to think the dream box is Kaput.

Thanks for your help and ideas guys ... if anything else occurs to you I'd be grateful

[Devilfish]

Are you sure your cable is a null modem cable? If that happens, it usually means you're using an rs232 cable or serial cable and not a null modem cable.

Have you used it before?

[AirShowNut]

The cable was bought last November from a reputable company.On the packaging it said Serial null modem cable 1.8m.
I have not used the cable before so cannot verify that it works.
The origional post by me was done from my mates pc as he is the one with the problem not me,his pc is one his boss gave him and we're not sure if the com port is even wired up to the mobo,his box is acting as though it is dead,no response at all even pressing the power button does nothing.

[Devilfish]

You can check the device manager to see if it's connected.

You'll need to verify the cable is correct before ruling anything else out. You can get them on ebay for ?2.

Load Hyperterminal on your PC and set it up on com1 with the following settings...

Bits per second - 115200
Data bits - 8
Parity - None
Stop bits - 1
Flow control - None

Reboot the box and it should say 'DREAMBOX DM500' when it boots, do you see this text? If not, the cable is probably faulty or not the correct kind.

[AirShowNut]

Thanks for the info DevilFish.Will try and get back to my mates and give it a bash before he sends his box off to a guy he knows.If i manage to do it i'll post the result here.
Thanks again.

Update --
My mate had already left to take the box to the guy he knows for possible repair / diagnoctics so unable to try the suggestion.
Thanks again.

2nd Update ---
My friends friend managed to sort the box easily.
Aparrently the software for the image he was using had corrupted somehow and the reason we couldn't get a connection to the box using a null modem cable is that the com port on his pc is faulty.
Thanks again for all suggestions,much appreciated from all.