Returning a Dreambox to Chine - Cheapest Shipping?

[new2dk]

Hi, can anyone recommend a cheap way to ship box back to China with tracking included - not DHL or FedEx. I've looked at Parcelforce and its coming in around 60-70quid which is almost making it not worth posting.

Does anyone know other alternative couriers that will do it cheaper and have tracking on item.

Thanks

[mdt]

Hi, can anyone recommend a cheap way to ship box back to China with tracking included - not DHL or FedEx. I've looked at Parcelforce and its coming in around 60-70quid which is almost making it not worth posting.

Does anyone know other alternative couriers that will do it cheaper and have tracking on item.

Thanks

are you sure the box isnt fixable here? if its not then just send the part.. eg mainboard, tuner or whatever. the chinese are funny about returns and seem to insist on royal mail which are a rip off as you have noticed.

post the problem with the box to see if we can help,regards mdt

[new2dk]

Hi thanks for reply. The story is Ive 2 sick DM800HD SE...

I bought a 2nd box 3/4 months ago which is working fine. Then Unfortunately my original box developed a fault where it just constantly rebooted itself - could see it power on and start to boot but after about 15 sec there's and audible click/tick noise and it seems to reset/reboot - there was a bit of electrical burn smell, maybe overheated or something. The box was nearly 2 yrs old and although supplier in China offered to repair at that stage I reckoned on just buying a replacement as cost of postage and customs issues was gonna be too much hassle...

So order the new one - same as the one a few months old except this one has wifi. Anyway had gremlins straight away - power adapter making worrying clicking sound so used the one from the old broken box. So that got it up and running but have went through the setup wizard multiple times and have issues tuning any channels. Have tried some different images/reset to factory and flashed OEM image from dream multimedia incase it was dodgey software but no luck. What I'm finding is that when I configure tuner for correct satellite (28.2E) when in SatFinder option I can see the signal is usually non existent - from time to time it does show signal and the odd time I can complete a channel scan but it never lasts and sometimes even just selecting the scan option makes the box reboot.

Not knowing anything about these boxes but I'm suspecting a faulty tuner. Have looked at motherboard of both machines for obvious signs of blown components/raise capacitor heads etc but cants see anything wrong.

The only thing I can think of doing is trying the tuner from the original box as dont think (hope) the fault with it is the tuner and see if it sorts it. Other than that if you/anybody else has other suggestions to fix I'm more than happy to try or if there's guys in uk or more handier N.I that might be able to repair at reasonable cost I'll try them.

Am still awaiting to see if seller will just supply me new tuner without posting bits back but I'm not hopeful on that front, but you never know!...

Cheers

[mdt]

firstly try re-seating the tuner, also make sure its the correct image for the box. is it a sim 2.10, v2 or ap8 version. also the psu,s are not the best on some clones. odds are it will be fixable and you might need a uprated psu . post as much information as you can about the new box and the old one also. regards mdt

[new2dk]

Hi again. So I spent a good few hours today piddlin around tryin to get somewhere but in the end no joy - maybe even slightly more confused!

First plan was to rob my original faulty box (sim 2.1) which was constantly rebooting due possibly to overheating, of its assumed to be OK tuner which I put in to my new a8p clone - this one was suspected to have tuner issue.

I was pretty hopeful this was gonna do trick ( tuners not identical but appeared to b very similar both bcm4505) but similar intermittent/non existent signal in satfinder menu even after multiple reflashes and replicating tuner config from my working 2nd box. A frustrating part of the tuner config ( was maybe operator error at the heart of the problem) is that even when change to simple config of single sat (28.2e) when go in to other tuner/transponder options it seems to default/remember other sats which are not needed 19.2/13.4 hotbird/c****+ or something which seem to appear as only 2 options in default services list. I tried ftp and dreamboxedit to get current satellites.XML across but didn't seem to work...

So just for the sake of it I give the original faulty box a bit of a hoover of fluff, reseat the tuner and connect up/switch on. Surprisingly it booted OK and stayed on. Still think it may be liable to overheating issue as a couple of times I did see the fan seem to stick- no noise but could see it oscillating. Anyway didn't seem to be running hot (maybe the cooler weather) but to cap it all the tuner issue of not locking a signal seemed to be happening on it as well, which I think now might be too much of a coincidence. However in efforts to hack in some previous copies of files like satellites.XML etc I think i might need to reflash this with a clean image - the original image I used was a couple years old posted on this site by alom5 so i,'all try get it again. But basically back to square 1.

What I think is the only thing left to try is connecting/swapping the dreambox in other room which is working and see if the problem follows the box or if the working box then fails in the other room then maybe a cable issue there.

A couple things to ask which again might be my stupidity and nothing to do with the hardware. The sat cable I'm connecting to dreambox is one from an original sky+ connection, there are 2 cables from lnb. I assumed it didn't matter which I used, however I did try both a number of times. I also tested cables by seeing if could view the free channels from skybox which I could, however on one occasion the sky box complained of no signal which made me think is one cable 'primary' and/or does both cables have 2 be connected/terminated into one box or other in case interference or something?

Also how do you get round the case when in the default service list the preferred satellite 28.2 isn't listed. I've had the issue before on many images I've tried to download/test but invariably end up giving up when I find an image that works. Think I fluked it a couple times and vague recollection was to do with satellite.XML and autobouquets, hence why I was trying that fix today unsuccessfully.

Is there a detailed tuner/transponder config for 28.2 which should definately work that I can replicate or is there other files needed in the background to make the tuner config work properly. Even better is the a good stable sim 2.1 and a8p image that works for 28.2 - my sim 2.1 image may be out of date ( or other settings corrupt) as I tried to reinstall softcam from addons from Tunisia sat and I could not connect http error.

Sorry if that's all a bit of a ramble - long day with nothing to show for it ��

[new2dk]

Tink I might have got to bottom of it. Came across a few threads and as mdt suggested that power adapter could be cause. What I hadn't realised is that the power supply could look OK and power the box on OK, but not have enough juice to power the tuner module properly. This would explain why it was all a bit random trying to config tuner and get lock of sattelite which added to the confusion. So have tested the dodgey box on the power of my other working box and very presto sat signal found/locked on and full channels can on first try.

So just need to get a replacement adapter sorted, worst case just get one off eBay for under a tennerwhich ain't bad.

Cheers for the help...��

[gji25]

ive had a power supply showing green light and it was faulty and was causing all sorts of issues.. you can get a replacement for about ?8 from fleabay