Duo clone broke this afternoon!!!!! Help

[trance]

meggiedude, where did you purchase you duo from?
I bought mine from yaoxin [now mixeshop] in january . started to use it in march and now its in the same state as yours.
Having said that I've bought many boxes from them without probs. but this was the first vu I got from them

[meggiedude]

this box should have come loaded with bh 1.72 have you tried putting this back on

as looking back all your troubles started when you tried to change image

and as rd has just said maybe there is issue with the image your trying to load being unstable

Yes it came with Blackhole (I thought it was 1.7.0 - but I might be wrong)

Mate - My problems did not start when I re-imaged it. My issues started 24hrs after first use with the original BH image. It worked - then 24hrs later - red dot of death.
The reason I tried to re-image, then reflash via serial port, etc, then request new PSU, reimage, reflash,reimage etc etc etc was due to the advise given either here or the linuxsupport forum.
If I was able to get a working image onto to this box I maybe would be OK. The issue is that it won't even look at any USBs on boot, ie no flashing light on pendrive - it won't power them up.
I've rebooted this unit maybe 90 or 100 times now (not an exageration), used 3 diff pendrives in all of the avail usb sockets at various points. No HDMI no Hard Drive, just the power cable.
Have also turned power cable 180deg to change the polarity of the power lead (a supposed fix for the USB issue)

Only twice has it ever powered up the usb drive in those 90 to 100 reboots. I thought I had a successful re-image last night, rebooted it as it told me to on the front panel. Back to red dot.
Believe me, if I could get it to load ANY image, whether it be Vix or BH, or whatever I, would 100% stick with that.

[meggiedude]

meggiedude, where did you purchase you duo from?
I bought mine from yaoxin [now mixeshop] in january . started to use it in march and now its in the same state as yours.
Having said that I've bought many boxes from them without probs. but this was the first vu I got from them

Mate - guess what - it came from Yaoxin a few weeks ago.

So you are stuck just like me???

EDIT - ah - just seen your other thread (to which I commented on - doh)
Yes you have exactly same issue as me.
Bearing in mind I originally had old PSU with rusty heatsink screws (prev posts) and we got from the same place - maybe I got an old stock item from the same batch as you.

I know in your thread I poo-poo'd the suggestion about changing the cap on the motherboard but bearing in mind its from the far east and shipping back if expensive that may have to be an option worth considering. I don't want to do this as I am not the best with a soldering iron.

[IAmATeaf]

Still no luck then?

Judging by some of the threads I've seen here and other forums it does seem to be a case of keep trying till you're sick of it.

Even though people are having these problems I've pulled the trigger on a duo clone, have my 800se to fall back on if there are problems. I still think it's maybe a heat related issue so I've also ordered these Aluminum VGA-RAM HeatSinks Cooler For PC VGA Vedio Card RAM Memory Heatsink AR01 | eBay which I'm going to stick onto the comps on the PSU and mobo that get really hot. No idea if they'll help but for a few squids I think it's worth it.

[loaded2107]

If you haven't so far then I would reccomend the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool for preparing your USB for flashing to FAT 32. You can google it and it's free.

It seems to be more compatible than the Windows format tools.

Also ensure that the unzipped 'vuplus' folder is the only thing on the stick. A 'duo' folder should be inside that.

[trance]

Mate - guess what - it came from Yaoxin a few weeks ago.

So you are stuck just like me???

EDIT - ah - just seen your other thread (to which I commented on - doh)
Yes you have exactly same issue as me.
Bearing in mind I originally had old PSU with rusty heatsink screws (prev posts) and we got from the same place - maybe I got an old stock item from the same batch as you.

I know in your thread I poo-poo'd the suggestion about changing the cap on the motherboard but bearing in mind its from the far east and shipping back if expensive that may have to be an option worth considering. I don't want to do this as I am not the best with a soldering iron.

Have you contacting them, if so what was their response? how much are we looking at to send the vu back. [so far I've been looking at the options available to fix. capacitor, psu etc]
And guys, is 6 months after purchase to long to send it back,
cheers

[DOUGALMCD]

I wouldn't say 6 months is too long. You can only try but the cost of returning may be too high. I think when you look at the duo's it's not just clones that have been having this problem. Reading on other forums there are plenty of originals as well. So is it really a hardware problem? As they are supposed to be different boards are they not?

[trance]

just having a quick look on dhl, ?76.95 to send 2-5kg . wowzah!!!

[the man]

I wouldn't say 6 months is too long. You can only try but the cost of returning may be too high. I think when you look at the duo's it's not just clones that have been having this problem. Reading on other forums there are plenty of originals as well. So is it really a hardware problem? As they are supposed to be different boards are they not?

i think more guys have clones then they know !
cu nts selling clones for top money all over the place
buyers not knowing it a clone they have

[meggiedude]

I wouldn't say 6 months is too long. You can only try but the cost of returning may be too high. I think when you look at the duo's it's not just clones that have been having this problem. Reading on other forums there are plenty of originals as well. So is it really a hardware problem? As they are supposed to be different boards are they not?

I also wouldn't say 6 months is too long.
Yes the cost of returning is very high. I think there are cheaper options than trance has found, but you do need the parcel to be tracked before Paypal or your credit card company will refund you - i.e. they have to have evidence that it arrived before they reimburse you.

When it comes to the comment about them being different boards - well yes, but the clones are reverse engineered versions of the originals. The Chinese will have pretty much cloned the build almost down to the component level. If there is a fundamental flaw in the original design then that also may have been reverse engineered in. That combined with the odd compromise here or there for the cloners and the clones will be more susceptible to failure.
There are a number of posts about making hardware (cap) changes to both original and clones that have resolved issues with startups, so clearly there is something not quite right with either option.

[meggiedude]

i think more guys have clones then they know !
cu nts selling clones for top money all over the place
buyers not knowing it a clone they have

True, but there are plenty, like me, and others who knew exactly what we were entering into, and the gamble just didn't pay off.

On that subject I have had rebooted my box dozens of times more yesterday and it just won't see the USB. BTW, I don't think this has anything to do with the format of the drive as the pendrives just aren't powering up. If the format was an issue, they would fire up then bawk. It just doesn't get that far.
I also tried using a usb y-cable from a external drive, i.e cable in front of duo and one usb to the pen drive and the other usb to power it (connected to external battery pack with usb out). This also did not work.

This is leading me to think that this is motherboard related now. The chances of having two bad PSUs is slim, but the chance of having a problem on the motherboard is more likely.

[dell_xps]

As I said in an earlier post, do you know anybody who is willing to lend you a power supply from an original Vu+ Duo ?

[meggiedude]

As I said in an earlier post, do you know anybody who is willing to lend you a power supply from an original Vu+ Duo ?

I think I answered that one after you asked mate. All people I know are Dreambox fanboys. There is no-one I know local who could do this.

[dell_xps]

Ok dokey, only other suggestion I can offer is, I never found a usb stick that would flash an image for me on my original duo, so what I use is an sd card in a sd/usb adapter, the make of the sd card is Kingston and the adapter is a sandisk micromate, if you have an sd card and adapter worth a try m8, SD is only 1GB btw :-)

[DOUGALMCD]

[QUOTE=the man;1592190]i think more guys have clones then they know !


The information I gave came from another forum and they had been verified as originals. There is more than enough information out there to check if you have clone or not.