Sooner or later, most Thomson DSI8210 Sky+ receivers develop a
problem with the Power Supply Unit (PSU). Low quality capacitors
on the PSU printed circuit board have a tendency to fail and
after four years, your receiver is almost certainly living on
borrowed time.

If you are handy with a screwdriver, I would be inclined to
disconnect the receiver from the mains electricity supply.
Remove the casing and inspect the PSU circuit board. The absence
of bulging or leaking capacitors will not prove conclusively that
your PSU is OK. However, if the capacitors shows signs of
failure, a replacement PSU will probably cure the problem. I
recommend you read the information at
www.satcure.com/accs/psu.htm - which describes various options.
There is further information at
www.satcure.com/tech/thom_psu.htm.

I needed to replace the PSU card on my Thomson Sky+ receiver. It
was not a difficult task.

Obviously, your problem could be caused by the failure of
additional components (or other components, such as the hard
drive). Consequently, you should also consider various options:

1. Get Sky to replace your Digibox. You will lose all of your
recordings and Sky will charge £65 for the service call.
However, Sky have discontinued the manufacture and supply of new
Sky+ receivers - so if you are lucky, they might replace your old
box with a Sky HD replacement receiver. That would allow you to
watch BBC, ITV and other free HD channels on a HD-ready TV,
without an additional HD subscription.

2. Bin your old Sky+ box and purchase a second-hand
replacement. Sky+ receivers are often available on eBay.
However, don't pay more than £65 for a second-hand receiver (the
maximum cost of a service call and replacement receiver from
Sky). If you replace your old receiver, you will need to phone
Sky to marry your viewing card to the replacement.

3. Upgrade your Sky+ subscription to Sky HD (with the
self-install option). Sky will send you a brand new Sky HD
receiver. The HD subscription costs an additional £10 per month,
with a minimum 12 month subscription period. However, you could
cancel the HD subscription after 12 months and revert to Sky+,
and retain access to the free HD channels. You would need to
order the Sky HD self-install option by telephone, because
although you are paying for multi-room already, the on-line order
system duplicates the multi-room subscription.

3. Bin your old Sky+ box, bring the normal one downstairs and
cancel the multi-room. You would save £20 per month, but would
lose the recording function.

4. Move to Virgin Cable. I have no experience of their
service, so I cannot comment upon the cost, quality or choice of
programmes.


"Fat richard" wrote in message
...
A bit of background:

We have SKY+ downstairs and a "narmal" SKY box upstiairs for
which we
pay for multi room and we even have both connected to the
telephone
line and both have genuine viewing cards, in effect we are
"model" Sky
customers - presumably not perfect models as we don't have HD.

We have had this set up for about 4 years.

The SKY+ box downstairs has started to go a bit goofy and
failed
completely last night.

I have got it to come on now but if I try to use any of the "+"
features I get a message stating "A Sky+ error ocurred. Press
SELECT
to restart Press BACK UP to continue without Sky+
functionality.

A restart is effectively a full reboot and takes a good few
minutes,
as per a normal restart from power off / on. If the box is
turned off
using the remote, each time it comes on we have to wait for the
box to
reboot.

I have checked all the cables are in correctly (all taken out
and put
back in) and I have aslo checked the cable runs back to the
dish and
all "appear" fine. The multi room "normal" box is performing
normally.

The Sky+ box is, I assume a bit ancient now, it is a Thompson
DS1 8210
I am guessing the model as that is the closest I can find to a
model
number on the bottom.

Am I to assume the inevitable, that the box needs to be thrown
into my
wheelie bin ?

If the inevitable is likely can anyone suggest the best course
of
action.

Our options a

Buy another + box (we do use it a lot for recording) - so brand
new /
second hand / where is the best place to go ?

Bin the + box, bring the normal one downstairs and cancel the
multi
room and "+" and save 20 quid a month. We don't really use the
upsatirs one that much.

We are in a Virgin cable area. We already have 20meg broadband
+ phone
with them (and the 20 meg is VERY reliable, no loss of
connection and
rarely below 18.5 meg on a really bad day). I hear all sorts of
tales
of how good the Virgin on demand stuff is, and that teir
version of
"+" allows 2 channels to be recorded and watch a third unlike
Sky. So
the third oiption is to ride out the Sky contract for a month
and then
switch.

When we had a problem with our dish a year or so back (Actually
a tree
in sight of the dish) I was not impressed with Skys attitude
(they
assured me the signal strength proved the tree was NOT the
problem and
an engineer with charge was required, I chopped the tree down
instead
which worked). I discussed my options with them after this and
they
were completely unintersted in offering any sort of sweetener
to stay
with Sky, I guess this has not changed.

So - if anyone is still reading - any offers to any of the
points
above would be most welcome.

Thanks in advance to anyone who has taken the time to read this
and
reply


Richard