HD100 Just died

[reggie14]

From what I understand (and I'm not an EE), faulty capacitors will fail faster with more usage. Read this excerpt from wikipedia:

When a faulty capacitor is charged, the water-based electrolyte becomes unstable and breaks down, producing hydrogen gas. Since these types of capacitors are sealed in an aluminium casing, the pressure builds up within the capacitor until either the flat metal top of the capacitor begins to bend, or the rubber sealing plug is pushed down. Eventually the pressure exceeds the strength of the metal casing and venting occurs, either by blowing out the rubber bottom of the capacitor, or bursting the scored metal vent on the top of the capacitor. When an electrolytic capacitor bursts, effects can range from a pop and a hissing noise to a small explosion. Venting is typically messy, and the acidic electrolyte must be cleaned off the motherboard to prevent further damage.

So, it's my understanding that the more a capacitor is charged, the more hydrogen will build up. Over time, the pressure of the hydrogen will build up, first causing bulges, and eventually bursts/leaks. It's my understanding that leaving the unit on, even in standby mode, will "age" the capacitors. This is really based on the fact that my capacitors hissed even when the HD100 was in standby mode (but not when completely off). I interpret that to mean the capacitors are still charged, thus producing hydrogen which is slowly venting from the capacitors. I do think using the units does slightly increase wear and tear. I did notice the hissing would get louder when I was actually doing something on the HD100, compared to it just sitting idle (or even when just playing a video).

I've gone back and forth with Brent on this issue a couple times, and he seems skeptical of the problem (or really, the cause and scale of the problem). But, I can see where he's coming from. All electronics fail at some point. How do we know these are failing faster than expected and at higher rates than expected? This is especially tricky since we don't have any idea how many HD100 units Sage sold.

Does anyone have any idea how many failures we'd have to see on these forums before we can make a good argument that there's a problem? How quickly do those failures have to come in? If we can ever come up with some rough estimate on the failure rate, what rate would we consider high? Apparently desktop computers have a one-year failure rate of 5%, and a 4-year failure rate of about 12%, so that seems like a reasonable upper bound.

[Brent]

I'm not at all skeptical that there is a problem with the capacitors on some (possibly many) HD100's. Based on this thread there are a good sample number of HD100 owners with the problem - difficult to know how widespread it is as there could be a bunch who just aren't on this forum talking about it but I'd guess its affecting at least a small percentage of HD100s.

I guess my point is it seems like SageTV is attempting to deal with the problems albeit not as cheaply as one would hope ($60). And based on my experience with CE companies they are probably doing more than most with an older CE device that isn't being sold any longer.

I no longer own an HD100 as I sold both of them used, but I'm hopeful they are still working well... If I still had them, I'd pop the top off and check out those capacitors and if they showed signs of problems, I'd solder new ones on myself. I totally understand the concern you guys have here - just trying to look at it from SageTV's perspective and therefore not jumping to a conclusion that SageTV did anything wrong in choosing the hardware they did or concluding that they are profiting from the repair. I don't honestly know either way and have no inside information on this - just speculating.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by reggie14

All electronics fail at some point.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that. That's a rather overly broad statement. A properly built and maintained (i.e. not abused or misused and be supplied by a clean source of power) piece of solid state electronic equipment should last indefinitely.

This type of failure is not due to abuse, misuse or unlcean power. It's a failure in the capacitor dielectric which causes an eventual failure of the component. The failure of the component is both time and use sensitive. The failure will eventually occur. The failure can come sooner if used more due to the fact that heat produced by use will quicken the chemical reaction. Of course this depends on the type of use. Having the device in standby possibly won't produce the amount of heat necessary to quicken the chemical reaction.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by Brent

I'm not at all skeptical that there is a problem with the capacitors on some (possibly many) HD100's.

OK. I think we're mostly on the same page now. Although, I think I still detect a bit of skepticism on this issue. Don't get me wrong, I don't think that's a bad thing. I think a healthy bit of skepticism is good thing, given our incomplete information. I guess I'm trying to interpret your statement where you said you're not necessarily convinced yet that "SageTV did anything wrong in choosing the hardware" (I think I'm accurately paraphrasing that). I can think of two ways to interpret this that have very different meanings:

1. You're not yet convinced that the capacitors used in the HD100 have a a manufacturing or design defect. or,
2. You're not yet convinced that Sage was negligent in choosing/overseeing the manufacturer of the HD100.

Again, I don't think skepticism is a bad thing. But, I am curious if you have any ideas about what information we need to gather (and how we can gather it) to make a good argument that there's a problem here that shouldn't have happened- basically, that someone along the HD100 supply chain did something wrong.

[Brent]

I'm always a skeptic it's in my nature.
as I said above, I'm not convinced SageTV did anything wrong but that's just me.

Originally Posted by reggie14

I am curious if you have any ideas about what information we need to gather (and how we can gather it) to make a good argument that there's a problem here that shouldn't have happened- basically, that someone along the HD100 supply chain did something wrong.

I don't know that I have any suggestions here. It's honestly something only SageTV really knows all of the facts on and we're going to have to rely on what they do or fix it diy. Since it seems they've already decided on the process for dealing with this, there isn't much left to discuss - for me at least.

[mayamaniac]

I just fixed my HD100 unit and replaced the two bulged capacitors with the ones from radioshack (part # 272-1032). I think if you have a soldering iron, you can try to fix it yourself. I have almost zero soldering experience and I was abled to do it. It took me about 20 minutes. HD 100 is working again.

On the problem of the HD100, my guess is that it is a design flaw in the power supply. Based on the video that Steve shot, it is the same two capactors that bulge in my unit and many other people's HD100 that died.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by Brent

as I said above, I'm not convinced SageTV did anything wrong but that's just me.

Right, but I'm still not sure what you mean by that. Is that you're way of saying #2 (from my previous post) accurately describes your point of view? The implication is you might be prepared to say the HD100 manufacturer screwed up, but it's not Sage's responsibility.

It's honestly something only SageTV really knows all of the facts on and we're going to have to rely on what they do or fix it diy.

Being the totally distrusting person that I am, that's one of the things that really bugs me (and probably the reason I'm making such a big deal about this). I don't like having to rely solely on the company to know whether or not the company screwed up. Maybe Sage didn't do anything wrong, but how do we know that? We don't have large news organizations with sources inside the company that can support or refute claims either way. When it comes to press that covers SageTV news, Brent is sort of the closest thing we have. I've thought about contacting Ars and seeing if they can get something out of Sage, since they're at least higher profile, but I'm not sure what good it would do. It wouldn't really be interesting to the vast majority of their readers, and they probably don't have anyone that would be terribly good at covering this issue.

[mayamaniac]

SageTV is a private company and if they choose not to disclose whatever information that they rightfully/legally don't have to disclose, then that is their choice. Yeah sure, lots of private companies openly disclose information, but If you don't feel comfortable with the fact that SageTV doesn't, then you can choose not to do business with them.

But since you've been around since 2003 based on your forum joined date, you should have a pretty good idea what the company is about by now based on the history of their business practices.

[Steve]

1. I'm not convinced that more usage will make it fail sooner. In theory exercising the extender will draw more power and create more heat, etc, the bottom line is the power supply is energized all the time and the cap is 'on'. A perfect example is I had 2 extenders, 1 was on a seldom used TV and was maybe on a half dozen times in the year, the rest was in standby. The other extender was 'on' pretty much all the time and in full use for probably at least 3-4 hours 7 days a week. They both failed within a few weeks of each other, with the seldom used one dying first. Bottom line is if they have bad caps, they are going to fail at some point regardless of how often the unit is used.

2. The statement "All electronics fail at some point" is as already pointed out completely irrelevant. A 'normal' capacitor will last many years, even decades under normal usage. These caps were made with bad electrolyte, period.

3. I was the first one to say that Sage did nothing wrong in causing this problem. They did not tell the mfg to use bad caps. In fact, the mfg may be completely surprised too as I'm sure they did not intentionally order bad components from their suppliers. What I do say is that approximately 1 year of usage on an electronic device like this is absolutely ridiculous and the difference between fair or poor customer service and good or great customer service is how the problem is handled. And ultimately for the consumer that comes down to Sage. As much as a pita it may be, it should be up to Sage to go up the chain to demand remedies and in turn, pass that down to their customers. That would be good or great customer service and would not only protect, but help their good reputation they earned hard to get. But, imho, they are only handling it in a 'fair' manner and that can possibly damage their reputation. We all know electronics get improved and outdated regularly, but when someone has $200-$1000 invested in something, it is not unreasonable to expect > 1 year service from it. In fact it should last a dozen years or more as long as people are happy with the performance level and feature set.

In fact it is almost ridiculous to assume that Sage would know about this or purposely ask the mfg to use bad parts. These things only cost pennies as is and at the smallish volume Sage would only save a tiny amount of money using inferior parts. And I would hope they would be smart enough to realize saving a few pennies per receiver using known bad parts would cost them tens of thousands times that much in bad press and headache if they knew about it. So, even without all the data, etc, I'm confident this is 100% a manufacturer/supplier issue and Sage is just as pissed off as anyone. But, they are the name on the device and ultimately their mess to clean up.

[Narflex]

Originally Posted by Steve

2. The statement "All electronics fail at some point" is as already pointed out completely irrelevant. A 'normal' capacitor will last many years, even decades under normal usage. These caps were made with bad electrolyte, period.

What makes you certain that these caps were made with bad electrolyte? So far I haven't been able to find any indication that the ones used are from the companies that suffered from that problem. Just because a cap fails due to bulging; does not mean it was one of those from the 'capacitor plauge'. Bulging is quite often a visible means to indicate capacitor failure; it does not necessarily mean it failed due to the 'capacitor plague' item you linked to.

I know what the failure rate is so far; and it's definitely not high. It's still well below the expected level of failures.

For those that have had failures beyond the warranty period; a lot of this information in this thread useful for helping them repair the unit themself if they so desire if they had that same kind of failure; but there's also a bunch of unwarranted paranoia going around as well, and that needs to stop.

But considering there's no real issue to address (since we know the numbers); I'm really not sure what kind of answer some of you are looking for.

[merneric]

I'm sorry, but responses like this are not helpful, and quite frankly, coming from the Founder, a little alarming.

I assume you state that you know what the failure rate is based on your private knowledge of how many HD100's were sold compared to the number of units that were RMA'd for repair. I doubt, but perhaps you have, taken into account the units that were reported in this thread, including mine, that failed, and were in fact self repaired. Finally, you have no way of knowing what units are out there that may have failed and gone unreported, or that may have failed, been self repaired, and hence, also unreported (granted, the latter is I am sure a fairly small number).

A quick count in this forum shows that roughly 31 HD-100's have failed to date. Also, there is another thread that was started that indicated that at least one other unit has failed, so all in all, approximately 32 HD-100's have been reported to fail. Now I realize that in the grand scheme of things, again, I have no idea how many units have been sold, that this may very well on a percentage basis be small, but this still seems like a fairly high number.

It is interesting to look back through this thread to see the various responses and reactions: The first reports were greeted with mild interest, and helpful trouble shooting tips. Then there was the response from Sage stating that there would be no official repair policy, followed by mild discontent. Then the official "policy reversal" from Sage, stating that they would in fact repair units, even if out of warranty for the small fee of $60 (which generously included postage). This heralded numerous accolades and comments like, "Wow! What a great company! This is why I've been with these guys for years!" However, there were some detractors that thought that the "repair" fee seemed a bit steep, and still more who were brave enough to crack open their own HD-100's, and attempt to diagnose and repair themselves. Now, after over 30 confirmed cases, we seemed to have regressed into a sort of "deny the problem" mode. I wonder what the response to the company will be now?

Don't get me wrong, I love the product, the software, and the extenders. I even ordered an additional HD-200 last week, because I desperately want to get closed captioning and subtitles to work on an extender, and I am anxious to see if the response times are indeed faster. Also, I do believe that this is a supplier to the manufacturer to the company (Sage) problem, and that of course Sage did not and would not knowingly use bad parts. However, I strongly believe that ultimately, Sage is accountable for this, and that to make such a callous and cavalier statement such as was said, is not the way to build customer confidence. As I have stated, I have three HD-100's and yes, I am wary and do indeed harbor a "healthy" paranoia that the other two may indeed fail. However, fortunately, I am quite confident that if they do, I will be able to repair them myself for relatively little cost.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by Narflex

For those that have had failures beyond the warranty period; a lot of this information in this thread useful for helping them repair the unit themself if they so desire if they had that same kind of failure; but there's also a bunch of unwarranted paranoia going around as well, and that needs to stop.

In our defense, what option did we have but to wildly speculate? We have absolutely no idea how many HD100s you sold, and we just have a lower bound (32, by my count) on the number of failures there have been. If you put yourself in our shoes, I don't think you'll find our reaction to the HD100 failures too surprising. It's relatively easy for you to tell us we're being irrational, because you have the data in front of you and you know your own credibility. But, we just know there have been at least 32 HD100s fail in what appears to be the same way. Without proper context I don't know what that means, I just think it's suspicious. That's understandable, isn't it?

But considering there's no real issue to address (since we know the numbers); I'm really not sure what kind of answer some of you are looking for.

Honestly, what you said is basically [one version] of what I was hoping for. You've heard the accusations, indicated you've done some checking, and you've publicly, and directly, refuted the alleged problem. So far you haven't really made any statements on this issue that we could hold you to. Now you have. I'm perfectly happy to take your word on it for now, pending future developments of course. But, that creates one more question.

I don't quite understand the need for secrecy over sales information, but I accept it and concede there are probably legitimate reasons for it (and I know it's not by any means unique to Sage). But, constrained with such limited information, how will we as users ever know the scale of the problem? In other words, how can we "trust, but verify"? I'm not looking for some perfect way of doing this, but it would be nice to have some kind of metric or set of criteria to help us determine whether there's a problem or if we're just overreacting. We know we're not going to see something on CNet or in the Tech pages of the Washington Post if it turns out there is a problem. I'm not saying we're entitled to it, I'm just saying it would be nice, and might head off additional speculation if failure reports keep trickling in.

Finally, thank you for taking time out of your day to discuss this. I know I appreciate it, and I'm sure other people watching this thread do too.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by merneric

Now, after over 30 confirmed cases, we seemed to have regressed into a sort of "deny the problem" mode. I wonder what the response to the company will be now?

I want to respond to this, in part because I'm a little concerned there is some overreaction going on in this thread, and I know I've fed into that. I do think this is something worth investigating, and something that should continue to be monitored, but I get concerned when I read comments about people performing moderately dangerous repairs on units that aren't even showing symptoms yet.

I think merneric's post is an unfair characterization of Sage. Sage never said there was a problem. Immediately after introducing the repair program, and speculation started up about what that meant, Narflex came back and basically said we were overreacting and over-analyzing. That was a little vague for my taste, but it's unfair to suggest Sage has reversed its position on the scale and cause of the alleged problem.

[evilpenguin]

A quick count in this forum shows that roughly 31 HD-100's have failed to date. Also, there is another thread that was started that indicated that at least one other unit has failed, so all in all, approximately 32 HD-100's have been reported to fail. Now I realize that in the grand scheme of things, again, I have no idea how many units have been sold, that this may very well on a percentage basis be small, but this still seems like a fairly high number.

That might be the craziest thing said yet in the thread, which is certainly saying something.

If you are sick you go to a doctor and if your HD100 breaks down you go to the forums. Which is to say that, of coarse, a disproportionately large number of people with issues are going to report them on the forums because that's where you go when you have issues. Its not like a political poll where one person can represent hundreds.

[AzTech]

FWIW, I personally agree with merneric. Narflex's post was unsettling in its lack of content. That said, I also agree with merneric that Sage is still a great product. Even though my confidence in the company has wavered by this experience, I would still recommend it to others.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

That might be the craziest thing said yet in the thread, which is certainly saying something.

If you are sick you go to a doctor and if your HD100 breaks down you go to the forums. Which is to say that, of coarse, a disproportionately large number of people with issues are going to report them on the forums because that's where you go when you have issues. Its not like a political poll where one person can represent hundreds.

I completely disagree. I've had lots of electronics fail over the years, and I'm pretty sure the only time I've ever posted on a forum over a hardware issue is in the case of my HD100 failure. Every other time I've called up company or the place I bought the thing from and RMAed it. Comparing visiting the forums for a hardware failure to visiting the doctor when sick is, quite frankly, absurd.

It's almost certainly the case Sage users rely on these forums more so than customers of other software and hardware products. But, we have no idea what percentage of Sage users are active on the forums. I had friends in college that used SageTV, and of them I was the only one that posted on these forums.

[merneric]

Ok, I'm usually more of a lurker than a poster, and really, I hesitate to get into this much more, but for some reason this topic has really drawn me out.

First, to reggie14: Look, I was merely making observations (supplementing some of your own in fact) about what has been reported so far, which to me seems fairly relevant. Further, while I agree with most of your posts, you do seem to be a little schizophrenic in that in one sense you seem to be suggesting that there IS a problem, and now you seem to be suggesting that perhaps there may NOT be a problem, and that it is merely alleged. The point that I was trying to make is that after 32 cases and who knows how many more (potentially) that there is indeed a problem, albeit perhaps a very very small one--we just do not know. And yes, while I realize that Sage was stepping up to the plate in that they began offering repairs, and while I also realize that this has got to be one big headache for them, I'm sorry, but when the CTO/Founder makes a comment like, "But considering there's no real issue to address (since we know the numbers); I'm really not sure what kind of answer some of you are looking for," I take a little exception to that, as it seems to imply that there is really nothing here to be concerned about, period. Again, after spending roughly $1000 in software and hardware, I would hope to get a little bit better customer support/empathy than that. That said, again, I reiterate, I am not calling for a boycott or a class action suit, or even a letter writing campaign, and yes, I would (and did) order more products from Sage, and for those of my friends/family who are technologically inclined enough to actually set up, use, and maintain SageTV, I would highly recommend it.

Now to evilpenguin: First, as a lurker here for a long time, I've seen your past posts, and your past work, all of which has been fantastic and very very beneficial. So when I see that you have characterized MY comments as "the craziest thing said yet in this [rather lengthy] thread," I don't know if I should be flattered, or if I should just go off to the nearest corner and hang my head in shame. But I can tell you, that as a doctor (which I happen to be) that if over the course of time, say a one year period where I might see/treat 1000 patients, if 32 of those patients started reporting to the clinic during a 3-4 month period, all of which demonstrated the same or similar symptoms, even though statistically it may not be epidemiologically significant, it would still be a cause for concern and I would definitely be compelled to investigate it further. However, casting aside the medical metaphor, your point is well taken, and believe me, as a Mac/Apple enthusiast, there are NUMEROUS examples of threads about defects with various revisions of almost every conceivable piece of Apple hardware manufactured to date, and yes, someone invariably almost always states the obvious in that the number of defective units is disproportionately represented by those who are much more motivated to log on and post a problem, compared to the vast majority of folks that have no problems, and hence, do not log on at all. That said, I would venture to say that the overall number of SageTV HD-100 units is quite a bit LESS than that of the typical more mainstream hardware platform, and unless the number of units out there is made public, (1000? 10,000? 100,000?) we will never really know. So yeah, call me crazy, but I do think that 32 reported cases in a few months time, with the unknown propensity for possible future cases forthcoming IS a little disconcerting.

So I guess the question is, what exactly DO I want? Well, I guess I would like to see some sort of acknowledgement that there is a problem with the HD-100, or at least some small subset of them, and/or at least some expression of concern.

And with that, I have suddenly realized why it is that I am reluctant to post to these types of forums, as it seems to all too easily devolve into this sort of Flame-War back and forth, that really contributes very little.

So just to appease (and hopefully deflect) all the Sage Lovers out there, fear not, I am right there with you. And just to be clear, I DO respect the opinions and work of others on this forum, and to me that is really the most important thing. And yes, I do respect the work of Narflex, and what he and others have done to create and continuously improve this great product, and if in fact 10,000 HD-100 units are out there, and I was one of the unlucky "32" whose units failed, then yeah, this is probably all for naught, and I would be one of the first to come back and admit it.

[Steve]

Originally Posted by Narflex

What makes you certain that these caps were made with bad electrolyte? So far I haven't been able to find any indication that the ones used are from the companies that suffered from that problem. Just because a cap fails due to bulging; does not mean it was one of those from the 'capacitor plauge'. Bulging is quite often a visible means to indicate capacitor failure; it does not necessarily mean it failed due to the 'capacitor plague' item you linked to.

Jeff, First - thank you for taking the time to respond. You are right, and I apologize. I can not be absolutely certain that these caps were made from a batch with 'the plague'. But I have been around electronics for over 30 years and I can say with a high degree of certainty that it is abnormal for a properly designed and engineered system to fail in this manner in such a short time period. If these were just fluke problems you would see the issue much sooner. Once a circuit breaks in for a short while, it will tend to work reliably for many years. So, in my humble opinion there is either some sort of engineering problem on the power supply board (possible but unlikely), or these caps have 'the plague', much more likely. Because of the timing of the failures and the nature of the failures, it kind of falls in the 'if it looks like the plague and smells like the plague its a good bet its the plague'. Unless you know exactly what happened at the manufacturer (and you may) it is quite possible, even likely that they used different caps in different runs, even possible to use different caps in same runs. Some may have come from different suppliers, its also possible that the cap manufacturer used different recipes in batches very close together. So, you are right, there is no way to know for certain without lab testing the bad caps electrolyte whether it is the bad formula. Only time will tell but if I were a gambling man I would bet you will continue to see failures.

All that said, I don't think there should be any paranoia either. There are at least 3 solutions to the problem, but it does seem you are sort of just dismissing it as 'normal' when I would suggest it is not. I know for a fact there are failed units out there that Sage does not know about. I only know a few, but how many are there in reality - nobody knows.

As others stated and I agree, I do love the product and will continue to use it and even purchase HD200's. I do appreciate the time, effort and skill required to create and continuing improving a product like this. Nobody is saying anything negative at all about Sage other than they don't seem to be taking this as serious as they perhaps should.

I also totally disagree with Mr. Penguins analogy. Geez, just think how many people you know that get sick that don't even go to a doctor. Comparing reporting illness to a doctor and reporting hardware problems on a forum is just not realistic.

Ultimately Sage will do what they feel is right based on their proprietary data, I just don't want to see a thousand dollar plus investment go down the tubes because a small company like Sage gets killed with bad press or failure to act. Not saying its going to happen, and I pray it doesn't but if I were running the place I would certainly be asking more questions instead of just saying there is no problem.

Edited for typos.

[paulbeers]

I have/had 3 HD100's (one of which I have sold to my parents for their use). Two of which I purchased in Feb/Mar of 2008 and one I purchased last August. All are doing fine. Have I opened them to see if their are any bulging capacitors? No. But they are all working as expected. My parents use theirs as their main way of watching TV (mine have all been moved to secondary TV's when I purchased my HD200).

I just thought it time to point out that many HD100's are doing fine; however, should one break I will be using some of the tips in this thread on how to fix (most likely the external wallwart fix).

[gibsonpa]

Based on the flurry of posts in this thread, I decided to open all 4 of my HD100's last night.

Two are from the second batch (Feb08?)...and the other two are from the third batch (spring 08).

Two of the HD100's get used daily, the other two get used a few times a week.

Anyway, all the capacitors looked like new...none were bulged, discolored, or strange looking.

I did buy 6 of the capacitors from RS earlier in the week just in case (< $10)...but just wanted to at least share my findings.