HD100 power supply repair

[cslatt]

Thanks to whoever put together those DIY instructions - got mine back up and running in less than 15 minutes once I sat down with the replacement caps in hand.

[Surtr]

Add one more to the pile of success stories with this fix. Thanks OP!

[jchiso]

I found my HD-100 dead yesterday morning. I was not even aware of this affliction until I found this thread. I went to The Shack today for the caps and some desoldering braid. It took me about two hours to complete the removal and replacement, but the unit works again now. I now know that desoldering is not for the particularly inept or for those with large hands and bad near-field vision.

Thanks to all who have contributed instructions in this thread. It has been an absolute lifesaver...

[Slipshod]

One of my two HD-100s started losing IR range this week, and within 3 days was blinky-red dead. I work with some hardware folks, so I had one of them replace the caps with the radioshack model in the guide. Worked brilliantly!

[Bandit]

Found one of mine dead Thursday night when I went to bed. Bought the new caps Friday and fixed it quickly when I got home from work.

I emailed support before I looked for this thread that I knew existed and they replied with the $39 RMA. I have to give them credit though, in their email back to me they said if up to it there are two do-it-yourself fixes and they linked both of them, so kudos to them for giving people multiple options. Sure is nice fixing myself in 10 minutes then sending it back and being without it for a couple weeks.

[mbowe]

Originally Posted by jchiso

I found my HD-100 dead yesterday morning. I was not even aware of this affliction until I found this thread. I went to The Shack today for the caps and some desoldering braid. It took me about two hours to complete the removal and replacement, but the unit works again now. I now know that desoldering is not for the particularly inept or for those with large hands and bad near-field vision.

Thanks to all who have contributed instructions in this thread. It has been an absolute lifesaver...

I hear ya jchiso, I did mine a couple of weeks ago as well, but rememebered from the past not to mess with the braid.

For others with 'Meat Hooks' and/or diminishing vision , I suggust you get a solder removal sucker rather then the braid. It really helps get the solder out much quicker. You get to focus on heating up the old joint and sucking solder out rather than worry about the braid placement, and getting the braid soldered into the joint, etc.

[sungod]

Originally Posted by Bandit

Found one of mine dead Thursday night when I went to bed. Bought the new caps Friday and fixed it quickly when I got home from work.

I emailed support before I looked for this thread that I knew existed and they replied with the $39 RMA. I have to give them credit though, in their email back to me they said if up to it there are two do-it-yourself fixes and they linked both of them, so kudos to them for giving people multiple options. Sure is nice fixing myself in 10 minutes then sending it back and being without it for a couple weeks.

I agree. Sage gave me the same information on how to "do-it-yourself". It sounded a little intimidating at first, but now I have learned a new skill, too. And if I had not, $39 or so is still a good price to get this thing back online. I think I did it for around $30 myself and that included buying new tools. If anything like this happened again I would be out less than $5.

Now I find myself looking at my other household electronics in hopes of using my soldering gun again. I hope nothing breaks, but I feel more confident now if it does.

[paulbeers]

While I am still one of the lucky ones (3 different HD100's and not one has gone down). I have decided to go ahead and order everything I needed to do the fix myself (my soldering iron so I ordered all new tools). I figured I would rather order everything and have them on hand, rather than take the chance and have to pay retail! New Soldering Iron, Rosin Core Solder, Solder Pump, and 10 capacitors and it only cost me about $15. Thanks Ebay!

[simonen]

I went over to Radio Shack and got some capacitors to fix mine finally and it took me all of maybe 15-20 minutes to fix it. Thanks cocoontech.com for the great repair guide!

[Ericvic]

One of my two HD100 just had this problem. A quick trip to RadioShack and about 10 minutes to desolder and resolder and it is working fine now.

I'm going to order some caps for my other unit and pro-actively replace them since I'm sure they will go sooner or later.

Eric

[jchiso]

Originally Posted by simonen

I went over to Radio Shack and got some capacitors to fix mine finally and it took me all of maybe 15-20 minutes to fix it...

Originally Posted by Ericvic

... A quick trip to RadioShack and about 10 minutes to desolder and resolder and it is working fine now...

Originally Posted by cslatt

... got mine back up and running in less than 15 minutes once I sat down with the replacement caps in hand.

Originally Posted by Polycron

... It took me longer to drive to Radio Shack [than] to fix the problem...

Okay, many here have chimed in on how easy this upgrade was. If anyone is planning to upgrade an additional unit it would be of great help if you were to illustrate your technique, whether by photos or video.

Thanks in advance...

[carlgar]

Originally Posted by jchiso

Okay, many here have chimed in on how easy this upgrade was. If anyone is planning to upgrade an additional unit it would be of great help if you were to illustrate your technique, whether by photos or video.

Thanks in advance...

See
http://www.cocoontech.com/portal/art...hd100-extender

[jchiso]

Originally Posted by carlgar

See
http://www.cocoontech.com/portal/art...hd100-extender

I saw that and referred to it in my repair, but this while this covers the steps and shows "Before and After" it does not illustrate the techniques used to complete the operation...

[stefano540]

One of my two HD100s died yesterday, but thanks to the instructions in this thread I was up on the air within 15 minutes. The worst part was scrounging the caps from my bone pile of old motherboards. Turns out that there are 16V parts on the 12V switching supply for the CPU power, which did the trick!

[sungod]

Originally Posted by jchiso

I saw that and referred to it in my repair, but this while this covers the steps and shows "Before and After" it does not illustrate the techniques used to complete the operation...

It is too late for me to show pictures since I already did it. But basically, I held the hot tip of the soldering iron to the wire on the bottom of the circuit board. I used latex gloves to prevent any grease from my fingers from contaiminating anything or getting molten metal on my hands.

I used a suction device from radio shack that used a 1-button push technique to "suck up" molten solder. I ejected the molten stuff onto a wet sponge whenever I reloaded the suction device.

Once the solder was loose enough to pull the old caps out, I did so--and no more.

Putting the new ones in was much easier and I will go into more detail later after I think about. Hopefully I don't forget to do that.

[jchiso]

Originally Posted by sungod

It is too late for me to show pictures since I already did it. But basically, I held the hot tip of the soldering iron to the wire on the bottom of the circuit board. I used latex gloves to prevent any grease from my fingers from contaiminating anything or getting molten metal on my hands.

I used a suction device from radio shack that used a 1-button push technique to "suck up" molten solder. I ejected the molten stuff onto a wet sponge whenever I reloaded the suction device.

Once the solder was loose enough to pull the old caps out, I did so--and no more.

Putting the new ones in was much easier and I will go into more detail later after I think about. Hopefully I don't forget to do that.

That's good info. As I mentioned, I was able to complete my upgrade, but with considerably more difficulty. Clearly, there will be others who stumble upon this thread, so the more info that is provided here, the better.

[sungod]

yeah, jchiso, It took me about an hour to actually do the work. I took my time because I did not want to damage anything. So long as you have a steady hand and some patience, it can be done.

But if does not sound too easy for someone the cost of repairs (from tech support) is not that high, either. It was less than $40 if I remember right.

[parkimar]

Well I just repaired my HD100 as well.
I tried the capacitor route - but suspect my soldering was not up to par.

Ended up using the external power supply (10 $ off of ebay).

The Xbox running XBMC is back in the bedroom now !
(Must admit I had gotten used to the speed of navigating with the Xbox - the HD100 feels a bit slow now).

Cheers

Mark

[hemicuda]

Did the repair on mine tonight. Took longer for the iron to heat up than to replace the 3 caps. 2 of the 3 were starting to swell. No more annoying squeal from the box. Props to whoever came up w/ the fix.

Just one question... who in their right mind puts 10V caps in a power supply? I was a bit shocked when I saw the rating. It's no wonder they started to fail. 35V should provide a good cushion and last quite a bit longer.

[millers_35]

Add another to the list. My extender was ordered the first day they were released. It didn't fail completely but for the past couple days it had been making an annoying buzzing noise, so I figured I would go ahead and fix it before it went out completely. After replacing the caps no more buzzing. 2 of the 3 caps were bulging out at the top with some residue on them.

Miller