How often do HD200s or HD300s fail?

[tvmaster2]

is there anyone who is setup to repair these, aka did Jeff et al leave us with any way, or place to send them for repair (for a fee of course)

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by routerunner

The reason why the HD300 gets hotter is because the aluminium case itself is the heat-sink as opposite of the HD200 which isn't, so some form of hot surface is expected.

I reckon that when the HD300 is running so hot that cannot be touched is when the heat-sink is not properly mounted or the thermal paste is defective. As the HD300 are now out of warranty opening the case doesn't matter any more so you might be able to fix it properly.

One of the factor contributing to shorten the life-cycle of any piece of electronics is high temperature and anything above 65-70ºC is just a killer.

Hope it helps
Eddy

Sorry to nitpick but if the outside of the case is too hot to touch the thermal path from the processor to the case is working great. It's the airflow around the case that is supposed to remove the heat that is insufficient to keep the device cool.

[pjpjpjpj]

Okay, this is a slight threadjack, though it does have to do with weird behavior/failure...

Earlier in this thread I said I thought I lost an HD300 ethernet port. This was the unit at my basement home theater. So I moved the HD300 to the family room TV (where I have another HD300, just switched them out) and it worked fine there... So that would point to the problem being a bad cable or switch port serving the basement, right? Except that I plugged in an HD200 in the basement, using the same ethernet cable (and switch port), and the HD200 works fine.

Anyone know why the HD300 might not have worked in the basement, yet an HD200 works fine there, and the HD300 works fine elsewhere?

(I have not taken the HD300 back to the basement and tried it again, to see if it "fixed itself")

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

Sorry to nitpick but if the outside of the case is too hot to touch the thermal path from the processor to the case is working great. It's the airflow around the case that is supposed to remove the heat that is insufficient to keep the device cool.

Yes and no, the convection airflow (the one not produced by external ventilation) is only influenced by where you put the extender. The internal heat is accumulated on top of the case and trapped as there aren't any holes on top of the unit making the whole case very hot, so the thermal chain is broken. If the case was in contact with the heat source it would transfer the heat outside, but because it isn't it just get hot because of the air trapped, make sense?

Someone on this thread suggested to make some holes on top of the case, well that will help the trapped air to escape mitigating the issue, but not solving it completely.

Eddy

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by routerunner

Yes and no, the convection airflow (the one not produced by external ventilation) is only influenced by where you put the extender. The internal heat is accumulated on top of the case and trapped as there aren't any holes on top of the unit making the whole case very hot, so the thermal chain is broken. If the case was in contact with the heat source it would transfer the heat outside, but because it isn't it just get hot because of the air trapped, make sense?

Someone on this thread suggested to make some holes on top of the case, well that will help the trapped air to escape mitigating the issue, but not solving it completely.

Eddy

I think there is a general misunderstanding of thermodynamics here. I don't have an HD300 so I don't know first hand how the thermal conductance is actually handled. However, having dissected other devices where the processor is thermally coupled to the external case there is no internal convection. The heat, molecular motion, is transferred directly from the processor to the case. From there either through convection or radiation the heat is transferred away from the source.

In other words, if your device is overheating it needs to be moved to where it can receive better air flow and/or away from other sources of heat. If your extender is placed on top of a stack of devices it needs to be moved elsewhere as heat rises.

I actually have had personal experience with that. Had an old AppleTV sitting next to my HD200. During the heat of the summer the HD200 started acting up. Turned out the AppleTV was causing it to overheat.

[Taddeusz]

In the case of the HD300 it appears that there is a heatsink attached to the processor. Since that is the case my previous comment is not really relevant here but still true for those types of devices.

[Taddeusz]

Logically though, if you have your device tucked away where there is little to no air flow you would have a less likely chance of it failing by moving it to a more open environment.

[RonBoyd]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

Logically though, if you have your device tucked away where there is little to no air flow you would have a less likely chance of it failing by moving it to a more open environment.

I had all of my HD300s (at different times) sitting out in the op
en with nothing obstructing normal room air flow. Each of them became extremely hot. The only thing that changed that behavior was a fan directed towards the device, i.e., the above mentioned Laptop Fan.

[KryptoNyte]

I was considering one of these for each HD300:

http://www.amazon.com/Coolerguys-120...A2F13KK758WMXQ

Unfortunately, I suppose the USB port on the HD300 doesn't power down when you power the unit off (leaving it plugged in to power), so the fan would be running 24/7.

[KryptoNyte]

Originally Posted by routerunner

The reason why the HD300 gets hotter is because the aluminium case itself is the heat-sink as opposite of the HD200 which isn't, so some form of hot surface is expected.

I reckon that when the HD300 is running so hot that cannot be touched is when the heat-sink is not properly mounted or the thermal paste is defective. As the HD300 are now out of warranty opening the case doesn't matter any more so you might be able to fix it properly.

One of the factor contributing to shorten the life-cycle of any piece of electronics is high temperature and anything above 65-70ºC is just a killer.

Hope it helps
Eddy

Eddy, do you think it's possible that some of the plugins could push the HD300's processor harder than the stock software under which it was developed?

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

I was considering one of these for each HD300:

http://www.amazon.com/Coolerguys-120...A2F13KK758WMXQ

Unfortunately, I suppose the USB port on the HD300 doesn't power down when you power the unit off (leaving it plugged in to power), so the fan would be running 24/7.

Yes, you're right, the USB are still powered when the extender is in soft power off, however think about it, switching off the HD300 leaves the unit still very hot for awhile so having a fan that helps to drop the temperature quickly is not so bad, but I understand your point after the unit cools off.

While ago I purchased these USB powered fan for my laptop (to cool me down actually) which have a power switch, better then nothing, but if your extenders are used by kids you will have hard time to train them

Eddy

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

Eddy, do you think it's possible that some of the plugins could push the HD300's processor harder than the stock software under which it was developed?

IIRC the UI is rendered on the server and only when in standalone mode the UI is rendered by the unit, so I don't think the quantity/quality of the plugin matters, instead, what can potentially increase the temperature is playing back very high bit-rate content, that would make the audio/video decoding part of the processor work harder and therefore increasing the temperature, but I've no idea how much, maybe some experiment could tell us a bit more.

I've personally had a weird behaviour while ago whereas one of my extender did run particularly hot (but not that hot to prevent touching it) and changing the HDMI cable length did solve the issue, but I never figured out the real reason behind it. You can read the full story HERE if you'll find hard to fall asleep

Eddy

[oldmike60]

Just found this thread. I seem to have had two of the NIC failures. Unfortunately I threw one away, but I still have one. I see suggestions of using a USB-based wifi. What about a USB to ethernet adapter?

[jm9843]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

Earlier in this thread I said I thought I lost an HD300 ethernet port. This was the unit at my basement home theater. So I moved the HD300 to the family room TV (where I have another HD300, just switched them out) and it worked fine there... So that would point to the problem being a bad cable or switch port serving the basement, right? Except that I plugged in an HD200 in the basement, using the same ethernet cable (and switch port), and the HD200 works fine.

Anyone know why the HD300 might not have worked in the basement, yet an HD200 works fine there, and the HD300 works fine elsewhere?

Did you ever get to the bottom of this? I'm seeing similar issues where the HD300 is inexplicably slowing down because of apparent network issues. However, I've troubleshooted the network and it's fine.

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by jm9843

Did you ever get to the bottom of this? I'm seeing similar issues where the HD300 is inexplicably slowing down because of apparent network issues. However, I've troubleshooted the network and it's fine.

I'm coming into this late, and am not sure of the exact slowdown issues you are seeing. If I try to use any of my extenders when my WHS SageTV server is in the process of doing maintenance or doing backups of my other PCs I get tons of lag, more in viewing recordings than using the interface. Videos will freeze, skip, etc. Sometimes hitting the skip back button will help which hints to me that the buffer is running out waiting for packets from the WHS machine.
Or, I can just wait until the nightly backups finish and then everything is fine again.

[tvmaster2]

Just got my first HD300 - and yeah, these things are hot for sure, even if you've turned the unit off. That's weird - what's it doing when it's off?
Does a certain firmware make it run cooler, or if something is plugged into the USB port, does that keep the unit in a semi-active state?

[KryptoNyte]

Hot is how they run. I seem to recall someone saying that they are never really "off," which would explain why they are hot even when off. I make sure that mine are never suffocated in a tight area.

[BobbyDing]

I highly recommend purchasing a notepad cooling fan (that a notepad sits on) and have the HD300 sit on that. Mine has been sitting on one for years and the unit is always cool to the touch. I bought a few of them on sale for $5 each, since the fans do wear out (cheap).

Bobby