SKY box maintenance The following is a guide for anyone that owns a SKY+HD box who would like to maintain it themselves. Especially those of you with a box no longer under warantee wishing to avoid having to contact SKY or pay for an engineer. This guide mainly applies to the DRX890 and DRX895 boxes as these are the only SKY+HD boxes that Sky still support, but some of the tips below will work for older boxes. This guide does not support Sky Q. The SKY+HD box The SKY+ HD boxes are essentially a mini PC in-a-box with an internal hard drive, a TV output, input via a small control panel or remote control, and a network card in the form of an ethernet connector or built-in or attachable wifi device. SKY supply the software or 'operating system' (known as the EPG) that runs on each box. This universal software has to work on every type of SKY box that is still supported and is delivered at random times silently without you knowing when the next update is coming. These updates have been proven to of had minimal pre-delivery testing. When an update is pushed out a small percentage of SKY+ box owners experience one or more glitches or even system failures. At this point you'll be reaching for the phone to call SKY or logging on to SKY.com to raise a ticket. This guide was written to provide you with a few helpful steps so that you could try and resolve the problem yourself. Usual disclaimer: I accept no responsibility for your actions. Keep your deleted items folder empty I can't emphasise this tip enough. Keeping your deleted items folder empty or near empty is essential to maintain the health of your hard drive. Relying on the built-in space management software is not advisable. I receive many emails from people who never deleted anything in their deleted folder and as soon as the free space reached 10% or lower they started experiencing planner failures. While you may get lucky and experience no problems, taking 5 minutes each week to clear out the deleted folder will go a long way to extend the life of your system. To reduce recording problems due to having too many deleted items it is a good idea to regularly go into the deleted items folder and delete the contents. Do this often otherwise you will be sat there for ages deleting the contents as each deletion is a slow and tedious process. To delete the contents of your deleted folder: • Press tv guide • Enter your planner • Select the deleted folder • Select an item to delete and press the yellow button • Repeat for each item that you wish to permanently delete How automated housekeeping works Your box has a section of the hard drive marked as available to you for storing recordings and downloaded programs. A bar indicates how much of this space you have used and how much is free. Mar 12, 2012 Sky plus WITHOUT subscription to Sky. A valid card is being used, does a logic line level change ie from low to. The chip inside the viewing card. Why is it saying 'channel unavailable'? Activate Sky Card STEP 3: After this press “select”. Sky boxes must be connected to an active phone line or broadband connection to maintain the credit facilities for Sky Box Office or Sky Store purchases.Older. I need to activate my viewing card but do not have my landline connected yet nor do i have a mobile phone is there a way of activating the card. The free space is the size of unused space and the contents of the deleted folder combined. The housekeeping function routinely removes any recording in the deleted folder that has been there for 60 days or longer. If the unused space equals zero then the housekeeping function needs to free up space, which it does in the following order: • Permanently deletes the oldest recording in the deleted folder • Permanently deletes the next oldest recording in the deleted folder • Permanently deletes recordings in the deleted folder until the deleted folder is empty then. • Permanently deletes the oldest recording in your planner marked VIEWED but not marked KEEP and not purchased • Permanently deletes oldest recording in planner marked RECORDED/DOWNLOADED in your planner not marked KEEP and not purchased • Permanently deletes oldest recording in planner not marked KEEP • Permanently deletes oldest recording in planner Defrag your hard drive As you record and delete programs your hard drive will become fragmented. This can lead to recording and playback performance problems. For example you may be recording two HD programs while playing a third from your planner. Your SKY box has to read and write a lot of data to and from your hard drive and if that hard drive is fragmented the hard drive mechanics have a lot of work to do which could lead to jerky playback or recording problems. In order to defrag your hard drive you have to perform a planner rebuild. This process takes time as essentially it performs several actions that combined provide a form of integrity check. These actions require all processes to be stopped so perform a rebuild only when you have no recordings happening now or within the next 20 minutes. It is recommended that your deleted items folder is empty before performing a planner rebuild. To perform a planner rebuild: • Press services • Select help • Select Sky+ Rebuild • Press select to confirm A rebuild will look at all your recorded and scheduled programs and re-order and validate them. Click to expand. You’ll need to ensure that both your Sky box and TV are switched on. Your Sky box can be turned on using either the power button on your Sky remote control or on your box. Once your TV is on, you’ll need to ensure the correct input is selected, to do this you may need to refer to your TV instruction manual. Once the correct input is selected, you will see channel 998 appear, this is the Sky Intro Channel. Insert your Sky viewing card, into the slot located under the pull down cover on your box., ensuring the arrows are facing inwards and the gold chip is facing downwards. The Sky engineer should have connected your Sky box to a telephone line. This connection must still be in place to activate your viewing card. Click to expand. • Using your Sky remote control, press the service button. You then need to press the right arrow once to go to the settings tab. Now, press select and the picture option will be selected. • Using your keypad, type 0 then 1 and then press select. • The set-up tab should now be highlighted. Press 6 on your keypad to go to install (this will change to new install once selected) and press select. • Simply follow the on-screen instructions until the message installation complete is displayed and then press select to continue. Your viewing card has now been activated! In some instances it may take up to four hours for your subscription channels to appear. To confirm the viewing card has been successfully activated please turn to channel a channel that you subscribe to, for example, Sky Sports, where you should be able to see the programme. Click to expand. You’ll need to ensure that both your Sky box and TV are switched on. Your Sky box can be turned on using either the power button on your Sky remote control or on your box. Once your TV is on, you’ll need to ensure the correct input is selected, to do this you may need to refer to your TV instruction manual. Once the correct input is selected you will see channel 998 appear, this is the Sky Intro Channel. Insert your Sky viewing card, into the slot located under the pull down cover on your box., ensuring the arrows are facing inwards and the gold chip is facing downwards. The Sky engineer should have connected your Sky box to a telephone line. This connection must still be in place to activate your viewing card. Click to expand. • Using your Sky remote control, press the services button, when the menu is displayed, choose option 4 (System Setup) by press 4 on your keypad or scrolling down using the arrow keys and pressing select. • Using your keypad, type 0 then 1 and then press select. In the Installer setup menu, select option 6 for new installations. • Press the select button to display the signal screen test, you will need to press select again to confirm the channel scan process is taking place. • If this process is successful, the message: “Channel line up complete” will be displayed on your screen. Now, press select and you will see the message: “Call back in process” displayed. • If this is successful, you will see the message: “Installation complete” displayed. By pressing the select button you will return to normal viewing. Your viewing card has now been activated! In some instances it may take up to four hours for your subscription channels to appear. To confirm the viewing card has been successfully activated please turn to channel a channel that you subscribe to, for example, Sky Sports, where you should be able to see the programme?:cheers.
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