Hi All,

My Sky+ box ceased working a week and a half ago, so have been without tv!!!

I've been looking on ebay for a week to try and find a replacement, for parts or cheap working box that's local to me.
Well, I've just bought a Sky+ HD for cheap money and it was only a couple miles away

I'm not wanting to pay for HD at the moment. (I bought this as it was close, cheap and I may go HD in future)

So, can I just plug it in and away I go with my old Sky+ card?

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And my second question!
Whilst I was at the sellers house, I asked him if he had a broken Sky+ box (he was really into AV) so that I could repair mine. He didn't but had a cheap working box, so I bought that aswell.
What do I need to get it working in another room (as above, don't want to pay any multiroom charges if that can be avoided)?

TIA
Steve

Not sure about your problem, but I did read a couple of years ago about people buying sky boxes off ebay. There was something you could do to the box to watch free pay per view movies etc. The box was then sold and the next person to plug it into their phoneline got a huge bill for all the films!

Not sure how true it was but its somet to watch out for!

You need to ring sky and get them to pair your card to your hd box. does the hd box have the new epg yet?

G

The guy seemed sound, so will watch out for that, but think I'll be fine!

Plus, I don't have it plugged into the phone line either!

Mr G, what's epg? and Do you know the number to call Sky on to pair it up, or is it just a normal Sky number?

Cheers!

You don't need a sub to get bbc1 hd, channel 4 hd etc. If/when you have the new epg on the box then you will be able to add itv1 hd as w ll through tthe other channels menu (wont be able to record/pause/rewind etc though)

As regard to buying movies and not pay for them it was a 9v battery on the phone line socket fooling the box into thinking it was connected, you bought movies and it storred your purchases on your sky CARD. It couldnt dial in to let them know what you had purchased though so you didnt get charged. The limit was about £50 before it stopped letting you purcha e movies unit it made a sucessful call back to sky.

Cheers

G

You''ll have to excuse any spelling mistakes as i'm on my phone replying to this!

Last time i paired my card over from my standard sky box to my new sky+ box i just rang the standard sky cs number. don't think they put me through to any pairing specific department. Was their Indian cs though. the epg is the menu system. if the menus on the hd box look like your old sky+ box then you havn't got it yet. it will download & update in its own time. What make hd box did you pick up?

G

It's a thompson box, think it's 300Gb?

It has the new epg then!


By "sub" do you mean subscription?
I pay for No movies or sports, but pay fo rthe other 6 "packs" and am happy to keep it like that.
Plus, I rung to cancel, and they knocked it down to 50% for 6months (£28 to £14 for Sky+ phone & Broadband)...

[Edited on 14/2/10 by Steve Hignett]

The first Thomson boxes (with component out - Red/Green/Blue rca's on the rear) had a power supply problem (cheap copy diodes from china) and would have problems like no signal recieved, clock speeding up, wont power on, lock ups etc etc.

New thomsons without component were sorted out. thats why early models are cheapest of all hd boxes to buy.

Sorry wrong reply by sub i mean hd sub. you dont need to pay the extra £10 a month to get bbc c4 & itv in hd. they are available to watch for free.

Phone batterys going!

[Edited on 14/2/10 by Mr G]

quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Hignett
Plus, I rung to cancel, and they knocked it down to 50% for 6months (£28 to £14 for Sky+ phone & Broadband)...

[Edited on 14/2/10 by Steve Hignett]

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Hope your batt doesn't die soon!

So, I can watch certain HD channels without a HD sub then? Cool...

Just checked and it does have the components on the back - are there any tips to elongate the life of this, I didn't really have the money for this, so can't really be replacing it soon!

The sky box broke the day after I knocked them down on price - gutted, I would have demanded a new box had I known!!!

What make is your old sky+ box?

The new one is here:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=190372766949&ru=http%3A%2F%2Fshop.ebay.co.uk%3A80%2F%3F_from%3DR40%26_trksid%3Dp4712.m38. l1313%26_nkw%3D190372766949%26_sacat%3DSee-All-Categories%26_fvi%3D1&_rdc=1

or item No. 190372766949

Don't know whether you'll be able to check it out on your phone, but there you go!

The old sky+ was a thomson box also and apparantly the PSU has gone!!!

Thomson used the same psu's for sky+ and sky hd boxes, they are interchangable. I was going to say that if it wasn't the psu broken in your sky+ box you could of swapped it over into the hd box. However it lseems it came from the same bad batch that the hd boxes got!

If you got the box cheap enoug then spending the money on a psu from ebay/satcure(digifix?) is a good plan. You can get a kit to ffix your own psu or part ex yours in and get one already sorted.

Prevention is Better than the cure here as the psu can take out the mainboard and other items when its failing

G

Yep a buggered PSU

I did get the box cheap, and I also believe in prevention better than repair, but I really don't have the money to spend at the moment!

If you know a way of getting the repair pack v cheap then I'd have a go myself!

Or do you think I could swap my faulty Sky+ box for the repair board itself?

battery just about to give up the ghost so will get back to you when i get home

G

cool beans...

Ideally you could sell your sky+ as spares or repair to get funds for the upgraded psu board for the hd box.

I've just put it back together and was thinking about that myself - it is unmarked etc, what's it worth roughly?

Cheers,
Steve

I think postage would be the killer so it would have to be collection only. You could always take the psu out of the hd box and put it in the sky+ so you can sell it as working

A working 160gb pvr3 (anytime) has got to be worth £35 Edit: Looks like on ebay a spares or repair would be £35 with a working item going for £50+

[Edited on 15/2/10 by Mr G]