HELP Liteon 5005 has a mind of its own

[Sooty]

I am having trouble with my Liteon 5005 (Feb 2004)recorder it seems to have a mind of its own
When I switch the unit on it switches itself off.
When I enter Setup the curser runs round the screen willy nilly and I have difficulty holding it in one position.
I managed to scan for Tv stations but when I enter the screen to put the stations in order the curser jumps round the screen at random and I cannot do anything with it.
Also when I switch the unit off it sometimes switches on again after about 2 minutes and keeps switching on till I pull the plug.
I am so fed up with it that it looks a like it may be going in the bin shame really as up to a month ago I had no trouble at all with it

[kurb]

I have read hundreds and hundreds of post and threads in this and other forums, about liteon 5005 and this is the first time I have heard about your problem.
You said it was working fine than it just started acting up like that.

Thats strange. I wonder if its your hand controller. Because sometimes with mine it double clicks. Like hitting the guider button it would go to the guider menu, than right away it jumps out of it, back to where I was, as if it was pushed twice, but I only pushed it once

[Sooty]

Thats possible, But how would I go about testing the remote?

[kurb]

Does it go on and off even if you turn it on by pushing the power button on the liteon itself? If it does than I would guess its the unit.
I'm not sure how to actually test the remote.

[Sooty]

If I switch on at the unit it seems to stay on and I can navigate the source control without difficulty so I guess it looks like the remote control is at fault
can these be bought seperately?

Phoned Liteon Tec Support told them the trouble I am having they said they had never heard of a machine acting this way and are sending me a new Remote Control to see if it clears the problem.

[Snakebyte1]

There is a fairly high demand for demonically possessed items on eBay - maybe you could sell it???

[kurb]

Phoned Liteon Tec Support told them the trouble I am having they said they had never heard of a machine acting this way and are sending me a new Remote Control to see if it clears the problem.

At least you will find out now, if its the remote.
Good luck

[Sooty]

Thanks kurb
I will let you know when I get the new remote.

[Sooty]

I recieved the new remote yesterday morning and it made no difference at all.
So I guess its not the remote control thats at fault but the machine itself I will get back on to Liteon and tell them the news

[lordsmurf]

This can happen when you leave a disc in the unit, and it is running off a certain firmware, or rather, a misdone version.

I saw this on my LiteOn 5001 when I screwed up the official 1163 upgrade, and would leave a disc in.

Kind of an odd thing, but reflash it, and only leave discs in when doing timer recordings.

It would turn on/off, eject discs, etc .... like a possessed machine.

[kurb]

Hey Sooty, hopefully lordsmurf has the answer for you

[solidsnake]

so if I ever needed a remote, they have replacements available? Did it cost you any money?

[Sooty]

Thanks for that lordsmurf, I reflashed it again with the latest firmware and its still the same?

No solidsnake the remote did not cost a penny.

Hey kurb, got a RMA number from Liteon yesterday to return the unit, but I dont fancy hunting around for a box to pack it in and paying shipping to Liteon especially as the last time I sent a RMA it was a HP DVD burner to Hewlet Packard and was allegedly lost in the post?

Why is the onus on the purchaser to return faulty goods to the manufacturer at their own expense when its the manufacturers job to ensure the goods are of merchantable quality?

sorry about the moan, guess I will call it a day and scrap the machine
Thanks to all who replied to my query.

[Sooty]

Just thought I would update you with the latest news, I RMAed the machine and yesterday I recieved a brand new 5005 it looks identical to the old one except that it has component progressive out the old one only had scart.

Well I connected it to the TV (Toshiba 46WM48) via scart switched on and it acts exactly the same as the old machine that I sent back i.e. the cursor has a mind of its own when I enter the Setup Menu or Easy Guider Menu and is very difficult to control, I managed eventually to tune it in to my antenna and the picture is ok it dawned on me that the 5005 might not like the scart connection from the 5005 to the Toshiba so I removed the scart and connected via component this was a much cleaner and solid picture than the scart but I still had the same trouble with the cursor.

I got in touch with Liteon support and told him the latest machine was acting just the same as the one I had sent back, he asked me to insert a DVD to see if it would play, it played I Robot faultlessly beautiful picture (much better than the old one) then he asked me to go into the Setup Menu and the cursor was all over the screen he asked me to read him the firmware number and the third set of numbers read 0090
(I thought 0080 was the latest firmware) He said he would send me a new firmware disk through the post to see if this sorted it out, but in the meantime to try and record with the machine and let him know how I got on.

I inserted the DVD+RW disk that came with the recorder and recorded for 10 mins all seemed OK until I tried to play it back where it came up INVALID DISK please replace.
I tried several times and the same thing happened so I erased the disk and turned off.
I came back to the machine 2hrs later and tried to Record with the same disk as before and it Recorded and played back faultlessly
I just don't understand it?

[solidsnake]

Do you live in a house with a lot of paranormal activity?

[johnahl]

You may have something else that transmitting an infrared signal. Try isolating the recorder so that the only light source the recorder can see is the one from the liteon's remote. You may have to move the recorder into another room.

[lordsmurf]

I tend to agree. Something in the house is the cause. Infrared, power, ghosts, etc.

[kurb]

I agree also. 2 machines that are acting in the same crazy manner. There has to be a logical reason behind it. But it sure seems weird tho.

[TBoneit]

I had something like that happen to an Echostar Dishplayer, Drove me crazy! Then I noticed that the wireless keyboard for the, never used by me, WebTv and easy listing searches had fallen over from where I had left it and was sending junk to the Dishplayer. I turned it right side up and voila, I was back in business.

Maybe you have another remote somewhere causing interference?
Take it to another room as a test. I suppose it could also be RFI or one of those Wireless signal senders that also feed remote IR back to the base station.

Good Luck

[Sooty]

I only have 3 remotes TV, RECORDER and FREEVIEW I only have one remote out of the box at any time I dont have anything else that uses Infrared

[johnahl]

I only have 3 remotes TV, RECORDER and FREEVIEW I only have one remote out of the box at any time I dont have anything else that uses Infrared

There are other devices that use infra red for communications. Laptops will send query signals from their infra red link to see if anything responds. PDA's have an IR transmitter and receiver. I'm sure there could be others. With so many devices in the home having LED displays its conceivable that an LED could be transmitting light in the infra red region. It may not have been manufactured to produce IR, but there are manufacturing defects.

I suggest that you send a command to the liteon and then immediately put something in front of the recorder to block all light sources from getting to the infra red sensor receiver. See if that doesn't stop the animated cursor.

You could also try relocating the recorder. Its possible that another nearby device could be creating a strong enough magnetic field to disrupt some of the circuitry within the recorder. There are other problems with the Liteon/ILO players that show their sheilding isn't the best.

[Sooty]

Just thought I would update you, I received the latest firmware for the machine and it would not look at it it just said Data Disk and sat there the machine would not update, So I went to the Liteon site and downloaded from there LNFBE098.ES5 put this in the machine and it updated but it made no difference to the troubles I am having with the machine.

Thinking back my troubles started about the same time as I changed my TV a Samsung 32" Plano ( which I gave to my daughter ) for a Toshiba 46WM48 DLP Rear Projection so I thought maybe the Liteon don't like the Tosh so I disconnected the Liteon and took the machine to my daughters and set it up on the Samsung it works perfectly on the samsung without a hint of of the trouble I am getting at home with it connected to the Tosh.

I have tried all the connections between the Liteon and the Toshiba i.e. Scart,AV and Component none of them seem to cure the problem, I tried disconnecting everthing from the TV and just leaving the Liteon connected but it is just the same.
I am really lost now, Is anyone in this forum using a Liteon 5005 connected to a Tohiba 46WM48 if so are they having any trouble with this combination?

[TBoneit]

It could be a proximity thing.

Some tests to do:

Move the unit further away. That'll eliminate RF/Magnetic fields interference.

Make a little doghouse over the IR sensor on the Lite-On and try the remote inside that, keep in mind that My remotes are strong enough to work through a layer or two of cloth so Use cardboard, that'll eliminate IR from the TV.

One other thing to think about I've actually seen flourescent lamps interfere with the IR remote functions. I changed the lamp to another type (IE unscrewed the flourescent lamp and screwed in a incadescent lamp) and my problems went away. Have you changed bulbs?

It sounds like you've narrowed the problem down to the TV interacting with the DVD recorder so...

Good luck

[Sooty]

I enclosed the Liteon in a cardboard box then threw a blanket over the box removed the batteries from my other remote controls moved the machine about 3 foot away from the TV and it's still the same?

[johnahl]

I enclosed the Liteon in a cardboard box then threw a blanket over the box removed the batteries from my other remote controls moved the machine about 3 foot away from the TV and it's still the same?

When you enclose the Liteon in the cardboard box, do you place the box over the unit immediately after sending a command using the remote. I'm not trying to insult your intelligence. I just don't know if you understand how the infra red light signal gets to the Liteon. There is a receiver somewhere on the front panel of the Liteon that receives the light signal from the remote. This receiver has to be blocked completely to make sure it isn't receiving a signal from an unknown source.

The problem could be electrical noise getting into the Liteon from the video cable connections between the TV and recorder. The TV could be producing noise that the Liteon is sensitive to. I'm a ham radio operator and sometimes I have to use ferrite beads/cores to reduce electrical noise from being introduced from interconnections between equipment hookups. From everything you have tried so far, there may be not be a solution. You may have a combination of recorder/TV that will not work. The Liteon units are known to be made cheaply to reduce costs. They're known to have overheating problems and problems with hum getting into the audio stream.

[Sooty]

I decided to tidy the cables at the back of the TV I sleeved all the mains cables together and shortened the Aeriel cables, Re-Routed the signal cables and shortened them with tie wraps basically to try and keep them away from any mains cables this has to a great extent cured my cursor problem I only get an occasional blip as though I have pressed the remote twice does this sound right or is it wishful thinking on my part?

I will have to try recording now and see if that works OK

[johnahl]

It sounds like you may have it fixed. I know the remote leaves a lot to be desired. A lot of people have trouble with bounce on the ILO players.

[Sooty]

Tried some recording today on DVD+RW the first disk I recorded to seemed to record ok but on playback it was stuttering and at one point about 5 mins into the recording it froze the screen then eventually skipped about 10 mins at this point I removed the disk.

I did not know if this was the machine that was at fault or the disk I was using? so I put a new disk into the machine and recorded for about 15 mins then played it back it seemed ok so I recorded a further 45 min & 35 min programes they both played back ok and I managed to go to edit and name the recordings.

The cursor problem though not completly solved is 95% better than it was before and I could learn to live with it.

One slight niggle is when I playback the recordings I get the display across the top of the screen if I turn it off it comes on again after about 30 secs

Thanks for all the help I have recieved hope it stays like it

[lordsmurf]

Sounds like bad media.

[johnahl]

Tried some recording today on DVD+RW the first disk I recorded to seemed to record ok but on playback it was stuttering and at one point about 5 mins into the recording it froze the screen then eventually skipped about 10 mins at this point I removed the disk.

I did not know if this was the machine that was at fault or the disk I was using? so I put a new disk into the machine and recorded for about 15 mins then played it back it seemed ok so I recorded a further 45 min & 35 min programes they both played back ok and I managed to go to edit and name the recordings.

The cursor problem though not completly solved is 95% better than it was before and I could learn to live with it.

One slight niggle is when I playback the recordings I get the display across the top of the screen if I turn it off it comes on again after about 30 secs

Thanks for all the help I have recieved hope it stays like it

It sounds like you have been able to eliminate a lot of your problems by re-arranging the interconnecting cables. But it seems like you're still having some problems with the cursor jumping around and the display across the top popping up. I have checked my player and if a key is pressed on the remote that currently doesn't do anything, the display across the top of the screen will pop up. It seems like you're still getting some unwanted remote keypresses generated from noise getting into the player through the interconnecting cables.

You may be able to eliminate all of your problems by using an inexpensive choke kit that will eliminate a lot of this noise. There are many different manufacturers of these kits. I think you may be able to get one from Radio Shack. Here is a link to one manufacturer that sells these devices.

http://www.mfjenterprises.com/products.php?prodid=MFJ-701

An additional note. The recordings could be getting screwed up because the player keeps responding to keypresses. Some of these keypresses may even be the command to stop recording.

I think I would try to eliminate the noise problem before trying any more recording.

Good Luck. Report back if any of this has helped.