RCA DRC8000N ... Cooling fan never shuts off

[SonnyV]

I haven't seen any posting on this recorder. I'm trying it out before I buy and noticed the fan doesn't shut off even if the power is turned off. I would think this would cause a lot of dust to be drawn through and building up inside the recorder. Everything else seems fine. EZ to use and all the plugins a guy could want. It has the + format for recording but it will read everything except DVD-RAM discs. This is the 3rd recorder I've tried. Haven't tried the E80H yet, but from what I'm reading I think it will be the one I will buy. I'm not much into recording TV programs. I'll record a few movies and will be recording a lot of home video movies. It seems when I play around with recorders and computers my brain short circuits. This is why I depend on advice from others.

[Gil T Pleasure]

Page 3 of this post mentions about the fan issue. It might be of interest to you...

http://www.dvdplusrw.org/cgi/forum/ikonboard.cgi?s=0d474c437ff5fc85d49e2df50b73789c;ac...=ST;f=4;t=8833

[Tom81]

This is a plus for the unit, if it is not noisy.

[thxkid]

Having a fan on 24-7 is not a plus, its soemthing to wear on very fast or become noisey after time and the picture quality of the machine is good but not quite up to my Pan E20 but slightly better than my Magnavox, but the magnavox was cheaper ($314) and it goes 6 hours every day for the last 3 months and not a problem yet with it, no skipping disks like (2) RCA's I tried, one RCA even locked up on me, had to unplug from the wall to get it to become unlocked, not just once but 3-4 times in one evening, the USB is a plus if you use a digital camera with SD media and just want to pop it in to show the relatives the newest pictures of the grand kids, etc...
Its to bad RCA did not make this machine more sturdy built( long and hard record times) cuase they have some very cool features, but I don't need cool features when it can't even handle the job of recording in the long haul, no I just stay with the magnavox's (2 now), plus got them at Sams club which has LIFE TIME return policy, so if they burn up in 6 months or a year I'll just haul them back , return them and purchase something better and cheaper at that time.

[Mike2000]

I had RCA from SAMS CLub for about 1 1/2 weeks and returned because of FAN issue. I bought LITEON which so far I am very happy with(be sure you upgrade firmware). RCA customer service told me that all of RCA's new equipment has cooling fans which stay on 24/7. I saw a posting by someone who bought a TV with that "problem" as well. Can you imagine if you bought all RCA equipment - a TV, DVD recorder, DVD player, Hometheater equipment ALL with fans humming away 24/7. That would be real annoying. I don't know their theory behind this, but being an engineer myself, I would think they could design a passive cooling system rather than an active cooling system. Perhaps they figured they could save money by not buying a larger heat sink, by not using lower power logic and other electronics and by just putting in a fan letting the customer pay for the cooling cost - OK pennies I admit. Some recorders have fans (Liteon does not) but I am not aware of any that stay on 24/7.