pioneer dvr-520h please shuts off !!!!

[motin]

dear friends thanks for coming in

i have a pioneer dvr-520h

its shuts off by it self and the only way to get it on again is taking the power cable out for few hrs and then in again

this can happend after a memory recording or any other job you do unit when its on stand by it can happend also but when its on it never goes to that mode,

any odea what to check or do please

thanks a lot

[lvtalk2002]

I've got the same problem and I took it to a CD repair shop but they couldn't fix it. (sending it back to Pioneer is far too expensive)

I bought a new model as replacement and left the 520 aside for over a year. I took this out last week as I needed the 320G harddisk inside. After that I put back a 80G harddisk and load the Service Disc and guess what, it resumes normal again and has not shut off by itself anymore.

I believe that the auto shut off problem could be fixed by flashing the harddisk bios. Look for the thread for the harddisk hardgrade and Good Luck!

[orsetto]

There are several possibilities here.

The models 220, 225, 520, and 720 all share a power supply design that is slightly flawed. Many of these units develop power-on problems after a few years that requires replacing a few faulty parts on the power board. These parts are very inexpensive but the repair work can be a little difficult if you are unfamiliar with removing and resoldering capacitors and transistors to a circuit board. Instructions and parts list for repairing the similar DVR-630 power board can be found at www.pioneerfaq.info, search for the article named "Blown Power Board". You can assist a repair shop by printing out these instructions and asking your service person to adapt them for the DVR-520.

Above is the worst case answer. Other less drastic causes can be as simple as a worn out motherboard backup battery, this battery is coin-shaped and powers the memory of the recorder when it is turned off or unplugged. After a few years this battery can lose its charge and cause unstable operation. Another possibility was mentioned by lvtalk2002: a power surge or other unknown mishap could cause the recorder to "forget" how its supposed to work. Sometimes running the recorder thru the "replace hard drive" procedure will reset it properly. However this does require a service dvd and service remote: see related DVR-520 threads on this forum for details on how to acquire or make these. One last easy thing you can try is a total clearance of the machine's memory to original factory settings: with the unit turned on, press and hold the STOP button (not STOP REC). While pressing the STOP button, press the STANDBY/POWER button. The recorder will turn off and clear out its memory. When you turn it on again, go to the setup menu and re-enter all your custom info (date, time, country, video settings such as "manual record speeds on/off," etc.) Very often this gets a misbehaving Pioneer to work correctly.

[zerberusad]

Hi.

I a German Forum we have the same problems, but we are able to fix this.
Just take a look at http://www.hifi-forum.de/index.php?action=browseT&forum_id=109&thread=9503.
There are pictures included too.

Just get a voltage controller named "SHIN MR2920 IC SIP7" an replace it.

Regards

[Hkan]

You need to replace IC101 and update the firmware!
Otherwise this will happen again!

[johnhb]

I've also got the same problem with a pioneer dvr-520h. Quite frankly, if there are this many consumers, having paid good money for this product which clearly has an inbuilt fault, and having the SAME PROBLEM this says to me there's a design fault of some kind which is not my fault.

Therefore, I think Pioneer- or their agent- should come to the party and accept responsibility for rectifying the fault in THEIR product.I'm not a technician, don't want to be, and wouldn't have a clue how to "replace IC101 and update the firmware" or any of the other suggestions- and unfortunately zerburusad, I don't speak a word of German! I also don't see why/ can't afford to, go out and buy another model.. Why should I????

I think this is clearly a manufacturers problem that they should rectify.

[orsetto]

johnhb, this is a multi-faceted problem and not simply a case of "Pioneer making a defective product and blowing consumers off". For one thing, as many of us here have learned, DVD recorders at any price level were apparently designed with an average maximum life expectancy of three years. ALL dvd recorders, not just Pioneers: reports from around the world regarding every available brand confirm this. Consumers have been understandably shocked and disgusted to discover their expensive DVD recorders don't hold up as well as a $79 disposable VCR bought in 1998. Before anyone jumps down my throat with tales of their flawlessly functioning six year old Panasonic and JVC dvd recorders, I will concede there are some lucky owners with durable recorders. But that is not typical experience: most of those holding on to older DVD/HDD units have had them serviced at least once (JVCs have notorious power supply issues, and Panasonics can be rendered useless by a mere months worth of household dust). That, among other reasons, have fueled the North American migration to proprietary cable/satellite PVRs that don't use DVDs at all and are periodically serviced/replaced at no charge. Back to the Pioneer 520: another point to remember is this was a 2004 model. It was one of the most popular DVD/HDD recorders ever sold, so there is a lot of durability documentation, repair histories and owner reports available. These reports consistently indicate an average 18-30 month lifespan before either the 520 burner or its power supply fails. So anyone who is upset that their 520 is only now failing in 2010 needs to take a deep breath, and realize they got three extra years out of their particular machine.

If you research these recorder issues, you will find they are quite common across brands and model years. The burner is the first thing to fail in nearly every DVD/HDD recorder, no matter the price, with the more expensive models perversely being more likely to fail than the cheaper ones. The only documented cases of very long-lasting burners are the 2004-2006 Panasonics: these are known to reach 7000 burns under hard consumer use (but only if that consumer has the burner professionally cleaned once a year: without cleaning a Panasonic burner will fail the minute its original warranty expires). Aside from these unusual Panasonics, recorder burners are fragile and wear out quickly. Most were designed under the naive assumption that Japanese-spec blank discs would be available indefinitely to consumers around the world- this assumption quickly proved wrong, most consumers clamored for ever-faster, ever-cheaper DVD media to be used in their PCs. This media took over the market, and most recorders made prior to 2006 cannot handle it well: it wears their burners out as they struggle to figure out how to burn it. You can sometimes bring an old recorder back from the dead by switching to TY/JVC or Verbatim 8x speed media, but if you've already burned a lot of 16x in it this probably won't help.

The power supply issue that began this thread is not exclusive to the Pioneer 520. In report after report, consumers have had exactly the same complaint regarding 2003-2005 models from Panasonic, JVC, Toshiba, Sony, etc. Largely this was due to a bad run of generic power supply parts flowing from China, by then the only supplier. Every consumer product made in the early 2000s is prone to power supply issues because of these bad parts: mfrs did not become aware of the faulty parts until millions of affected products had already been sold. If you want to blame anyone, blame those Chinese factories for trying to be cute and corner the market by undercutting established suppliers with falsely tested off-spec parts. This was a major international scandal that got quietly swept under the rug by every nation involved: to do otherwise would have provoked recalls on such a massive scale it would have triggered an economic meltdown. These faulty power supply parts often held up enough to get an item past its original warranty period, so mfrs skated by on the skin of their teeth. A few, like Apple and Dell, quietly put extended warranties in place, while others extended their warranty periods on a case-by-case, consumer-by-consumer basis. But after 2007, theres no chance you'll get free service on a recorder made in 2004: if it didn't fail reasonably close to the one-year warranty period then it was considered normal wear and tear, and your responsibility.

Today, its six years since the 520 was introduced: not only is it five years past its warranty period, Pioneer video itself has been out of business for over a year already: not the slightest chance of getting extended factory service on it. Print out Hkans instructions, and fix the unit yourself if you can. If not, have a local tech do it for you, or if you can afford it and DVD/HDD recorders are still sold in your country, buy a new one. Unfortunately the new models aren't half as nice as the old 520: DVD recorders are now considered archaic pointless relics by most consumers, especially in the key USA/Canada market. Everyone wants portable HDD or solid state media storage on their iPod or laptop, optical discs are "so 2005". Life is getting increasingly difficult for us DVD recordists .

[johnhb]

Thanks for that Orsetto. I'm still reeling from the prospect of all this which still feels like a giant rip off- which I'd like to take further through a local consumers site- just because I believe this should all be made known up front when salespeople extract our hard earned dollars! Having said that, is it possible to simply keep replacing the hard drive? (assuming that's economical as most of the machines have probably come down in price anyway over the years). Thanks for you detailed analysis and opinion by the way!
John

[bobmp]

i have a pioneer 420h-s that I had similar power issues. a local repairer said it would need a new psu board costing approx £200.00. I'm not bothered about the unit particularly but I have camcorder videos stored on the HD that I want to get off. does anyone know if this can be & how this can be done?