Help - Sky+ box not working, advice to haggle needed

malzu21

Hi, My sky+ 160 box is on its way out, pic & sound keep freezing and many channels are not working. I have phoned sky tech help and did all the various stuff whilst on the phone with them, which none of them helped and they have offered an engineer to come out for £40 instead of the usual £60. So i mentioned could it be that the box itself is nearly on its way out? and they have offered a sky hd box & installation for free with £10.50pm for hd channels, which i do think is quite reasonable!! however, i am already paying £52pm for sky world and £17.99 for my non sky channels (Indian channels) which i don't really want to give up, but my monthly outgoing to watch tv would be £80+ which is quite excessive for me.

The sky tech help guy who offered the above mentioned that he can only offer whats on his screen, however, sky cancellations may be able to offer something different. I would like some advice on what to ask for and how to ask for it, if that makes sense.
Thanks Miss Malzu

spike7451

It's one of three things.Either your dish is out of alignment,the LNB is faulty or the PSU on the Sky box is going & will eventually fail altogether.You could buy a second hand box off E-Bay but that may not cure the problem.If you take the service call,you'll get a refurb box with a 3 month warranty.

malzu21

spike7451 wrote: »

It's one of three things.Either your dish is out of alignment,the LNB is faulty or the PSU on the Sky box is going & will eventually fail altogether.You could buy a second hand box off E-Bay but that may not cure the problem.If you take the service call,you'll get a refurb box with a 3 month warranty.

Hi Spike
Thanks for your reply. You mentioned my dish could be out of alignment and the problem did start when there was heavy rain in the London area about a week ago, so that maybe the problem. We do normally lose signal, but it usually comes on again within a few minutes. I think i may just call the engineer out. Thanks again Spike for your response

djohn2002uk

malzu21 wrote: »

Hi Spike
Thanks for your reply. You mentioned my dish could be out of alignment and the problem did start when there was heavy rain in the London area about a week ago, so that maybe the problem. We do normally lose signal, but it usually comes on again within a few minutes. I think i may just call the engineer out. Thanks again Spike for your response

Try threatening to cancel first if they don't give you a free engineer visit. Worked twice for me in the last 6 years. Last time less than a year ago.

vodkachick68

malzu21 wrote: »

Hi, My sky+ 160 box is on its way out, pic & sound keep freezing and many channels are not working. I have phoned sky tech help and did all the various stuff whilst on the phone with them, which none of them helped and they have offered an engineer to come out for £40 instead of the usual £60. So i mentioned could it be that the box itself is nearly on its way out? and they have offered a sky hd box & installation for free with £10.50pm for hd channels, which i do think is quite reasonable!! however, i am already paying £52pm for sky world and £17.99 for my non sky channels (Indian channels) which i don't really want to give up, but my monthly outgoing to watch tv would be £80+ which is quite excessive for me.

The sky tech help guy who offered the above mentioned that he can only offer whats on his screen, however, sky cancellations may be able to offer something different. I would like some advice on what to ask for and how to ask for it, if that makes sense.
Thanks Miss Malzu

I have the same problem with my sky,picture freezing and little squares on the screen. I called sky who could send an engineer out at £65. She then proceeded to offer my sky hd with free installation and box with one year subscription for £10.25 a month. I thought that sounded quite a good deal so i signed up for it. By the time i had paid for the engineer i might as well get a new box and free installation. Again she said it was probably my dish,but i managed to borrow another sky box which works perfectly so i knew it couldn't be the dish. I think the £10.25 is also quite reasonable but cos you have the full package and more it is quite and expense for you.

Hth

prowla

The last time I had a problem with my Sky box (earlier this year), I said that I was a long standing customer and didn't want to pay to have a faulty box replaced so that I could continue to receive the service I paid monthly for (hint, hint, etc.), and they did it for free.

(I also mentioned that I was certain that it was the Sky box in my case, and I was temporarily using an older box that I had.)

spike7451

malzu21 wrote: »

Hi Spike
Thanks for your reply. You mentioned my dish could be out of alignment and the problem did start when there was heavy rain in the London area about a week ago, so that maybe the problem. We do normally lose signal, but it usually comes on again within a few minutes. I think i may just call the engineer out. Thanks again Spike for your response

Does your Sky cable go over the roof?...Because if it does the cable could be cut on the roofline & water could be getting into the cable.This can also happen if the dish monkey used normal insulation tape instead of self amalgamating tape to seal the F connector where it screws onto the LNB,But this mainly applies to single LNB's as the Quad/Octo has a cover that slides over the connections,or the cable has been damaged & spliced.
What you need to do is turn the box off at the mains & unscew the connections at the back of the box.Does any water come out,does it feel damp or is the copper core stinger dull or green or on at all.(I've been to faults where the stinger has been rusted off the cable)
You only need to do this if the cable goes over the roof or has been damaged & spliced.

malzu21

Hi all thank you for the replies.

I called sky again, spoke to tech help and he made to some other simple stuff with box, but cudn't offer anything more than the guy i spoke to earlier in the week, so i mentioned that unless you can get an engineer to me for free, i will need to cancel. So they put me through cancellations, and they instantly agreed to a free engineer whose coming out on Monday.

However, the funny thing is all my sky channels are back up and running , it mustve been something the tech help guy told me to do and it seems to have worked or it could be cos that we do have wind or rain, don't know !!! Im not cancelling the engineer just yet tho', i will see how it goes on Sunday, rain is forecast

Spike, just wanted to let u know that the dish is on the side of the house not on the roof so unlikely to have had water damage.

malzu21

hi all
further to my previous post, the sky channels didn't all come back, so the engineer has just left and he confirmed it was my box that wasn't working properly.

He replaced it with a Sky HD box for free and Im not paying the subscription but can get basic bbc1HD etc for free. Haven't looked into it too much just yet but thought Id share.

soolin

Just found this thread on a search.

My Sky + box has started freezing on certain channels, I'm going to try rebooting (or whatever it is called tomorrow) and if that doesn't work I think I'll be going down the 'threatening to cancel' route and see if I can't get a cheaper service call. i'm already on the £52 package but my box is at least 2 maybe 3 years old so well out of any warranty.

Moneymaker

soolin wrote: »

My Sky + box has started freezing on certain channels,

You haven't stated the make and model number. Is it a Thomson DSiXXXX? Easily fixed with a capacitor kit.