Samsung SIR T-165 Lockup

After more than three years of dealing with occasional lockups on my
Samsung T-165 tuner, I finally decided to call Samsung to see if there
was a fix for this yet. Most on this forum are probably familiar with
this issue; if the broadcast signal is corrupted or missing the PSIP,
the T-165 goes into an endless reboot loop that's hard to recover from.

I couldn't find anything on the Samsung website about this, so I called
customer support. To my complete surprise, the first person I spoke
with had never heard of this issue, nor did it appear on any bulletins
he had access to. So he transferred me to a second level
representative. Oddly enough, this individual had never heard of the
issue either. I'm genuinely surprised by this. Every T-165 owner in the
country has likely experienced this issue at one time or another. Based
on what I've read on this forum and others, it appears that many deal
with it daily.

In any case, they are going to send me a firmware upgrade. My question
for this forum is, "Should I install it?" I asked if the upgrade
specifically addressed the lockup and reboot issue but he wasn't sure.
He said that he only knew that it addressed the broadcast flag issue,
which shares a similar failure mode. I don't mind trying out this
upgrade, but is there a downside?

Please advise.

Greg G.

wrote:
After more than three years of dealing with occasional lockups on my
Samsung T-165 tuner, I finally decided to call Samsung to see if
there
was a fix for this yet. Most on this forum are probably familiar
with
this issue; if the broadcast signal is corrupted or missing the
PSIP,
the T-165 goes into an endless reboot loop that's hard to recover
from.

I couldn't find anything on the Samsung website about this, so I
called
customer support. To my complete surprise, the first person I spoke
with had never heard of this issue, nor did it appear on any
bulletins
he had access to. So he transferred me to a second level
representative. Oddly enough, this individual had never heard of the
issue either. I'm genuinely surprised by this. Every T-165 owner in
the
country has likely experienced this issue at one time or another.
Based
on what I've read on this forum and others, it appears that many
deal
with it daily.

Years ago I worked for Sony Broadcast. The official response is "we've
never run into that before". Similar reponses from Samsung do not
surprise me.

We live in LA and have run into the constant re-boot but certainly not
every day. More like once a year now - if that. There is no 'cure' but
a way to deal with it is to disconnect the antenna cable and delete
that channel (or subchannel) from the active list. Then re-connect the
antenna. Raise/lower channel number won't go to the bad channels any
more.


In any case, they are going to send me a firmware upgrade. My
question
for this forum is, "Should I install it?" I asked if the upgrade
specifically addressed the lockup and reboot issue but he wasn't
sure.
He said that he only knew that it addressed the broadcast flag
issue,
which shares a similar failure mode. I don't mind trying out this
upgrade, but is there a downside?


I was looking up firmware down-loads a couple years ago and it seemed
the latest was to _enable_ the broadcast flag. That's not something I
want to do PARTICULARLY if there is no way to restore it to PRE-update
status.

Please advise.

Greg G.

GG