Comcast cable boxes

[Logistics]

Man, we have had to have Comcast replace our cable box, three times if I recall, correctly. I'm always tempted to just open up the box and recap it in hopes I'll stop having dying units. But I don't because I'm afraid they'll use that as an excuse to charge me to replace it if that doesn't work.

Does anyone know if they get flakey due to crap caps? Or is it a different issue?

Matthew

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Comcast cable boxes

Man, we have had to have Comcast replace our cable box, three times if I recall, correctly. I'm always tempted to just open up the box and recap it in hopes I'll stop having dying units. But I don't because I'm afraid they'll use that as an excuse to charge me to replace it if that doesn't work.

Does anyone know if they get flakey due to crap caps? Or is it a different issue?

Matthew

Is it a Scientific Atlanta Explorer 4250C or the like? Are you randomly losing audio and have to change the channel and then go back to that channel to get audio again? Is it randomly completely failing to respond after a black out or brown out occurred?

[dmill89]

Re: Comcast cable boxes

Not sure what Comcast is using these days, I haven't had them for almost 10 years, but back when I had them they were a combination of Motorola and Scientific Atlantic boxes (and were handing out some really old boxes as well, so failures were very common) was pretty much the "luck of the draw" with them.

Verizon FIOS (which I have now) seems to be 100% Motorola (at least in my area), I'm on my 3rd box in the last 10 years on my main TV, the last two failed due to bad caps in the PSU (Capxon and Ltec) it seems like they make it 4-5 years or so before failing, my current box has Ltecs on the output side of the PSU (PSU board is a Liteon) as well, the logic board in my current box has all polymer caps. Like the OP I could have easily repaired these, but didn't want to risk it since they were going to replace it for "free" (of course they charge a $10/mo. fee for the box regardless) anyhow, it was just the inconvenience of having to wait for a replacement and drop the old box off at UPS. In both cases they sent me a brand new box though, if they had sent me a used box instead which would be more likely to fail for a short period of time I would have been much more likely to attempt a repair (or preventatively recap the replacement box).