Thomson DT16300 Top Up TV Digital Recorder?

I have replaced the 2 capacitors but my unit still does not start up -completely dead.
Any ideas?

Steven
May 2015

Thanks so much for this advice. I bought the Panasonic capacitors from CPC in Preston, http://cpc.farnell.com/panasonic/eeufr1c102l/capacitor-radial-16v-1000uf/dp/CA07458?Ntt=ca07458
at a huge cost of 36p each - you have to buy 5, so £1.80
The soldering was slightly tricky for me, a complete novice, but it worked a treat and now the digi box is working again.
A superb saving. Many many thanks.

Lin.
January 2014

Spot on with the capacitor change from Mike 2010 worked a treat

Ray D
July 2013

picture freezes on a number of channels and i have lost
channel 34.

jimmy
August 2012

were can i get a new remote, my power on button doesnt work antmore

adi1967
May 2012

my top up box made my screen go green every channel is in green wat do i do?

helen
March 2011

Why does my box not show series link option.

Glensman
August 2010

We had a box that deleted 50% worth of recordings in one go. It then failed to pause and record. However, tried 'Ronnie's' advice to reformat using blue button in set-up and help. It worked!

PJ
July 2010

I have had 2 Thomson DVRs and 2 Thomson set top boxes. They have all given me problems, particularly the 320Gb DVR I have now. I will never buy Thomson again as the quality is terrible, always crashing and losing series recordings. I would not have had so many Thomson devices if I had know that the DVR and Cable box from Starhub in Singapore were made by Thomson, hence the reason I have now had 4 thomson items with problems without yet changing brands. Are the other brands better?

Steven Brown
June 2010

cheers Mike 2 capacitors from maplin for a quid did the trick ... and yes i did get a belt from the circuit board.

John
May 2010

Here we are in March 2010 and I'm about to give up when I find this website and see Ronnie's advice from November 2008 - bingo my box is reset and good as new!

Howard
March 2010

If your DT163000 refuses to power up: symptoms, no lights, you might hear the hard drive trying to start and stopping. Open the unit up look at the capacitors on the power supply. There are two 1000uF 16V capacitors about two third from the back of the unit, the tops may appear to be domed instead of flat like other capacitors on the board which indicates gassing through overheating, loss of electrolyte and potential short circuit - loss of function anyway. You might also notice signs of distress to the circuit board - discolouration caused by heat. Just replace both of these capacitors, you can get suitable ones from Maplins etc. Pay attention tom polarity, the negative leg goes in the shaded area on the board. A word of warning, leave the unit switched off and disconnected from the mains for an hour or so before working removing the Power Supply. Even when removed from the unit it retain a considerable amount of energy - enough top give you a surprising jolt if you handle the underside of the board - it won't kill or maim you, but it will make you jump.

Mike
February 2010

I have bought a new Thompson DT16300 and it keeps jumping and skipping as if it has a bad reception but it isn't that because my old box is fine for reception. Any suggestions?

Matt
January 2010

some Thomson Boxes just will not come out of standby,or boot up and the red light may come on now and again. This is a power supply issue. You may find that checking the power supply circuit on the board, that one or more 1000uf capacitors may need replacing. If you can't do it yourself...get someone that knows what theyre doing, to change them.

fido69r
January 2010

worked for me t00 ...

jim
November 2009

HI, I HAVE A THOMPSON DTI 6021 (DTR) IT IS SHOWING THERE IS NO HARD DISC PRESENT IN YHE SET UP INFORMATIN. IT ALSO SAYS WHEN TRYING TO RECORD A PROGRAM THERE IS NOT ENOUGHT SPACE AVAILABLE ON THE DISC/DELETE SOME PROGRAMS AND TRY AGAIN. AS MENTIONED THERE ARE NO PROGRAMS RECORDED BECAUSE IT IS SAYING THER IS NO DISC PRESENT. ANY HELP PLEASE.

JOHNS
November 2009

Have a look on Thomson's website - http://www.topuptv.com/help+centre/setup+and+troubleshooting/Fail+boot+up which explains the fault as the result of a corrupt file on the hard drive. Replacing the hard drive would obviously remove that corrupt file hence the box will then operate as normal. However try the reformat procedure ie the button pressing sequence which should wipe the existing hard drive and enable it to function and so save the expense of a new drive. Persevere with that technique, it took me a few attempts before the box rebooted and now works as normal (NB you will loose any recordings that were present)

brb
May 2009

I had the same problem yesterday and below is what I found to fix my system.
Here’s what I did, I added my own 80gb hard drive (because that’s all I had to hand at the time) fitted it and all worked OK, I did not even have to format it.
In fact I found you could run the system without any hard drive present, this enables you to just watch the channels but obviously not record anything.
So for the problem of a constant amber light and no activity, it seems that it’s just a bad hard drive fault, this is surprising as the disk in my box was a Seagate 160gb drive, this is no cheap disk and I’m shocked it failed so soon.
The cover came off very easily and the disk replacement was a doddle, but please do not fiddle if you are not experienced with this type of kit, (it’s dangerous)
Anyway I hope this helps someone to reuse their box.

Mark Evans
May 2009

Karly had the answer for us.
Thank you Karly.
Be prepared to keep trying it - it took me 8 or 9 times!

June
May 2009

Same problem as tezza joe and karley but found this approach worked better, similar but better.

1. disconnect the power from the box
2. reconnect the power to the box
3. at the same time as you reconnect the power, press the front-panel standby button repeatedly
N.B. the amber light will stop flashing and appear 'steady' quickly after this
4. as soon as the amber light goes steady, press the following sequence of front-panel buttons in brisk succession:

Up, Down, Left, Right.

This invokes a BIOS level HDD re-format and has - as I say - always worked for me. You still lose your content I'm afraid but it's a bit less bother than taking it apart.

Finchy
May 2009

Hi,
Having the same problem the box would't turn on at all. Just managed to get through to technical support after two days of trying.
You need to turn the box off at the mains and leave for 10 seconds, then turn back on at mains, continuously hold the standby button on the box in until you get a solid amber light, now you need to press the up, down, left, and right arrow keys in that order, then the standby button on the control and then dtr button. It can take up to about 9-10 times of trying apparently, but worked for me after 3 attempts. Remember after each attempt you must turn the box off at the mains. Hope this helps.

Karly
May 2009

Sorry not a remedy, exactly the same seems to have happened to me. I can't switch it on, it just tries to reboot itself by going through the LED sequences, but when reaching the solid Red LED stage, instead of switching on it freezes and goes through the same procedure. Can anyone help?

Joe
May 2009

my box just stopped working this morning i have unplugged it but it still wont come on i can use the remote to turn on the tv any ideas

tezza
May 2009

Woo hoo! worked for me too!! Just in time to record the football while i'm out playing football.

Nice one!

Delighted
February 2009

Paul Dobbin's answer is the solution! Worked just as he said.

Stuart Ellis
February 2009

Not an answer, but a thankyou. Fix seems to have worked for me. Till next time!

elaine
January 2009

go to MENU
option 4 setup
option 6 help
1397
option 7 yes
Library
delete

Keith Jones
December 2008

Thats amazing. I was getting so fed up of turning it off at the wall!

Jo Fo
November 2008

If you have a Thomson DT16300, here's a handy fix that address freeze ups, lack of reception and problems on your Hard Disk:

goto MENU screen
goto SETUP screen
goto HELP screen
At HELP screen, Enter 1397 - this accesses the engineer panel - you can reformat the HDD in this menu - you will lose all recorded programmes and planned recordings but it clears locked or corrupted files

OR - at the HELP screen, press the GREEN button

On the lower half of the screen youwill see 3 options:

Blue - Reformat HDD - clears all the memory/HDD - useful if you have a corrupted file - you will lose all recorded programmes though

Red - reset the whole box to factory settings - good if you have a locked box or reception problems or cannto scan for new channels. It goes back to when you bought the box, so you will have to input favourites and planned recordings again

Yellow - Software revert - allows you to go back to the previous software driver - you may lose new functions, but you can always restore it back again using the same feature

Worked for me! I had both a corrupted file and was not able to scan for new channels - I reformatted the HDD and this got rid of the corrupted file. Then I restored to factory setings ...gave me back loads of channles I'd lost in the previous few months - Dave, Sky3, Virgin etc

Ronnie
November 2008

Worked for me as well, thanks very much I was on the point of getting a new box!

Maurice
October 2008

Hi, I had the same problem and the only fix I found was to erase the offending recording. To do this you need to access the Engineering Menu. This can be found be going to menu -> setup -> help. When you go into the Help menu press 1397 within the first five seconds of the help menu opening. Scroll down to Disable Library Video Window (No. 7) and press the right or left direction button to change the setting to 'Yes'.
Now press the 'Library' button and scroll to the corrupt recording. You should be able to delete as normal.

Paul Dobbin
September 2008