This is usually due to capacitors dying on the power supply unit (PSU).
Either the combination of increased processing power and a larger hard drive allegedly appears to have caught Thomson out or most people are stacking their equipment without proper space for ventilation
(see the numerous forums on this subject -
"I'm on my third plus box since end of September. Thomson, Amstrad, Thomson!"
"I have had my brand new Thomson sky+HD box for just over a month and i must say its a pile of junk,i have had more problems over the last month than i ever did with my pace sky+box it lasted 7 years without so much as a hiccup!"
"We had endless Thomson boxes that had the same problems. Dont know anyone with a Thomson whos does not do this. It seems that Thomson use Asda Smart price components (IMO) where as Samsung and so on use quality components. The moral of the story is never accept a refurb or Thomson box."
It should also be said that some boxes never experience any problems, but often the first signs are that the box will tell you that there is a problem with one of the input signals, followed by some channels missing then freezing, no picture at all, switching into standby not coming out of standby or even not coming on at all.
Thanksfully we have supplied Pace Sky HD and Samsung Sky HD boxes to our clients - but just be warned that the other two other makes of HD boxes Amstrad and specifically Thomsons can be troublesome.
