New Sky+HD box (Amstrad DRX890) switching itself on?

Turbulent Bill

I had Sky installed in the last few days, but have noticed that the box (Amstrad DRX890) seems to be able to switch itself on. The box has three power modes:

1. Normal operation (green light on box) for normal viewing.
2. Standby (orange light on box), can't view programs but the box can still record, download Sky Anytime stuff etc.
3. Off (red light on box), box is plugged in but is switched off. From the manual it looks like the box can't do anything in this mode, minimal power used just to light the red LED.

I've noticed though that if I switch it to 'Off' at night, it could be on 'Standby' or 'On' the next day. No overnight recordings are set.

Anyone know what's going on here? The only thing I could think of is that it isn't connected to a phoneline, but as a single-box installation this shouldn't matter. The obvious solution is to plug the box out at night to save power, but it seems a bit drastic!

JDxtra

It's probably recording shows for the Sky Anytime service. In reality, there is probably little difference beween the "standby" and "off" modes you describe.

I have a Sky+ box (not HD) and it only has two modes (on / standby).

Turbulent Bill

That's probably it, though I'm a bit surprised it would go from "off" to "standby" just for Anytime stuff - thought these would be downloaded as low-priority recordings while the box is on "standby" or "on".

The blurb in the manual says that the "off" state is for compliance with new power-saving regulations (needs to have a mode that uses <1W), and this is their workaround for it. The box is basically useless in the "off" state, so I can't think of another reason for it.

JDxtra

Well, the hard drive has to spin up for recordings and that would use >1w.

It's essentially working as hard as it normally would when on - except there is no output to the screen.

Maybe it should revert back to the "off" state after the Anytime recording has finished and spin down the drive.

There's an option in the menu to disable the Anytime service - although it doesn't allow you to reclaim any of the hard drive space reserved for it.

Liameter

Maybe the red and orange lights are transposed. Try leaving it with the orange light on and see if it records anything.

Kensington

Started happening to me after they rolled out the new Darwin codebase that activated the ethernet port on the box. Before that, the box would stay fully off until you turned it back on.

One of the many bugs in the updated software obviously.