AL2671W Stuck in Standby

Hey - I fixed a TV! It' s been a long time actually since I did something useful for someone. I got asked to look at an Acer AL2671W LCD TV. Bought for about £500 five years ago, and that was cheap then, recently it has regularly refused to come out of standby. Now it is stuck in Standby and won't work.

So where do you start? Google of course! Some results showed that this was a common fault on these TV's. One guy in a forum said 'easy fix, replace C280 100uF 16V on the main board'. Good enough of a clue to take a look. You have to firstly remove the SCART socket block before the back will come off and then the inner metal cover over the PSU, audio card and main card as mentioned before. It looks just like a mini ATX card. It is a multi layer, double sided PEC with surface mount and traditional components. Bad news though, no C280 to be found. I buzzed through the front power switch to check it wasn't stuck and traced the cabling to the socket on the main board. Very close by the socket is C380, this is an electrolytic 100uF 16V. Too much of a coincidence? Anyway worth a punt I thought so I changed it for an 100uF 40V I think it was and re-assembled the TV. It worked! the TV now comes out of standby and has been returned to its owners. Result!

STOP PRESS!

We did a car boot sale not too long ago and I watched 2 scally's knocking out dirt cheap audio visual gear on a blanket. Where the hell do they get that stuff from? Probably stolen I surmised. Anyway, With a bit of research I've found out and pretty soon I will have my own stock of totally legit cheap gear to sell, DAB radio's, phones, MP3 players, etc.

Watch this space if you want some cheap Christmas pressies!

HD2 Update

It's been a while I know, I've been so busy since July it's wearing me out. Anyway, the HD2 is great, it has a massive bright screen. it's fast, quite light for its size and slips easily into your pocket. It makes the wife's iPhone 3Gs look old. Interface wise, HTC have done an excellent job of plastering over Windows Mobile, you hardly notice it's there until you have to delve deep into the setup screens. Is it better than an iPhone? Nope, close but no cigar. The Apple still wins due to its super slick interface and app store. Not iTunes though I hate that with a passion.

The HD2 does have seamless integration with Microsoft Exchange which just works. Bluetooth to my car also just works, no issues. I've also swapped over to Co-Pilot Live instead of TomTom because there are no USA maps for the Smartphone version of TomTom. DOH!

Bye bye Vodafone Hello O2!

After 11 years we're making the switch to O2 from Vodafone. As we get more staff in the north, the patchy Vodafone signal has become too much to bear.

With the switch will come a shiny new HTC HD2 for me, formally known as the 'the beast'. We thought about getting iPhone's, everyone wanted iPhone's but we decided against it. Too many people downloading all sorts of stuff and apps from the internet was too scary on our corporate network. This coupled with the many reports of Bluetooth problems in cars and that was enough to kill that dream. I also considered a HTC Desire on Android but again the relentless development of the platform renders it a potential security risk at every new update. So sigh, here we are again with windows Mobile albeit 6.5. At least it will have HTC Sense hiding the useless Windows interface, that looks pretty cool. So we will see, I should have the HD2 in the next week or so it will be interesting to see how that goes. Fingers crossed for a trouble free migration.

By the way, shame on Vodafone for 'losing' my bulk PAC request and making me hold for over an hour in total while they sorted it out!

Siesta Flow Review

I was looking for a media player for my bedroom, something that wouldn't look out of place on a bedside cabinet. I happened upon the Siesta Flow and it looked to be just what was I was looking for, DAB, internet radio and UpNp compliant. I used to have the Pure Siesta which is very similar but after a while I sold it due to the terrible display and over complicated way you had to set it up using too many (loud) clicks to get anywhere.

Anyway to the Siesta Flow. Firstly the display, this is a vast improvement over the old Siesta, it's still auto-dimming but this time you can actually see it in the dark! Good news. Wifi se-tup was easy enough no issues there but the front panel touch buttons are a bit of a pain. You just don't get that tactile feedback from them which gives you the confidence that you have pressed it. They need a light touch and do work OK, but they can be a pain and make navigating the menus very slow at times. The buttons on the top are much improved over the Siesta not too loud and you get direct access to the alarm settings so switching one of the alarms on or off is easy. A good feature is the alarm display that shows you the next active alarm and which ones are on or off, very handy.

The DAB radio is good, again no issues, I live in Oxford so I get good signal strength. Sound output is fine, stereo speakers, slightly tinny but better than expected. You won't get hi-fi sound out of it but it's only small and costs less than £80 so I'm happy with this aspect.

The Pure Lounge was a bit odd, you set it up on the internet and enter a code into your radio to store your favourites. It took me a while to figure this bit out but when you do it works fine, again no issues. But this isn't a key feature for me and I don't use the internet radio much.

My main use for the Siesta Flow was going to be streaming of my music from my UpNp compliant NAS drive. This isn't so good. It works flawlessly streaming from the Flowserver software installed on my PC but refuses to play from my NAS. The Pure Helpdesk was no help saying my NAS AV Server had 'incompatibilities and inconsistencies'. However both my Xbox 360 and my O2 Joggler stream from my NAS perfectly so I know where the problem lies. Anyway it works from my PC, but this has to be powered on. Not ideal and was almost a deal breaker for me. I tried everything I could think of to get it to work with my NAS but no joy. Installing a twonkyserver was not an option for me.

Oddly you can't wake up to the Lounge Flowsounds, which is a bit strange, you can only listen to them like the internet radio. But there are plenty of 'stock' sounds to choose from on the unit itself. I chose a soft chime to gently but firmly wake me from my slumber but you can equally have a barking dog or an air raid siren if that's what you need.

In summary, an improvement over the old Siesta, the soft touch buttons are not for everybody and Pure need to listen to their customers and actually fix something that doesn't work very well (like the display in the old one!)

HD Video camera bargain!

A chap at work was looking for a new battery and charger for his old camcorder. The pair were going to cost him nearly £100! I'd seen some new point and shoot cameras in Stuff magazine in particular a Kodak sport model for about £140 that was waterproof to 3m.

Anyhow, while looking for that on Amazon I found this older model, 720p HD shooting camera currently selling for £48!!!!! Get one quick before they all go!!!! No optical zoom but they take SD cards and shoot stills and also comes with a free silicon case.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kodak-Zx1-Definition-Pocket-Camera/dp/B001SN72TK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1273391991&sr=8-1

or Dixons/Currys/PCworld & Comet all seem to have it at about the same price!

Siesta!

I think I finally found my bedroom gadget I was looking for, ooheer Mrs!

Strangely enough its almost back to where I started. Some time ago I bought and sold a Pure Siesta clock alarm. This had DAB, FM and multi alarms but I sold it because the display was almost impossible to read in the dark due to the auto-dimming and number of very loud clicking presses required to set/unset any alarm. Anyway pure have come out with the Siesta Flow, this is a re-vamp of the original with a new display, an internet radio, UpNp and an Mp3 line in. It gets mostly excellent reviews on Amazon from some former Siesta owners. So I've ordered one, check back for an update!