Avermedia EB1304mob problems

[tweak'e 0]

been having a few problems with my DVR.

it seams to randomly stop recording, gets cameras mixed up, times mixed up, some video is missing, some is mixed in with video of another day.

 

whats going on with this thing?

 

changed hardrive to spare one but that seams to be doing the same. old hardrive tests out fine.

[VST_Man 1]

have you updated the firmware? ......and some earlier 1304's had some issues with "some" hard drives.......even if Aver won't admit it I actually figured it out by using different hard drives...some worked fine, others worked initially and then just stopped recording??? Updating the firmware on ALL fixed the problems.........

[tweak'e 0]

i havn't seen any firmware updates for this model.

 

hardrive is one of the ones on aver's compatibility list and was working fine for a while.

 

it could be vibration as i had to custom mount it. i may have to try a laptop hardrive. however would be nice to know if its a unit problem or hardrive issue.

[tweak'e 0]

did some more checking and i think i found a possible poor earth on the main power feed. so added an earth to the body.

 

did a bit of testing. it hasn't fully dropped out but has a couple of cases of data corruption(?).

 

 

edit: i only have 3 cameras. the right hand bottom pic in the quad is not normally there as the input is turned off.

i wonder if what i thought was faulty camera is actually a recorder issue.

 

any ideas?

[Scruit 0]

Dunno about your first pic - that looks more like a cam issue. The second pic with the pixellated/blocky pictures is an image I'm WELL familiar with... I have the same issue on my EB1304MOB, roughly every 6 months. New hard drive fixes it every time. The hard drive always tests fine in my PC afterwards.

 

Stick with Western Digital and that seems to work out.

 

I tried an automotive quality Seagate drive and it didn't last much longer - 9mo instead of 6mo. laptops HDs fare no better.

 

How do you have the DVR mounted? Aver says it must be horizontal/flat. I have mine bolted to the back of the back seat of my car so it's about 20deg from vertical. Aver says this is a no-no as the vibration damping doesn't work at this angle.

 

 

I modified the drive tray to allow the vibration damping to work at this angle by cutting away some surplus metal that the rubber-bumper-mounted inner tray was bashing into on bumps. Fingers crossed I get more than 6mo this time

 

Aver says my issue is unique and nobody has ever reported a similar corruption.

[Scruit 0]

This is what mine looks like once the HD gives up the ghost... (and I only ever figure out the HD is bad when I need to play back some video!!)

 

 

[tweak'e 0]

thanks for that. looks like the same issue then.

 

the problem here is i have absolutely no where to fit it flat.

my old chiense mjpeg did fine. just used to loose a frame now and then on big bumps. 12 months no problems with drive and the old drive was used in the new one which was fine for quite some time.

this new one tends to loose large amounts of footage and its not just doing it on bumps. you can bash it by hand without a problem.

i have modified mounts. i will have to improve them some more. bit tricky as this unit is different sized to my old one.

 

the pics i put up, one has no bumps on the road, the other is with vehicle stationary.

 

only other thing i could thing of is the tray moving causing bad contact.

[rory 0]

Scruit have you looked into a Solid State Drive yet?

[tweak'e 0]

what hardrives have you used?

 

just having a closer look at the specs (WD).

couple of things i noticed, theres quiet a difference in power, weight, max temps etc.

i don't know what the power limits of the recorder are. might be pushing the 12v or 5v line a bit to much. HD drives do funny things when feed low power.

the weight could be a factor tho as that will influence how well the cradle is dampened.

 

one small thing i will try out in the next few days.......the cradle is held in place on the sides by a few soft 'fingers'. normally thats just to keep it centred as it sits hard on the bottom. however with the unit on its side the cradle rests on them and they tend to give. i noticed the cradle rocked and slammed into the case. so i bend the bottom fingers out of the way and used the top ones to hold it down in place. obviously the connector dosn't like being at an angle but it lined up once i backed off all the screws on the connector block and cradle and re-tightened.

i'm hoping the cradle will now stay firm in the unit and let the rubber mounts do their job. fingers crossed it helps.

 

just looking into getting an AV drive.

 

also my old DVR i had mounted with inch thick foam rubber pads. i'll see if i can do that again and try to cut down some of the vibration. it may just be a vibration problem rather than a shock problem.

[Scruit 0]

Scruit have you looked into a Solid State Drive yet?

 

Yeah, but the news isn't good yet. To even get close to the IDE write speed of 133MBytes a second you have to go with SLC drives which are $500 for 32GB (100Mbytes/sec)

 

Also, Aver told me their bios was not tested with solid state drives, so there's no way to know if it will work unles someoe wants to blow 500 bucks on an experiment. Not me, thanks!

 

When prices drop to a point where I can get 32GB for about 250 then I'll give it a shot.

[tweak'e 0]

i've been checking up on the SMART data on the drive. the drive has had a fair bit of "Ultra ATA CRC Error Rate" errors. tho its fine in the pc.

i suspect the cause of those errors is the cradle loosing contact due to impacts. either that or the poorly done IDE cable (solid cable, not split to allow it to flex) it has is pulling apart loosing contact.

 

it could well be once the drive has logged enough errors it starts falling back to lower ata standard. to test it you would have to find a way to delete the smart data and reuse it and see if it still faults.

[Scruit 0]

i've been checking up on the SMART data on the drive. the drive has had a fair bit of "Ultra ATA CRC Error Rate" errors. tho its fine in the pc.

i suspect the cause of those errors is the cradle loosing contact due to impacts. either that or the poorly done IDE cable (solid cable, not split to allow it to flex) it has is pulling apart loosing contact.

 

it could well be once the drive has logged enough errors it starts falling back to lower ata standard. to test it you would have to find a way to delete the smart data and reuse it and see if it still faults.

 

Interesting. If you can read/delete the smart data then you can get relatively quick feedback on how the HD is doing in the environment (virbation etc) and continue to refine the cradle until the error rate improves.

 

How do you read this smart data? HD utlity software from the manufacturer, or freeware?

[tweak'e 0]

 

Interesting. If you can read/delete the smart data then you can get relatively quick feedback on how the HD is doing in the environment (virbation etc) and continue to refine the cradle until the error rate improves.

 

How do you read this smart data? HD utlity software from the manufacturer, or freeware?

 

both

been using manufactures program but i find a third party freeware one is much easier to understand.

how to delete data is the problem. i doubt they would release info on how to so people don't wipe bad drives and on sell them.

tho many years ago i had instructions on how to access hidden sector of hardrive which fixed a booting problem (a right pain having to type machine code). no doubt there is probably something built to do the job hidden on the dark side.