My mate I go to dinner with called me back, from the Cafe. Centre Management isn't open on Saturday, I thought as much, but it was fine to leave it at his place.

I put the other decoder I can't get working with card sharing back in, if I'm recording for dvd archiving, it's no good with pops and blips in the recording, like this crappy old box is giving. It's still doing it, but it's not too bad, I think the sun is drying the tree out.

I recorded the show.

I then put the new box I tried to get going back in, to see if the improved signal quality would help, nope. I took it, and connected it directly to the dish, rather than through the other decoder, still no good. Must be stuffed.

I just put my crappy old box back in, so I can watch the few channels I've got. I put it back in, and I was putting the tivo IR blaster back, I had a quick look to see exactly where the IR receiver is, it's near the power supply.

I then noticed a really musty smell, and then I saw sparkles coming off the board between a capacitor and a transformer in the power supply. I ripped the power cord out.

I put it back in carefully, noticed it sparkling a bit, and ripped it out again.

I unplugged it all, dragged it over, and went about working out what was going on. I used a small screwdriver to scratch the black off the board that had just appeared, to see if there was a track under it or something, I couldn't find anything at all.

I went and plugged it all back in, put the power in, saw a couple of brief sparkles near another capacitor, and then nothing.

The unit still powers up properly, and works, so I don't know what the problem is/was.

I half wish I'd won that decoder on ebay now. It most likely would have worked, and then there would no longer be an issue.

On the forums, someone suggested using a CRO to look at the signal levels on the data line while booting a working box, and the non working one, and trying to find the difference.

If I had a CRO, this would be fine, but it's $380 for a cheap CRO, or $270 for a new decoder.. hmm.