PCH after power on

[Tinker]

I have had 2 MVPs for some time now. This last Christmas I got a PCH A110. Initially I had lots of problems with it so I sent it in and they replaced the motherboard. Now I have it back (finally) and it is much more stable. I have it set up for GBPVR and it works well. My issue is that when the unit sits with the power off and I come turn it on, I can't navigate the menus. Every button I push I get the eternal "working" circle in the top left. The only thing I can seem to access is the setup screen. My work around for this is to press the stop button then the setup button. Once on the setup screen if I go to network options and click save for both the upper and lower settings then everything starts working as normal.

I am hoping that someone knows what I am talking about and has a fix for this. I am using a static IP for my PCH. I have a home network that consists of one PC with XP, 2 MVPs, 1 PCH and my DSL router. My MVPs work wonderfully. No problems at all.

Any ideas anyone?

[mvallevand]

My guess is that it relates somehow to a DNS problem like this one.

http://www.networkedmediatank.com/showth...?tid=15618

Martin

[Tinker]

Does this require a hard drive in the PCH. Currently I do not have one. I am just using it like an MVP for HD content. Will changes made to the hosts file remain if you remove power from the unit?

[mvallevand]

As I said I am guessing, but if that is your problem there is no reason to think it is restricted to a hard disk. I suppose you could add the appropriate line to your gbpvr.cgi and the first time you start up the host file will be created and you will see for yourself.

Martin

[Tinker]

I am sorry if I was not clear in my earlier response. I just assumed that any changes to the PCH would only be temporary without a hard drive.

I tried adding the IP for my PCH to it's own hosts file as described in the link above. It seemed to speed up some things but I did still have one occurrence of my described problem. I will keep testing but I think that the hosts file mod did not resolve the issue.

This is not really related to MVPMC2 or GBPVR I guess I should post in the PCH forum but I have had such good luck with this forum in the past that I was sure that someone would have already solved this problem and could give me a push in the right direction.

Martin's PCH for dummy's install was slick. Thanks Martin! I was up and running in no time after getting my PCH back from being repaired. This one last issue is the only thing I have that is not working as expected. It is fine for me but the kids have a difficult time with the work around.

[mvallevand]

It still could be a DNS problem. If your SMB shares are connected using a name on the PCH, consider using their IP address instead.

Maring.

[Tinker]

I will try that tonight.

[Tinker]

I made everything IP address instead of computer names. It didn't seem to have a big effect on anything. It seems to be ok if I don't actually flip the power switch or unplug the PCH. Of course the hosts file edits that I made are erased if I cycle power also, so I have the same problem (eternal "working" circle) when I cycle power.

I don't know enough about the PCH itself. Is there a way to make the hosts file changes permanent without a hard drive or usb drive? I looked again at the link you provided above and that seems like what I would like to do but I do not have some of the paths that they describe on my PCH. Obviously the configuration from the setup screen is non-volatile so there needs to be some way of saving data to the PCH. Is there a way to copy a new hosts file when the PCH boots or make an edit to the file on boot? This is probably obvious to many of you so I apologize for my ignorance.