TV V6 box has persistent high-pitched whine after upgrading to 360 - across box replacements

[VM360Whine]

As per subject.

The box is situated in an open shelving under the TV, with plenty airflow around it.

• When on standby there is no noise.
• When starting up, the high pitched whine begins.
• During usage, the whine become worse. The replacement box is actually worse.
• After putting it on standby, the whine persists for a while before disappearing.

Before we upgraded to 360, the original box was silent. The usual clunk click of the hard drive, perhaps, was the only sound we had.

I suffer from tinnitus so any high pitched noise, like this, can set it off. I can't sit in the living room with the box switched on anymore. It's basically unfit for purpose, for my household.

When the engineer arrived, he was really great. He swapped the unit, without any complaint and initially it sounded much better. He said as much, too. Sadly, as above, it comes back after the unit has been on for a while, which is why I suspect its heat related and likely relating to the fan in the unit in some way.

I was also told it was not possible to switch back to a non-360 box.

Does anyone else have any experience in getting this fixed?

[VM360Whine]

As an update, I again called VM CS and after around 20-30 mins of several on-holds, I was told a "specialist engineer" would be sent on Monday. 

This is after already telling them that the engineer who called yesterday already said all he could do was replace the hard drive or the full thing.

Will report back on what happens. I'm expecting no difference to yesterdays call.

[Megan_L]

Hi VM360Whine,

Thanks for using the Community Forums to get this issue with your 360 box looked into, I am sorry if this has been causing some frustration due to your tinnitus 😥 

Can I ask if you've upgraded to the 360 via the V6 box (Software upgrade) or upgraded via a brand new 360 box? (hardware upgrade)

The customer services are correct unfortunately, it's not possible to downgrade back to a V6. (Software or Hardware)

We may be able to follow the engineer's lead with changing the hard drive or the box (like for like replacement) 

Please let me know.

Thanks,

Megan_L

[VM360Whine]

Thanks for responding.

The original V6 box was a software upgrade. The replacement box already had 360 software installed. Both have the problem.

If another replacement box doesn't fix the problem (and given what I'm seeing, I don't believe it will) where does that leave me? I can't watch TV with this noise.

Can someone explain why this is only happening with the 360 software?

[Nathan_B]

No worries 🙂 Please let us know how you get on when the engineer visits tomorrow.

If you still have issues with this, please let us know. We're always happy to help.

Regards

Nathan

[VM360Whine]

Hello again,

The engineer just left and the problem has been 100% fixed, at least from the brief time checked.

Initially the box was swapped again and it still had the exact problem, so that's 3 for 3 boxes with the 360 software that all had the issue.

The engineer then called someone in the software team, arranged to have the box reverted to the V6 software (pre-360) and the problem has seemingly disappeared, so its now operating as it was for years before. Though I want to use the TV tonight for an extended period and make sure.

If it remains fixed, there is definitely something in the 360 software that is driving the V6 hardware harder, resulting in the fan having to work harder and causing this noise.

I'm not the only person to have reported this problem with the 360 upgrade and I'd wager it's actually more widespread but most people have their units inside cabinets with doors so the noise is being dampened..

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Virgin-TV-360/Noisy-360-box/td-p/5208803

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Virgin-TV-360/360-noise/td-p/5372447

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Virgin-TV-360/Noisy-fan/td-p/5308449

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Virgin-TV-360/360-Box-Loud-Fan/td-p/5319860

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Virgin-TV-V6/3rd-V6-box-Hard-Drive-noise-Fan-noise/td-p/5294256

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Virgin-TV-360/V6-TV-box-fan-noise/td-p/5317743

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Virgin-TV-360/V6-boxes-noisy-after-upgrade-to-360/td-p/5248535

[Adri_G]

Hi, VM360Whine.

Thanks for your reply and updates on the issues faced, we're glad to know it's now sorted after the visit from our engineer.
Although we had to revert the TV box software - which is quite odd, as the noise problems are eliminated now please monitor things moving forwards so we know in case the problem comes back.

Feel free to pop back here with a new post should you wish to report more issues or need our help, cheers.

[VM360Whine]

Thanks. I can report the problem has 100% been fixed, now after a few hours of TV viewing.

The unit has the same "noise" as it did pre-360, which is the same sort of electrical output noise you expect from most devices these days. The high pitched, oscillating fan noise has now completely disappeared.

I'd suggest taking this into the software team to investigate why the 360 software is impacting the V6 box in such a way, because something in that update is definitely driving the fan harder, including for a period of time after its put into standby. Clearly the hardware is getting hotter in usage, compared to the V6 default software.

[Adri_G]

Hi again, VM360Whine.

Thanks for confirming all this for us, please rest assured all feedback received from our forum members is being passed to the relevant teams so investigate things and avoid similar issues in the future.
If you have more questions or concerns we'll be here to assist, so feel free to pop back here with a new message, should you face more problems with your TV or other cable services in the future.

Best regards,