A while ago one Digital Audio input 1 on my receiver stopped working (fiber optic cable) so I switched it over to Digital Audio input 2 (also fiber).
Now that one has stopped working and I’m stuck listening to my DVR in sterio instead of surround sound because I’m out of digital inputs.
Is there any chance of fixing the receiver? Any quick fixes I can try like boiling the whole thing in water?
Only way is to get a new receiver? Thanks in advance.
Boiling the whole thing is water WILL fix the fiber connectors* but sadly will break everything else.
On a more serious note, almost everything with electronics is fixable. Will it be worth the money? Depends. It is possible something just came unsoldered, knocked out of place, etc.
If this is a nice amp, it might be worth the couple of bucks to have it looked at.
*no it won’t
The amp’s decent not superb. It’s a Denon with 5.1 sound with enough HD video switches to work for me, but I only spent 2-300 dollars on it refurbished years ago.
So maybe its time to look for another, but its annoying to have to do it over just a couple of inputs not working.
Seems like a weird thing to break with no moving parts or anything. Do light sensors develop cataracts?
I did try a different cable.
That reminds me of another question I was going to ask. If you can see that the light is coming out the end of the cable does that mean the cable is working? Or could it still be broken in a less obvious way?
Folly. if you get an answer to this please post it. I have the same problem. The audio was working fine to my TV input and then quit working. I moved it to the SAT /DVD input and that worked and then it stopped working too.
The fiber optic jack on the receiver, as in the “input” from your “source” should not have a red light. Only the “source” will have the red light.
You also mentioned that you moved the cable from one jack to another and then it worked. That basically proves that the source and fiber optic interconnect are working and that you have a bad fiber optic jack.
You would have to take the receiver apart and do a visual inspection to see if there are any cold or loose solder joints, then, check for voltage on the fiber opric receiver jack/interface.
Another option would be to buy a fiber optic switch from Monoprice or the like that uses an IR remote. Then, use a macro remote control (or program yours) to switch the fiber optic switch and the receiver accordingly.
It may be that the fibre is itself intermittent. Being able to see light coming out of it when held up might not guarantee that it remains working at all angles of lay. Toslink fibres are usually plastic, so it would take some effort to wreck one (unlike glass which is notoriously fragile.) But they are dirt cheap and the quality is commensurate.
It is hard to see how the receiver itself would fail, it is little more than a single photo-transistor.
It may also be that there has been some mechanical damage, and the end of the fibre doesn’t line up with the entry to the photo-transistor properly. On the whole, Toslink is pretty robust.
This thread on the AVS forum, also notes that 5.1 over Toslink is more picky about errors than sending 2 channel, so it could also be a symptom of a marginal connection.