I just recently bought a high end Dolby receiver, the Marantz SR-880. A real nice receiver- it blows my old one out of the water. I’ve had it for about 3 weeks with no problems until the last week. All of the sudden, it will turn itself on automatically tuned to the “DSS” setting (I’m running basic cable through the DSS setting on the receiver) so that TV audio will blare throughout the room. My room is filled with electronic gadgetry (computer, stereo, video game systems, clock radio) which I try to leave powered down if possible. This does not occur at any set interval.
-I’ve tried placing a pillow in front of the receiver so it cannot receive a remote signal. It still happened twice.
-I turned my alarm clock (with red lcd display) around so it did not face the receiver. Still happened.
-I put the remote in the other room. Still happened.
It doesn’t seem to happen at any common interval and, AFAIK, there is no other electronic equipment on except the clock radio. It does not power on to any other setting (LD, CD, etc.) other than DSS. I’d rather not reconfigure the entire room and reprogram the remote but that may be the next step. Any insight would be much appreciated.
I had a similar problem where it seemed that no matter where I put the remote, the whole stereo would switch off or switch functions, or whatever. The ultimate test is to pull the batteries out of the remote. If the receiver still does it, take it back and get a new one. Just my $0.02.
I had a similar problem with my sony VCR. For no reason, it would just shut down. At first, I thought it was some sort of stray signal from the remote, but I’ve had it happen when the remote wasn’t even in the room.
I think it has to do with the power going into the vcr. In our home, it does tend to fluctuate (you can see the lights in the room fluctuate briefly), so I’m wondering if it’s that.
Saeren, the pillow trick and remote in the other room should’ve eliminated the remote as the cause. I’m loathe to return it as I bought it from the place in the link I provided- shipping’ll run me a pretty penny. And I’ll be pissed if it still doesn’t work.
Dragwyr, I’ll try running it on its own outlet. Right now its all octopussed out which may be a problem.
Somewhere on the front on the receiver is a small window where the remote sensor is. Find that window and cover it with tape or something. Verify that the remote will now not work. If the problem happens now, it’s not a random ir signal. It’s gotta be internal.
Phantom remote signals come from compact fluorescent light bulbs in the first few minutes of their warm up cycle. When I was in the consumer field, I got bulletins from Sony & Matsushita once a week for several months on the matter. That was about two years ago.
I have also come across single cases of IR sensors just being flaky and generating spurious (internal) output to the system microprocessor. In almost every case there was a bulletin from the vendor directing me to perform some modifications to the microprocessor periphery. Troubleshooting by attempting to cover the IR sensor is tricky; optical signals can get in from odd angles & you’d really need to cover the entire face of the receiver with somthing opaque to make sure you rule out ambient interference.
I can’t speak about Marantz, we serviced only what we sold & we didn’t sell that brand.
Don’t wait for the warranty period to run out before you decide to act!
I put a pillow in front of the receiver- It is possible that I didn’t fully cover the ir window but I don’t think that’s the case.
And in case you think that its a neighbor, I live on the third floor of a rowhouse next to an alley so that’s not possible. However, there is a utility pole with many lines right outside the window.
I had the exact same thing happen to me, and it actually creeped me out. Being alone in an apartment and having your TV turn itself on is a little on the freaky side. Eventually I found out that the neighbor below me had the same system-- Sony. His remotes would turn my stuff on and off if he held them at the right (or wrong, for me) angle, as would mine for him. Maybe the same thing is happening to you.
No problem. It was actually the first thing I thought of, cus in college it was common for people in my complex to use their remote on other people’s cable boxes. If you stood on the sidewalk outside their apt., you could change it to the religious channel every so often, driving them crazy.
Back to the OP (or am I allowed to hijack my own thread?)- Opus, there’s no fluoros in my room and it’ll happen with the (incandescent) lights on or off. I’ll try a couple more things (isolating it, sole power source) before I modify the microprocessor periphery. Or send it in for service, whichever is easier.
I don’t know a lot about this, but does your receiver have an infrared remote, or an RF remote? Perhaps if the remote operates on a radio frequency, that would point to some other cause?
I don’t know a lot about this, but does your receiver have an infrared remote, or an RF remote? Perhaps if the remote operates on a radio frequency, that would point to some other cause?
I disconnected all other devices from that outlet, unplugged all devices from the receivers outlets, and reset all programmed entries on the remote and didn’t run into the problem last night. I don’t know if it was my actions that did this or if its just a coincidence (i.e. something else was sending out an IR signal before but just didn’t do it last night). I’ll reply to this if it happens again.