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6:12 pm
April 19, 2010
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Deano,
I would first check to see how your connection is using the slingplayer program on your computer. If you have the same problem it could be a Slingbox or latency issue. There have been quite a few problems with the Slingcatcher in China due to the TCP port latency problems.
6:45 pm
February 21, 2011
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Hi Brandon, thanks for the prompt reply. I have no issue with SlingPlayer on my laptop. My Slingcatcher was working fine and I could watch it for several hrs straight until a few weeks ago. Once the logo light started staying on, everything started freezing. I opened it up this morning and all capacitors are fine, no bulging at all. The one thing I didn't try was a hard reset as I didn't know if it would erase everything or not. I won't be back to my Slingbox location in Canada until July. I guess I'll try a hard reset next. Any other ideas?
7:07 pm
April 19, 2010
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The hard reset will make you start over as if the box was new. At this point if the SlingCatcher is unusable then you don't have much to lose in resetting it.
The SlingCatcher relies on a good port forwarded TCP connection with low latency. One of the reasons it is kinda outdated now.
You may want to start looking at something that you can use to project your laptop to your TV.
9:38 pm
August 9, 2010
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Depending on what kind of laptop and what kind of TV it's likely connecting it is just picking up a cheap cable.
If it's an HDTV (or any flat-screen LCD/Plasma) your TV probably has both VGA (D-shaped 15 pin plug) and HDMI.
If it's an older TV, it probably has S-Video.
Just identify the type of plug on your computer and get the matching cable.
S-Video (requires seperate headphone -> TV audio cable):
Looks like either of these – it doesn't matter. Ignore the labels on this drawing, just look at the shape. A 4-pin standard S-Video will work for both 4-pin and 7-pin plugs. My old laptops had the 7-pin output and the TV had a 4-pin input.
VGA (requires seperate headphone -> TV audio cable):
Might be blue, black, or something else…looks like this.
HDMI (no extra audio cables required)
Best of luck…
2:06 am
February 21, 2011
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Thanks, I have a Dell with a DisplayPort output. I have a DisplayPort to HDMI cable but is a hassle to use. Also, when I'm at work no one else can watch it until I'm back. Does anyone know why the logo light stays on?
7:17 am
February 21, 2011
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I just tried the on-screen reset and still freezes with the logo light glowing and both power and network lights on bright. Did a hard reset (held in reset button for 10 seconds) and let the SlingCatcher recover and download updates. Went throught the login and freezes with logo light coming on after a few seconds. Nothing at all has worked. Any ideas out there?
1:32 pm
August 10, 2010
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Bad news everyone.
I had the same "dead slingcatcher with dim lights" issue and finally replaced the 10 capacitors sitting inside today, just in case.
Same result.
I think that the power adaptor had gone bad in the first place, and somehow damaged something inside the box in the process, but obviously not the capacitors.
3:40 pm
April 19, 2010
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Ya, it sounds like something else might have burned up inside the Sling catcher. It might be time to figure out some kind of PC to TV connection. 
9:17 am
September 19, 2011
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Deano said
My Slingcatcher was working fine but now freezes up after 1-2 minutes. Both the power and network light are on and bright but when it freezes the logo light also stays lit. If I unplug or press reset, it works fine for another 1-2 minutes then the logo light stays on again and everything freezes. If I press a remote button, the light blinks off momentarily then stays on again. When the SlingCatcher was working fine, the logo light would only come on momentarily when a button on the remote was pressed. I just received a new power supply from Sling but it made no difference. If I hold the reset down will it lose all settings? I am living in China and my SlingBox is in Canada. Will I have to set the SlingCatcher up with the Slingbox hard wired? I haven't opened the box to check the capacitors yet. Could it be anything else?
I know this is an old thread. But your problem is a Slingbox firmware issue.
I had the same issue. But after downgrading the Slingbox firmware to 1.3.170, the problem went away. You can find the old firmware using Google.
You'll need the old slingbox software to do the downgrade. For me, that meant running boot camp with Windows (as I'm a Mac user and the old software was a windows version.)
Trust me, this will fix your problem. My slingcatcher has had no problems since i downgraded the slingbox firmware.
I get the impression that the firmware issued for the slingbox has been quite buggy since Sling was bought by DirectTV.
The only downside is the firmware doesn't support my iPad. The iPhone still works though.
10:48 am
March 20, 2012
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Hopefully you see this in time, but I have the same problem with my SlingCatcher, dim light, etc. I've tried everything mentioned here. What I'm not clear on is how to actually downgrade the firmware on it, especially since it's not powering up at all.
Thanks
5:33 am
May 9, 2012
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I just came across this thread while trying to fix my slingcatcher. I also have the two dim lights for stream and network, with no light for power.
I also replaced my power supply with a new 5 volt 4 amp supply and it did not help. I used this one:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/AC-Adapter-4-KTEC-Slingbox-SlingCatcher-K…..2863wt_940
I also replaced all 10 capacitors (6 x 220uf 25v; 4 x 470uf 16v). I was hoping it was "bad caps" but I still have the two dim LED's. Another person did this too, and also had the same bad luck. The original capacitors are Rubycon brand which is regarded as a good brand.
There is a transient diode fuse (part D10) behind the DC barrel connector, which protects against reverse polarity and transient spikes. I did not replace this, but noticed a thread where somebody did replace this and it fixed it. I ordered a replacement part, best match I found was SMBJ5.0A-TR at mouser.com
http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/STMicroelectronics/SMBJ50A-TR…..QmUg%3d%3d
I also looked at internal voltages and signals -- looking for signs of life in the sling catcher:
I found correct internal voltages at the test points (TP pads) for 5.0, 3.3, 2.6, 1.8, 1.3 volts. So it would seem all power supplies are working. TP_POWER (near the power led) is 3.28 volts. However TP_STREAM and TP_ETH_LINK are both 1.7 volts, which might be the voltage drop across the LED diodes. In this case, I would expect the power LED to also have 1.7 volts.
I also used my oscilloscope to verify the reset button is producing the active low pulse – so the reset circuit is working ok (the button is ok).
The TP_PCI_CLK pin has 16mhz PCI bus clock, so that seems to be ok. I also found a 190 KHz clock on the EEPROM (U22; M93C46 1K EEPROM) for the RTL8100C ether net network controller. This means the RTL8100 seems to be generating the clock to read it's firmware. Also, the CTL25 from RTL8100 is properly controlling the large PNP transistor (Q2) to deliver the 2.5V it's looking for.
My next move is to look for signs of life on the main processor (Phillips/NXP PNX8950) which is running Windows CE 5.0 (according to the license on the bottom of the slingcatcher case). I found some solder pads for jumpers which might be serial output ports. Maybe this have clues, but I'm not motivated to install the jumper and see if there is serial output (sign of life?).
I"m having trouble finding a schematic or pin diagram for the PNX8950 processor. It looks like a BGA connection (no pins to touch!) so it will be very difficult to look directly at the processor.
I'm sorry I don't have any clues or quick fix solutions, but still hoping somebody else might? I share my findings hoping this will help somebody else in their investigation. At this point, I'm starting to think about a media pc or laptop alternative. But I haven't given up entirely yet.
-Scott
