Over the last month or two there seems to be many complaints regarding the SlingPlayer Solo and it freezing, get stuck on optimizing, dropping the network connection, etc.
There can be several things that can cause this from poor router conditions, week or bad power supplies, high latency issues and more. As an example in this topic thread, Slingbox Pro-HD Freezes (“Optimizing”) while Streaming, alone there are over 900 views and 56 posts about different things to test and try. Some things have worked others not.
There are over 3,000 views and hundreds of posts about it on the answers.slingbox.com site. Some of the tips or tricks others have said worked but a lot of them have not.
If you have tried just about everything to get your Sling Media Slingbox SOLO
Please note; We are not recommending you take apart their Slingbox and void your warranty or if you just aren’t comfortable doing so, but there have been several reports of capacitors going bad in a SOLO
If still under warranty we recommend you read a few posts ask a few questions and see if anything helps. If not the call Sling Media Support and have them walk you through some testing up to returning the box for warranty replacement.
What you want to do is look for bad capacitors. Because as the capacitor ages or starts to go bad , its capacitance decreases while its equivalent series resistance (ESR) increases. When this happens, the capacitors no longer adequately serve their purpose of filtering the direct current voltages on thedevice , and instability results.
To take the box apart look for the four screws under the rubber feet of the slingbox solo. You have to pull the footpads off in order to see them. After you unscrew those screws under the feet, the black main chassis comes apart in HALF.
Then you will see the red plastic. Flip it upside down and there are 5 screws at the bottom. unscrew that and you can finally pull off the case.
Now you have access to the internal circuit board.
What you want to look at are the capacitors.
- Bulging of the vent on the top of the capacitor. (The ‘vent’ is the impression stamped in the top of the can. The impression forms the seams of the vent. It is designed so that if the capacitor becomes pressurized it will split at the vent’s seams relieving the pressure rather than making it explode.)
- Sitting crooked on the circuit board as the bottom rubber plug is pushed out
- Electrolyte (a crusty brown substance) leaked onto the motherboard from the base of the capacitor
- Venting from the top of the capacitor, visible as rust-like brown deposits, or a visible hole in the vent.
Capacitors look like this.
If you see any that look like they are bulging at the top then those would be the suspect ones.
Here is an example of a bulging capacitor.
Here is an example of one good and one bad capacitor. The one on the left is good the one on the right is not.
What you would want to do is replace any capacitors that are bulging. If you have gone this far I would guess if you are out of warranty ans ideas so it won’t hurt to try this.
You may just want to do this yourself. If so here is a great video with a little humor that tells you all about capacitor basics. Thanks to http://www.afrotechmods.com for the video.
You can order caps from places like www.digikey.com or www.mouser.com. They generally run for under $1.00.
If not into soldering motherboards or worried about messing something up the any good TV repair shop should be abe to replace them for you. They surely won’t guarantee that your Slingbox will work but they will be competent enough to do the job.
If you do take your SlingBox Solo apart and find bad capacitors we would love to hear about it. Even if you decide not to fix them. If you do fix them and your problem is resolved then we would love to hear about that too!
Special thanks to jin for supplying the pictures and directions on taking apart the Slingbox Solo!.
You may also want to refer to these posts regarding tips, tools and techniques on replacing capacitors.
Join the Slingbox Hardware forum discussion on this post. There are already 50 comments on it.
Post #3, I went to the shack and got 2 capacitors part number 272-1030. Removed the 2 plumpy ones and installed these and played the slingbox for about 45 minutes straight in HD so far with no interruptions. This is the best post I read all year!
Thank you!
Good deal!
Glad we could help & you got it working.
Holy cow!! I paid $0.65 for the two replacement capacitors, spent 20 minutes taking apart the slingbox, soldering and reassembling. It worked!! This saved me the $300 i would have spent buying a new slingbox. Thanks a million!
After almost 2 years of having connectivity and streaming issues with my Pro-HD, I was convinced about this capacitor thing. I prepped to replace them, then found nothing wrong with them upon opening up the box. I discovered my issues were with how I had the thing connected to the internet: Slinglink Turbo plugged into a powerstrip plugged into the wall. It needs to be plugged directly into the outlet. Then I got even better speeds when I stopped using the Turbo and replaced it with a TP-Link Network extender. Awesome streaming now.
Thanks to all for the postings about fixing the capacitors for the slingbox solo, I am proud to say that I just completed my replacement of two bulging capacitors and now my slingbox is back in business. I just have a silly question, I replaced the slingbox 470uF 16V capacitors with 470uF 35V capacitors from Radio Shack, they didn’t the exact ones. Would the difference in voltage affect in any way the slingbox? Would it do any damage that they have a bigger voltage? Thanks for all your help!
The voltage is the max voltage you can pass through the capacitor. Having one that will take more volts won’t hurt anything.
Thanks a million, I was worried that because the capacitors said 35V I was going to have problems. I bought extras just in case and some of the one that was good(220uF) in case they go bad. What makes these capacitors go bad?
Thank you so much for this information. Same problem, took it apart (blew up the warranty but who cares, support kept insisting it was my network and would not fix it). Replaced two bulging 470uf 16v capacitors with some Radio Shack ones and my sling has been working great ever since. I couldn’t run it more then 10 minutes before. You guys rock. The sling is such a cool piece of technology and I love it. But the company is the worst I have ever dealt with.
Glad you got it going and thanks for the compliments!
Slinging is very cool but there are times when the hardware can drive ya crazy.
I bought a Slingbox Solo a year and a half ago after having owned an AV for 5 years. Unfortunately my Solo just completely died, no lights or anything working. I saw all the info on the bad capacitors so I opened it up. Inside there are the two 470 mf capacitors that looked fine but there was no 220 mf capacitor at all! The space on the board for it has been soldered but there is no capacitor or remnants of a capacitor anywhere. Has anyone else had a Solo without the third capacitor? I wasn’t sure if they may have changed it in later versions or if I should put one back on the board.
@Todd C
Good question! My Solos have had that capacitor so not sure why yours doesn’t. If you bought it new then I wouldn’t think you would have to add one. Have you checked your power supply yet? Those tend to die out first.
I have a slingbox solo for 2 years and now it stop working. Well, the lights are on (power and internet), but when i try to connect (PC or iPad) it says the Slingbox wasn’t currently accessible and that wasn’t connected to the internet.
i tried differents internets ports, different cable, reseting, disconnecting and everything else.
i also opened the box and the capacitors were, apparently, fine.
Can anyone help me??
Thanks.
It’s surprising that the Internet light is on. When you log into your router, does it see the device? If so, can you ping it from your PC at the address reported? If not, can you ping it from your PC at e.g. 192.168.1.254, where 192.168.1.x is the subnet of your LAN?
If it does not respond to ping, does the light on your router for the port in question, and the Internet light on the Slingbox, come on when you connect the Slingbox cable and go out when you disconnect the cable?
If it does respond to ping, try to connect with the standalone player, when not logged in to a Sling account. Do you get a message “SlingPlayer didn’t locate a Slingbox on your network.”? Also, try creating a new Sling account and see whether you have access.
Thanks @slinguist. The light on the router is on also. As soon as I arrive home I will do the tests and let you know if it worked.
Thanks so much.
My slingbox worked on all networks but xfinity.. Found that setting MtU to 1462 solved the problem.
Could not do on router but did on computer.. Problem solved.
I found this page MOST helpful. I had tried everything, hard reset, using a different router, same error message. My refurbished sling solo was out of warranty and when talking with Slingbox Support about my issue(error W202, poor internet connection) I was told it was probably caused by ISP throttling down my bandwidth. But for $40 I could get expert advice(I asked about capacitors and the agent seemed to have no idea what I was talking about)… Anyway, I opened up the slingbox and found two bulging capacitors. Went to Radio Shack and bought two 470u 35V capacitors($3.60), went to a TV repairman and had him solder the new capacitors($20) in place, Voila! Slingbox working like new.
Glad you got it working. The support folks are not going to admit or discuss hardware issues like capacitors. Even more so that the slingbox Solo is discontinued but there has been a lot of people that have experienced the capacitor problem.
Might be an old thread, but it saved the day again! Just restored a broken ebay purchase before shipping it off to my sister in the UK. Thanks..