Super Slow Mercury II

[gino taher]

Hi guys,

I sent an e-mail to Fortec tech support in regards to this legacy problems, but sofar no reply yet. If I heard something, I will post it here.

Happy new year.

[vze59zgb]

Originally Posted by rainman

Try deleteing some of your unused transponders and channels I don't know about the Mercury but the Ultra can do some strange things when they get overloaded.

got the merc 2 receiver over the holidays get this one down loaded 4 sats from 4 satt dishes one dsq switch worked great deleted the channels i did not want worked fine till i got to galaxy 25 trying to delete unwanted channels receiver would freeze change channels not changeing programs

could not operate receiver front pannel or remote tried rebooting same thing then i got smart removed the lmb power source at the receiver
deleted the channels i did no want power it back up every thing connected works great have 3 other receivers tried them to the same satts no problem not knocking the receiver it has the best color and picture than my other receivers rainman said this receiver was a good one so i got it galaxy 25 was the only satt i had a problem with it was on the forth leg of the switchyou would no t believe what the receiver didhas a mind of its own vze59zgb

[rainman]

Originally Posted by vze59zgb

got the merc 2 receiver over the holidays get this one down loaded 4 sats from 4 satt dishes one dsq switch worked great deleted the channels i did not want worked fine till i got to galaxy 25 trying to delete unwanted channels receiver would freeze change channels not changeing programs

could not operate receiver front pannel or remote tried rebooting same thing then i got smart removed the lmb power source at the receiver
deleted the channels i did no want power it back up every thing connected works great have 3 other receivers tried them to the same satts no problem not knocking the receiver it has the best color and picture than my other receivers rainman said this receiver was a good one so i got it galaxy 25 was the only satt i had a problem with it was on the forth leg of the switchyou would no t believe what the receiver didhas a mind of its own vze59zgb

yep I like the receiver but it doesn't like TP 12152 on Galaxy 25 just keep that TP deleted and it works fine for me.

[Jim-S]

Originally Posted by rainman

Delete 12152H and it will work just fine Jim.

Hi; I did exactly that deleted 12152H, works fine now.

[rainman]

Nice looking car Jim would that be your's.

[Powrline]

(I posted this in another thread, but it belongs here so I wanted to repost it.)
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

After not being able to receive new frequencies on my Mercury II when I did a blind scan, I decided to just trash all of my saved data and start over....

I performed a factory reset and rescanned in all of the satellites that I enjoy receiving programming from, (Galaxy 10, Hisp@30, Galaxy 25, AMC 3, etc.).

It was a timely process that took a half of a day (walking away and coming back) but it solved all of my weirdness problems, until...

I scanned in Galaxy 25. Like it was reported above, the offending Freq is 12152/H !

I deleted Frequency 12152/H and haven't had a bit of a problem in over 12 hours. (I deleted it last evening).

If I do a factory reset again and re-scan in all of my favorite satellites, next time I will write down all of the ones that I want to re-save. That may make it a little easier to put everything back where it was.

I am having a problem retrieving a certain channel on Gal 11 that I had entered in manually, but I am going to keep trying on that one, because I may not have entered it in correctly (4 or 5 times).

In summary, Factory Reset, GOOD! Re-Scan everything to restore to original condition! The Mercury II responds to the remote and does what it is supposed to do now. (oh yeah, and delete the 12152/H on Galaxy 25)

Thanks!!
Bill

[wejones]

You *MIGHT* have saved some time by using the Fortec ChEditor program. It is a REALLY POOR program, however it WILL allow you to add, delete and edit channels and transponders.
What I would have done, is before doing the factory reset, use the channel editor to save your sats and channels, and also before doing the reset, there is a similar option whereby you can save and recover via your remote on the receiver. In case the ChEditor route doesn't work right, I'd recommend backing up your channels via the remote before doing the reset, then you can just do a recover to get back to where you were before, if things go wrong.

IF you are using USALS, you can use the ChEditor program to save your sats and channels. Then you sit down at the computer, and remove all the unwanted sats, transponders, and channels that you don't want, and you can add manual channels, etc. Get the thing set up just how you want it. Then load that data into your receiver, and you're all set. However, if you're using DiseqC-1.2, there are problems with this.
If you're using DiseqC-1.2, there is a problem, and that is that you won't be able to remove any satellites or the Mercury will forget where on the motor it saved their positions. So, if you intend to use DiseqC-1.2, make sure that you don't delete any satellites, either with the remote or via the ChEditor program.

But either way, even though this is a poor excuse for a channel editor program, even compared to the program that the have for the older Lifetime receivers, it is still the easiest way to clear out unwanted transponders and channels, and/or edit most (not all) of the parameters for the channels.

[Jim-S]

Originally Posted by rainman

Nice looking car Jim would that be your's.

I wish it was my brother built it and then a couple of years later he sold it. I couldn't afford to buy it. He has had several cars. It's out of my league.

[vze59zgb]

Originally Posted by wejones

With all this talk about strange behavior of the Mercury, I find it interesting that MY Mercury also just went semi-beserk over the weekend, although my symptoms are completely different. I'll describe the symptoms in another post, but I find it strange that several different Mercury receivers seem to be acting strange all at the same time.

hello wejones just got the mercury downloaded 4 sats worked fine

deleted the channels idid not want worked fine till i got to 1a 5

could not control the receiver from the remote or front pannel froze up

would run channels with out changeing them removed the rg6 cable in put from lmb removed all the channels i did not want. reconnect the in put cable everything is fine i have 3 other receivers
this is the best great picture quality for the money you cant beat it
take care wejones vze59zgb

[wejones]

I agree that the Mercury is very good quality picture.

Comparing the various DVB receivers I have (that I can feed a TV with), ie :

(1) Twinhan 1020a---> Roku HD1000 ---> TV
(2) Broadlogic 1030 ---> Roku HD1000 ---> TV
(3) Mercury ---> TV
(4) Fortec Lifetime ---> TIVO---> TV
(5) Fortec Lifetime Ultra ---> TIVO---> TV

Basically, (1) , (2) and (3) give the best results, ie about as good as you can expect from a SD DVB receiver.
Actually, my (4), the Lifetime is also fairly good quality picture. There is no difference in sharpness or contrast, but the difference is that since the first 3 receivers both take advantage of the component input of my TV rather than the composite input. The component inputs provide much deeper color saturation, which is responsible for the excellent pictures. If I use the composite output of the Mercury, I don't see any difference between it and my Lifetime receiver.
Now, # (5), the Ultra. It's picture is clearly lower quality than the other receivers. Again, it isn't a difference in resolution or sharpness, but the contrast is the big problem. Ie you seem to lose a lot of detail that is washed out because it's not displaying small differences in brightness/contrast. Not sure what causes this. It is possible that it is something to do with the cables I'm using from the Ultra, but I don't think so, as I've noticed this over the years while using different cables.
Anyway, yes, the Mercury gives excellent video quality. However the firmware bugs have made me abandon it with respect to connecting directly to my dish. I'm now using my old Lifetime to move the dish and change satellites and polarity, but am slaving the Mercury off the Lifetime since the Mercury gives slightly better picture quality. Makes it a bit more cumbersome to use, but it's worth it.

[Powrline]

Originally Posted by wejones

You *MIGHT* have saved some time by using the Fortec ChEditor program. It is a REALLY POOR program, however it WILL allow you to add, delete and edit channels and transponders.

Dear Bill;

Thanks for that info. I didn't know that there was a channel editor program from Fortec, but I may look into it now.

I've done a channel back up and restore ever since I bought the receiver in April of 2007 (my first). The thing that pushed me over the edge to do something as drastic as just wiping everything out and starting over was the fact that the Mercury II would not pick up any new freqs on a blind scan. You know how often we like to scan the Galaxy 25 @ 97, and it wouldn't even scan in a new freq when I deleted them all except for one.

I wanted to add to the thread with my "hard luck" story about weirdness from the Mercury II because we all seem to be experiencing it at around the same time and this is what I figured what would solve my problem, and it did.

Thanks for your insight, I do greatly appreciate it!
Bill

[crzadeh]

Dear All,

I have the same told problem with some of my channels. I tried to update the firmware, but I received a "check sum error". I used a Null modem cable. Anyone can tell me what's the problem??

[crzadeh]

Dear All,

I have the same told problem with some of my channels. I tried to update the firmware, but I received a "check sum error". I used a Null modem cable. Anyone can tell me what's the problem??

[syazdani]

Originally Posted by MrEd2

Odd - I have a Mercury II, and the same thing happened tonight - maybe the recent rainstorms in Bay Area? I lost all my channels as well

hey out there go to fortecstar.com and download the new file that would fix it, I had it too

[vze59zgb]

Originally Posted by Jim-S

I had just received my Mercury II back from Sadoun on Saturday, it was tested and found OK (another problem). So I did a factory reset and power scanned 3 sat's. AMC3, Galaxy 10R and Galaxy 25. Galaxy 10 was fine AMC3 was fine then I went to Galaxy 25 (IA5) I was going thru the channels and when I hit the last few to view my receiver went nuts. Just like what was described in the above threads. I was ready to call Sadoun and ask them, what did you do to my receiver. Then I remembered this thread. Thank goodness for the forum. I was able to get to menu and do a factory reset and power scan AMC3 but that's all I have done and it works fine. It must be a transponder on G25 doing this I don't know quite what to do. It was very difficult to maneuver thru the menu. I'm going to try what is suggested by Sadoun on 12152H, delete it.
Jim

jim had the same problem shut down the receiver removed the satt feed rg6 cable powered it back up deleted the channels i did not want reinstall cable powered it up works great no problem vze59zgb

[Othea]

Users in this thread describe various problems: (a) slow response, (b) problem with a specific transponder, (c) fading menu screen (??), (d) speculation about defective transistors...

Thanks to those who point out the problems with Tr 11836 and 12152... I cannot confirm this, but it seems that others have.

I can offer a solution for SOME of those who report 'slow response time'.

The symptom: You must wait 3-8 seconds before trying to enter a second remote control command or channel change, otherwise the system will not respond. There is no way to 'cycle' through menu commands; you must dutifully wait 3-8 seconds before attempting to press a remote button. Failure to wait the required amount of time will mean that you will AGAIN have to wait 3-8 seconds before making a second attempt. This is particularly grievesome if you wish to change a channel name; the input mode will time out before you can cycle to the next character (A-B-C-a-b-c, etc.).

The good news: This is not a problem with the STB itself.

The Solution: Change the batteries in the remote !!

I've never seen anything like this with another remote, including the Lifetime Ultra; but it solves the problem with the Mercury II. Going back and forth between the old batteries and a set of freshly recharged batteries has confirmed that this was indeed the problem -- and the solution.