DVR

recently my DirecTV DVR has been giving me headaches.  Almost every morning when I power on my system the TV comes on fine but my DVR remains dead.  I have repeatedly reset the receiver and still cannot get blue power light on.  Then after playing with it for 10 minutes or so the blue power light will finally come on and the system goes through a reboot and then things appear to be normal.  This has been happening every day for about 10 days now.  Now the DVR has been growling with noises internally while operating.  I called Tech Support at DirecTV and they finally said they would have to schedule a service call to the tune of $49.95 since I do not have a service plan.  I have a single LCD television and only one receiver.  It seems to me that the ONLY POSSIBLE answer to this problem is a replacement DVR.  What do you think?