Leaving receivers and DVR's powered on all of the time

The Directv system is designed to be turned "off" using the remote. That shuts down to outputs and the panel lights. It leaves to satellite communications active, and DVR's continue to record a 90 minute buffer of the channel their tuned to. All of the configurations and connections depend on a constant source of AC power, and if you power them down you'll have lots of problems. Not to mention that it takes considerable time to boot back up.  Note that with Whole Home you can share programming from a DVR that is turned "off" but if you disconnect AC power, the whole system will be disrupted.  The SWM power inserter must be powered on 24/7.

I leave mine powered "on" all of the time.  There's no difference in power consumption between "on" and "standby". 

Thanks for your input everyone.  What I meant by leaving them powered on was just as the first respondent said.  I use the Directv Remote Control to turn off the front panel lights and I leave the main power to the back of the receiver on.  I've been having the same problem that so many folks here in the forum are having with the Whole Home DVR service constantly disconnecting.  So, I was just curious if I was required to leave all of the receivers on completely in order for the feature to continue to work.

My hardware is a HR20/700 DVR, 2 H21's and one H24.  The DVR is connected to my router and the internet via the Linksys Wireless Access Point that DirecTV recommended when I first hooked up my system to get On Demand Programming.  The DirecTV Tech's installed my Whole Home DVR hardware and configured it but I was one of the first ones in my area to get it after the Beta Period ended.  The installers had a very difficult time getting it to work because they did not know the right way to hook everything up and were constantly on the phone with sernior support personnel.  My initial Whole Home setup was just the HR20 and the 2 H21's and for a while it seemed to work OK.  We had one or two situations where the DVR playlist stopped appearing on the TV's where the H21's were but all I had to do then was hard boot those receivers and everything worked OK again.  On one occasion, I even had to hard boot the HR20 DVR too.  About 2 months later, I added the H24 receiver in our master bedroom and that worked OK for about 2 weeks, then we started having intermittent loss of the DVR playlist and it eventually got to the point where I cannot keep the connection going for more than a few minutes at a time.  The HR20 DVR keeps dropping out of the Whole Home network.  I've tried all of the methods to try to resolve this problem mentioned in this forum including replacing one of the DECA's behind my HR20 DVR.  I've even rebooted my AT&T 2-Wire Modem/Router and no change in the problem.  The H24 receiver seems to connect to the Router just fine and maintain it's I/P address but the HR20 DVR never seems to get and keep it's I/P address although my On Demand feature still appears to work.

So, I'm not sure what else to do other than trying to run a continuous cat5 cable from my 2-Wire Router/modem to the DECA behind the HR20 DVR to eliminate the wireless issue.  It seems to me that DirecTV has a buggy system with possible questionable hardware and possible incompatibility problems that is causing a lot of frustration and problems for its subscribers.

If anyone has any newideas on how to fix this problem, I'd sure appreciate hearing it. 

I am a bit confused as to how the wireless access point is connected. Let's look at your entire system. A coax should come from the dish, through a ground block, to a splitter, either 4 way or 8 way (see pic 1). From the splitter a coax should go to each receiver or DVR. For the HR20 & 2-H21's the coax should connect to a DECA module (see pic 2) before connecting to the Sat 1 in coax connection. From the DECA module, there should be a short Ethernet jumper connected to the Ethernet (top one if 2) port on the box and the other end of the module connects to the Sat 1 in port.  The H24 has a straight coax connection, no added devices.  Somewhere in the mix will be a SWM Power Inserter, 21 volt with the "power to SWM" port connected to the coax coming from the dish. The "signal to IRD" port can either feed one of the receivers or be left empty. That empty port plus any on the splitter should be covered by 75 ohm terminators (see pic 3). All of the components should have a green label. That completes a Whole Home DVR installation. Connection to your router and the Internet is a separate item.

To connect to your router requires that a separate coax be fed from the splitter (may use an auxiliary splitter if the first one is a 4 way) to your router. There a DECA or BB module (see pic 4) will connect to the coax and a 18 volt power supply will connect to the other end. A short Ethernet cable will connect the module to your router.

This is the only suitable way your installation can be configured. Carefully inspect it and if you find any discrepancies, post back.

DCD:  I need to go up into my attic and check all of the connections and type of splitter being used...I'm 99% sure it's a green one and pretty sure it's an 8 way...Not sure what else is connected up there...I'll be able to give you a complete wiring/configuration picture on Thursday or Friday when I'm off work and will report back to this forum.  I sure seems to me like the HR20/700 DVR may have a bad ethernet port but until I check everything and completely redo the setup check sequence, I won't know for sure.  I do have a splitter behind my DVR that feeds the Wireless Access Point and two DECA's...One with a Power inserter in it...Like I was saying, I need to put together a wiring diagram so you can see how Directv hooked it all up.

Hi DCD;  After I spent a lot of time trying to isolate my problem with no success, I totally eliminated the Wireless Connection I had between my DVR and my Router by running a CAT5 continuous cable from my AT&T 2-Wire Modem/Router to the BB Deca that has the power inverter connected to it.  Before I did that though, I reset all HD Receivers and the HR20/700 DVR to the Network default settings, then turned off and powered off everything as described in other posts which included powering down the Power Inverter and the SWM in the attic.  Then I powered off my Router/Modem.  I then checked all coax connections and several were loose so I tightened everything and verified that there were Terminators in the 2 unused ports in my 8 way 'Green' Splitter in the attic.  I also powered off my 2 SD Receivers.

I then turned everything back in as follows;  Router/Modem first to insure DSL was up and working, then I powered up the SWM in the attic, then the Power Inverter at the BB Deca behind my DVR, then the DVR and waited until it was all of the way up with a working picture and then made sure it was talking to the network and the internet.  Then I powered up each of the H21's and the one H24 I have, one at a time, waiting for each to come up completely and then making sure they were talking to the network and named each location for Whole Home.  Finally, I brought up the 2 SD Receivers one at a time until they had pictures. 

After all of this my Whole Home DVR feature was working on all capable locations but the H24 receiver lost it's connection to the networksaying that the DVR had dropped off the network.  It actually hadn't and I was able to go to any of the other 2 H21's and play a recording from the DVR list one at a time.  I then hard booted the H24 and it started working again. My daughter just happened to playing back a recorded program off of one of the H21's at that moment so I couldn't try to play anything back at the H24 location in my master bedroom.  The next morning, I had to hard boot the H24 again because it never came out of that mode saying another location was currently playing back a recorded program and then it has worked flawlessly since then.

So, I'm not sure why the H24 had problem last night but we'll see what happens in the coming days.  Whenever I've had problems playing back recorded programs at the H24/700 location, it always seems to be late at night so we'll see how it behaves later tonight.

Everything is working now, except for the DVR playback limitations I posted in another post and eluded to here.  I'll keep my fingers crossed.  🙂

BTW, DCD, the splitter I have behind the DVR is a 'Green' SWM Splitter and it splits the incoming signal from the 8 port Green Block in the attic between my BB Deca and the other regular DECA that are both behind my DVR in my 1st floor family room.  I also wanted to mention that my home network is now using DHCP totally for the Whole Home DVR connected components but I do have two static I/P locations for a shared/network printer and networked Western Digital Home NAS.

If you have any other suggestions or comments or need additional information, please let me know. 

Thanks for the help and suggestions of everyone in this Forum!!

To me, it is a step backward to when one bulb goes out on a string of Christmas lights they all go out. My setup is one HDDVR, 1 HD Receiver and one standard receiver . The standard receiver got unplugged and I thought it was a fluke when all the other receivers went down, but it all came back up after plugging the receiver back in. The second time the unit was intentionally unplugged which knocked everything back down again, so I went to this forum. Since the standard receiver isn't really part of the whole house, in that it doesn't have access to the DVR's or internet, I couldn't see why it would take the others down. Too bad they can't leave a termination plug during installation and describe its use, like if a unit bites the dust, a customer would have to wait until either a repairperson is dispatched, or a plug arrives in the mail before getting the cable back. I have an unused termination plug left over from a radioshack 4 way splitter amplifier which I bought for an outdoor antenna, which has a wire post in the middle, so I assume it will work in an emergency. Also, it looks like I should label all the leads going into the SWM splitter so I will know which one to lift and cap should the need arise.