Question for WHF staff and Forum Experts

[jaxwired]

I have a NAD C545 player that has an intermittent problem. It acts like it is receiving very high speed remote commands. It will fast forward, skip ahead songs, skip back songs, fast forward some more, play a little, then repeat radomly these actions. This all happens pretty fast. I have pulled the batteries out of the remotes in the room. They are not responsible. There are no other IR devices in the room. I also tried moving it to an entirely different room in my house a good 50 feet from the other room and the problem persists. I am playing only store bought CDs and this problem happens with all CDs.

I have already sent the unit to be serviced once by a NAD authorized service center. They could not reproduce the problem. As I said, it is intermittent. They did replace some parts (don't know what exactly), hoping that would fix it. Took a month to get it back and its still got the same problem.

My question is, is it possible for some strong signal eminating from outside my house to be affecting the units IR receiver? The service center said they ran the unit for 2 days with no signs of the problem. I got it back and it started acting up the first day. I'm just trying to rule out the possibility that the problem is outside of the unit.

Any feedback or input on this mystery is greatly appreciated.

 

[Anonymous]

Have you tried putting black Gaffer tape over the IR receiver window on the CD player? If the problem goes away you may still have problems with stray interference. If the fault remains it would point to a fault with the unit.

 

[Andrew Everard]

Fluorescent or energy-saving lamps? I've heard of rare cases of these putting out some spurious light energy which can upset remote devices...

 

[Tonya]

TEGMEN nailed it in one.

Rendering the IR window temporarily blind is the thing to do.
If it still misbehaves then it's internal components generating false commands (which is highly unlikely IMHO), or some electromagnetic interference on a massive scale (but as you said, this also happens in another room, so you can rule this out).
If removing the tape from the window results in a return of said shenanigans, you have 100% proven that it's optically generated commands being received from elsewhere, providing you have removed your own remote from the equation.

Depending on the room conditions, you may be successful in partially covering the IR window on the player with some discrete black tape or opaque material, so then there's a chance it will weaken the reception of the spurious IR interference and only react to the more powerful IR commands from your original remote.

If it does turn out to be a rouge IR signal, and you absolutely have to track the culprit down, you can try the following extreme tactic as a very last resort before you start pulling your hair out.
Turn off all the lights in the room to make it as dark as possible.
Borrow a videocamera that has a "NightVision" function, like a Sony DV cam for example.
Look in the viewfinder and you can easily see any IR transmissions as pulsating light sources (and yes, it does actually work).

Trial & error is the key to getting this fixed, good luck!

 

[jaxwired]

tegmen:Have you tried putting black Gaffer tape over the IR receiver window on the CD player? If the problem goes away you may still have problems with stray interference. If the fault remains it would point to a fault with the unit.

Yes, this occurred to me as well. Unfortunately, this unit does not have the obvious IR glass circle that many other electronics do. Where is the receiver on the front? There is no obvious spot. It must be part of the whole display. I really can't tell where it is...

And regarding the Flourescent lighting, nope. None at all. NAD asked me that also.

 

[idc]

Throw a towl over it, just to test and see if that is the problem.

P.S brilliant avatar.

 

[jaxwired]

idc:

Throw a towl over it, just to test and see if that is the problem.

P.S brilliant avatar.

Right on. Good idea. LOL.

This is such a drag. Waiting a month last time was brutal. This time I video'd the problem and I'm going to try and get NAD to give me a new unit. I know they don't like to do that, but I don't want to go another month without a CDP and that's how long it takes since I have to ship the unit to a service center.

I know some manufacturer reps sometimes post on here, but I've never seen a NAD rep do so. To bad. It would be nice if someone could pull some strings as going through their customer support is a long shot.

If I have to send it to the service center again, then I think I'm going to just buy a brand new CDP and then I will spend as long as it takes, resending the unit to service centers until its fixed so I can sell it. I will make it my new hobby.

 

[a91gti]

I'm surprised that Nad claim ignorance of this fault. In most if not all of their cdp's the threaded bar that the laser assembly is driven by has a tendency to dry out or wear off any grease applied at the factory. Its a very simple operation to lift the lid and apply some decent moly or graphite based grease to this bar/rod.

 

[jaxwired]

Tried the towel trick. The player still mal-functions with the towel over it...

 

[a91gti]

Its got nothing to do with IR, read my prior post in this thread.

 

[Anonymous]

I know what the problem is! Some peeping tom - the ones that like oogolling at other people's hifi- has the nad player too and is using his remote to mess with your mind.Anyone you know that has it in for your cd player?

 

[Anonymous]

Bad vibes. It sounds if there is something wrong in the commubication between the mainboard and the board with the button circuitry for play >> << etc. Often these are connected by a flatcable with connectors, could be that there is a short circuit in the connectors. Or a button that is stuck halfway. I would start by playing some boogie woogie on the buttons whose functions the unit seems to respond to, and see if it gets worse or better. (If it gets worse at least NAD knows that there is something to fix..) If you are willing to open the box you could perhaps check if the connectors are loose. And test it with the box opened to see if there is any tension on the buttons/boards. But I'd assume that this was checked also by NAD.

 

[jaxwired]

Great news....NAD is sending me a brand new C545 to replace my broken one...

 

[Anonymous]

The "power" of moaning on a popular forum I guess.

I was about to suggest getting NAD to sort it out. They really have no choice, unless they want the forum bad reputation thing going on.

And lets be honest, Its cost NAD pennies to do the right thing.

N.

 

[a91gti]

Glad to hear its all sorted out pal.