I have an RCA 3990 receiver hooked up to my sat system and speakers. From time to time the receiver will turn offf and on again-repeatedly-making viewing or listening impossible. Has anyone experienced this? Any ideas what's going on?
I have an RCA 3990 receiver hooked up to my sat system and speakers. From time to time the receiver will turn offf and on again-repeatedly-making viewing or listening impossible. Has anyone experienced this? Any ideas what's going on?
A few questions need to be answered in order for a reasonable responce to your question. First, Does the unit actually power off or does the sound just cut out? Second, does this occur all the time or just after the unit has been on for a while?
Assuming that the unit cuts out and that it takes a while for the problem to show up, I'd suspect either that the speakers are too low an impedence for the receiver (4 ohm rather than 8) and that the amp is overheating, or that there are bad connections within the receiver that are causing problems. Lets assume that there are bad connections. This is a rather common problem and is easily repaired. This shouldn't cost more than about $50 to fix.
Check the speaker wires for shorts as well. If there is a short (intermittant) at either the receiver end or the speaker end, it will appear to the receiver as a low impedence load. This will cause the amp section to work a lot harder, generating more heat... All receivers today have built in protection that will shut off the output when a problem is detected. From the user's perspective, this will appear like the unit has shut off. If the prtection mode is entered because of heat, usually once the unit cools off, it will turn on again by itself as you described above.
Let us know what you find.
Dan