HT -RC 360 Dropping Signal

I have read some of the other posts regarding video drops but so far, nothing to help me. My new RC 360 arrived a few days ago. Based upon the current issues, I am not sure I am going to keep it. I will be watching a show thru the cable box and when a show goes to commercial or when I forward the dvr recording, I often lose signal. I get the message "searching for signal", which is the message I received before purchasing the receiver, when the TV is on and the cable box or PS3 is turned off. The signal will be lost for a few seconds before coming back on. My normal picture is a full screen high def but sometimes when the picture comes back, it is the smaller non high def size for few seconds before resizing to full screen again.

I installed the firmware updates as soon as I hooked the receiver to the TV. The current version is 1121-1300-0010-6104. The receiver is connected to my Samsung Series 5 550flat panel, my comcast cable/dvr box, a roku and a playstation3, all with high quality HDMI cables from Mediabridge. The hardware settings are set to HDMI Control RIHD off, HDMI through cbl/sat. I do not see how this can be an HDMI cable issue as I have no such signal loss issue if the receiver is removed from the process.

Any thoughts are appreciated. I was really looking forward to this receiver and it is my first Onkyo.

Thanks.

Hi bugler2,

I've read many reviews on these cables and most like them but some are having the exact problem you are having and when they went to a different cables it resolved the issue. So just as a test, if you have different HDMI cables please try them and see if it resolves it. If not, you can try a reset of the receiver (Which I do not think will help) the reset instruction can be found on the first page in the trouble shooting section of the manual on page 65.

I have replaced the HDMI cable going from the receiver to the TV and I still have the same issue. Picture drops randomly, goes to searching for signal and then comes back again. Also, when I had the receiver out this time, I shined a flash light into the top. The fan was not spinning. Is the fan supposed to turn all the time on this model or off and on depending on heat build up?

Thanks...

Hi bugler2,

The fan will not come on until certain criteria are met which can be a variety of instances. I am going to suggest to you at this time to have am authorized service center look into this further as it seems like something internal with this receiver. Authorized service centers can be found on our main page under support.

Thank you for I am not going to send a new defective receiver to the service center. I will just send it back to Amazon.

Hi bugler2,
Again we apologize that the unit was not working properly. Thank you for choosing Onkyo.

I obtained a replacement tuner from Amazon of this same model which I returned. The new model is having the same issues. I firmly believe this is a manufacturing issue and hope for a firmware upgrade. I have noticed that the lost signal occurs most frequently when I am watching a show on the tv and the show goes to commercial. The same thing also often happens when going from a commercial back to the show or movie. I know that some shows are shot in higher resolution than others and I speculate that I lose signal while the receiver is trying to adjust to resolution differences from the resolution the show or movie was shot in verses some of the commercials which perhaps were not recorded in wide screen or higher resolution due to production cost.

Once again, I know it is not an issue of my cables as the cables work just fine when I remove the tuner from the setup.

I am trying to stick with this receiver to give Onkyo a fair shot, but these difficulties are frustrating and are issues that I never experienced with my Pioneer.

Hi bugler2,

Do any other devices work properly running through this unit such as Blue Ray player?

Yes, I have a Roku (netflix) and a Playstation3 which I only used as a blue ray player. The Roku is always in a state of On based upon the design, but the PS3 is only one when I watch a dvd.