New Sky Q box showing red light at 3am then 2hrs later the fan comes on & blue light pulses

[JulieK1967]

Hi, we just upgraded from Sky+ HD to Sky Q the Sky engineer fitted the new box & dish 2 days ago. The box is in our bedroom. So early hours of Wednesday morning I noticed a red light on the box not the pale standby light. The box wasn't recording anything but I thought nothing of it until a while later this loud noise starts up & the room is lit up with a pulsing light! 

So this morning at 3am I woke to notice the red light was on again, I thought damn I know what's going to happen next & I could not get back to sleep as I kept checking to see if it had gone off which it didn't. At 5.30am the room lit up again with a pulsing light & the fan came on for about 15 seconds. 

What is going on here, how do I stop this happening? I'll end up sleep deprived at this rate. 😞 

Thanks in advance for any help. 

Julie 

[bob1234 · Accepted solution]

@JulieK1967By default your box will be in eco mode which puts it into "deep sleep" overnight try going into settings and change the eco settings to either none or active.

Unfortunately whatever you do Sky also send a reset signal at about 02:45 each day although this does not seem to cause as many problems.

[JulieK1967]

@bob1234  thanks, I have done as you advised & set to "active" so will see what tonight brings. 

[TazLondon]

@JulieK1967 Hi, I'm having a similar issue (see thread entitled 'My replacement Sky Q box woke me up'). Let us know how it goes with playing with the energy settings.

I've not had any luck with Eco or Active so far, so will also try None.

And you're right, it's not just the prolonged sound of the fan going at full pelt, it's the 'disco' light show from the Q box lights on the front panel that's a real pain when you're sleeping at night!

[Chrisee]

@TazLondon the main Sky Q bixes are not designed to be used in bedrooms as when they reboot the fan ramps up,and the blue Q logo does its thing everytime. With eco ppwer saving that will happen around 5.45am every morning. With  either of the two other setiings it will happen most mornings around 2.45am as Sky send a remote command for the box to reboot to clear its memory.

No way of stopping it unfortunately clearly Sky technical staff have large homes where the Q boxes are not in bedrooms.

If the lights are your main issue covering them either with special dim stickers  or cheaper a bit of pvc tape is your best bet.

[JulieK1967]

@TazLondon well I changed the setting to "Active" & thankfully did not have a repeat performance of the red light coming on at 3am followed by the fan/light show a couple of hours later. I looked up at 4am & no red light - phew!  Now maybe it happened earlier & didn't wake me but certainly the red light was not on for hours because I was up at 1am & again at 1.55am because the damn dog had to go out & be sick. No red light then.  

Why is it so hard to get a good night's sleep 😂

@Chrisee  thanks for that info. We didn't want to go back to multi-room so this main Sky Q box has to be in our bedroom. We have a Free Sat system with an Amico box in the living room, we are able to watch about 200 channels & record but recording is not straightforward. Hubby watches Netflix mostly so no need for Sky in both rooms. I certainly wasn't woken by rebooting or anything that Sky did with the box this morning so I hope that continues. 

[Neil32]

I've tried this and hasn't worked for me. I've had to physically unplug the box. Other forum posts suggest a digital timer so it's off overnight. Sky should develop and allow you to schedule your update. Definitely the worst feature of sky q. Mine is in the living room and my dogd start barking everytime an update happens. Thanks sky for crap sleep.

[Robofsky]

I've had Sky engineers out repeatedlly for various problems over the past 3 years since I first signed up with Sky for Sky Q. I've had them out again a couple of weeks ago and was given another main Sky Q box (my 6th to date),  because I'm sick of my box waking me up during the night with a flashing blue light and fans firing up every few minutes when I'm trying to sleep. If I switch the remote on it takes me to the blue screen for a reboot before it will switch on. So if I have it set to record anything during the night and I go to watch it later, it brings up a message saying "part recorded, power cut". I'm so sick of it that I just unplug it and reboot it in the morning. What a drag! I've never been off the phone to Sky about it, but everything they suggest that I try, never solves the problem . I've tried everything that has been suggested in these posts, but nothing works. Every time a Sky engineer comes out they just replace the box, as they say they can't repair them as they have to be sent back to the manufacturer for repair. Then some poor unsuspecting customer gets that box after it has (hopefully) been repaired. I have had various different types of boxes - newer types without adaptors, and recently older types  with adaptors, as they have told me that they are more stable and reliable. However, the problems persist. I've even had a new cable installed with a new dish, have a new router, and been given a booster box for the mini box communication issues with the main box. The channel has been reset on the router from 36 to 44, but nothing has worked. Software and hardware is up to date, I've tried changing settings between Eco, none and active and set the mini box to match the settings as advised. Also as advised, I've even tried wiring via Ethernet cable instead of using WiFi. The channel was also sometimes changing over on it's own to either radio 3 or YouTube kids, without me even touching the remote. That's why they asked me to try wiring it instead of the WiFi connection. The strange thing is that it doesn't play up every night and Sky engineers and technical staff are stumped as well. I just pull the plug out when it happens now, and reboot it in the morning. However  it means I can't schedule anything to record during the night. Not the great viewing experience that Sky had promised with Sky Q, I'm sure you will agree!

[best+of+the+best]

My Sky Q box has been in my bedroom since 2016.

In an open tv unit about 3ft 6 inches away from my bed my box is set to eco mode and this is my preferred setting

Usually  I'm up and out for work before 5:45am so don't really notice it either when I'm not at work

I did had the Philips Hue Hub connected to my Sky Q box but soon moved that as it was like having a Police car with the blue light on in my bedroom🤣🤣🤣