System has been working fine for seven years, until a power outage recently in the neighborhood. Then, no TV to the family room or the bar area.

Two legacy Comcast boxes feed a 4 x 4 snap matrix, with one output going directly to the bar TV, and the other going to the Integra AVR.

A URC MRX-1 either failed coincidentally, or was damaged by the power outage. I replaced it, and that got control back to the system, which had of course disappeared.

So still no bar TV or family room TV. The Snap matrix is trying to power up, and powers down within a couple seconds. Cycle on, cycle off. I accidentally discovered that if I pull the HDMI cables out of one of the Comcast boxes, the other TV will work fine. Unplug that one and plug-in the other HDMI to it’s Comcast box, and the other TV works fine. The HDMI matrix works normally, if only one HDMI cable at a time is plugged in. Plug in both HDMI cables at the same time, and the matrix begins to power cycle and cannot stay up, indicating some serious current draw from its power supply.

I just picked up a couple different cable boxes from the local Comcast office and will be trying that. Meanwhile what other options do I have? I checked ground at the demarc location and it is secure. I can swap RG6 cable ports at the main splitter. I can’t really test the matrix switcher without putting a different one in there, and I don’t keep those in stock. I am choosing the least expensive troubleshooting route now.

I bet no one has seen this...

Tom, please call me tomorrow after 10AM.

Hey Tom,

Sorry for not getting back to you sooner.

I am trying to gather what is going on fully. Does the matrix ever seem to stay powered on? It is possible that the surge could have caused the power supply to malfunction.

Either way shoot me an email if you are still having problems and I will have our Tech Support team follow up to help you out. At the very least we can get a new power supply sent out to you.

[email protected]

Finally got back to this one. Matrix stays powered on as long as one cable box HDMI input stays disconnected. Connect the second cable box, and the matrix does what looks like a power cycle (on/off/on/off) every 5 seconds and never displays video. The matrix also has 4 LEDs indicating active sources - they never light up.

I brought two new Comcast boxes and tried them. Per Brent's suggestion, I disconnected the RG6 from both boxes in the event of some cable grounding situation - this did not prove to be the case. With two new cable boxes plugged in and HDMI cables connected, the matrix went off/on/off/on... so it's not the cable boxes.

Went back to the matrix. The four inputs are a blu-ray, the two cable boxes, and an HDMI output from the AVR, originally for when I want the on-screen menus for setup and the like. Note that the AVR has NO HDMI inputs connected - the matrix has all the sources. So the AVR only has that one HDMI output connected and no inputs.

I found that both cable boxes work if I disconnect input 4 from the matrix - the AVR feed. Blu-ray input 1 and cable boxes input 2/3 are fine, as long as the AVR is not fed in.

So the issue is... the matrix could be haywire, or the AVR HDMI output could be problematic.

All this showed up after power was off for a couple hours one afternoon, so it's possible the power did not come up cleanly and caused some damage. There is a URC MRX-1 base station that failed at the same time.

My options as I saw them were:

1) Put in a new matrix - $1000-1500

2) Put in a new AVR - $1200-1700

3) Factory reset the AVR and set it up again

4) Try both 1&2 and possibly end up wasting a lot of time and having a $1000 item sit in my storage unit when I am done

5) Leave feed #4 from the AVR loose from the matrix

After explaining things to the client, I chose #5.

If there is a real equipment failure that decides to affect other aspects of operation, I can deal with that as we move on.

Weird week of troubleshooting.

I've seen something similar (I think twice) with SnapAV matrix of similar vintage and replacing the power supply resolved the problem both times.

The power supply??

Is the HDMI out of the AVR going to one of the HDMI inputs of the matrix? I would maybe reverse this and have the devices connected to the AVR go into the matrix. The out of the matrix to an AVR input and the output of the AVR to that display. Would that set up work for this situation? I don't see too many people using the HDMI out of a receiver to go into a matrix.

agreed on power supply. few years ago that fixed two similar issues. bad power supply.