coolVariable
Diamond Member
I thought I would post this here in the hope that people will also post it in other forums and/or on their blogs since I was unable to find this anywhere on the internet. Hopefully, this will prevent someone from wasting hours (like me) trying to get their MCE Remote to work properly.
Apparently the MS MCE Remote stops responding to programming instructions when the batteries in the remote are not 100%. Otherwise, the remote might still operate normally ... only the TV and Volume keys cannot be programmed/learned from another remote and neither can the default settings for the remote be restored.
I have had my remote now for approximately 4 months now and have always been very happy with it. When I got it, I programmed the TV Power button and the Volume buttons for the TV, so I only needed one remote to control the HTPC and the TV, and I was able to put the original TV-remote away.
Since then the remote has been working flawlessly and I had no reason to change the batteries.
Over the holidays I got a new TV which I immediately hooked up to my HTPC. Of course I wanted to program the remote for the new TV but it just wouldn't work.
I followed the instructions exactly but every time the remote would flash 4 times, indicating that it was unable to learn the instructions from the other remote.
Very annoyed and thinking that the new remote might use a different infrared frequency or more complicated flashing pattern (I am no expert and don't know if that is possible), I then decided to at least reset the remote to the factory settings, so I could at least control the volume of the HTPC ... again the remote flashed 4 times indicating that the reset had failed.
Otherwise, the remote was working totally fine and gave no indications that anything was amiss.
I then tried resetting the remote by removing the batteries overnight (google says doing that for 30 minutes or longer sometimes helps with MCE remote problems) but NADA.
I spent the better part of a day trying to get the remote to work.
Since I could not find any information about this problem on the internet, I was looking at having to RMA the remote, as it obviously was failing.
By pure chance I then mixed up the MCE remote batteries with some empty batteries and it obviously wouldn't work at all - so I got new batteries and (by chance) tried programming the remote again ... voila! It worked without any problems on the first try.
I hope this helps other avoid the same frustration.
Apparently the MS MCE Remote stops responding to programming instructions when the batteries in the remote are not 100%. Otherwise, the remote might still operate normally ... only the TV and Volume keys cannot be programmed/learned from another remote and neither can the default settings for the remote be restored.
I have had my remote now for approximately 4 months now and have always been very happy with it. When I got it, I programmed the TV Power button and the Volume buttons for the TV, so I only needed one remote to control the HTPC and the TV, and I was able to put the original TV-remote away.
Since then the remote has been working flawlessly and I had no reason to change the batteries.
Over the holidays I got a new TV which I immediately hooked up to my HTPC. Of course I wanted to program the remote for the new TV but it just wouldn't work.
I followed the instructions exactly but every time the remote would flash 4 times, indicating that it was unable to learn the instructions from the other remote.
Very annoyed and thinking that the new remote might use a different infrared frequency or more complicated flashing pattern (I am no expert and don't know if that is possible), I then decided to at least reset the remote to the factory settings, so I could at least control the volume of the HTPC ... again the remote flashed 4 times indicating that the reset had failed.
Otherwise, the remote was working totally fine and gave no indications that anything was amiss.
I then tried resetting the remote by removing the batteries overnight (google says doing that for 30 minutes or longer sometimes helps with MCE remote problems) but NADA.
I spent the better part of a day trying to get the remote to work.
Since I could not find any information about this problem on the internet, I was looking at having to RMA the remote, as it obviously was failing.
By pure chance I then mixed up the MCE remote batteries with some empty batteries and it obviously wouldn't work at all - so I got new batteries and (by chance) tried programming the remote again ... voila! It worked without any problems on the first try.
I hope this helps other avoid the same frustration.
