We're due to go on holiday soon, for a week. My mum was suggesting unplugging the sky box for the duration. I'm thinking you should leave it plugged in, as anything you have on the sky+ won't record if the box is unplugged. So, plugged in or unplugged?
Well… do you have any planned recordings for when you're away? If so you should probably keep it plugged in. Otherwise, turn it off if you're sure you won't set any remote recordings (if you have internet where you're going)
"Coming up in half an hour here on Yorkshire Television, Emmerdale Farm, where Annie Sudgen finds Amos Brearly in a compromising situation with Mr Wilks."
You can place the STB in ECO MODE (Services, Sky+ Setup, Standby Mode).
It won't use much power, but will turn on for planned recordings and updates, but turn itself back to ECO afterwards.
I don't even think eco mode makes much difference to be honest. Box I have is still reasonably warm when in this mode and the hard drive is being used in standby. Not even a Sky customer (just used for Freesat now).
All Eco mode does is turn off the box into standby after I think 2am. Active mode would probably be better as that puts the box into standby when its not in use, or when it thinks its not in use. Full "off" mode with the red light would be far better but of course no recordings will take place.
All Sky+ HD boxes run relatively warm when you put your hand on the top, the actual card that the satellite feeds connect to is at the top of the box inside the unit, a daughter-board connected to another board at the bottom of the box. All this is sitting under an aluminium cover.
