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How to fix a slow DirecTV box

You’ve waited two years for your show to come back for it’s final season. Your football team is playing in a big game. You love the Price is Right. Whatever your reason for plopping in front of the TV, you expect it to work and work well. And if you’re a DirecTV customer, chances are you have had glitchy programming or perhaps you experienced a slow DirecTV box. Both are absolutely maddening.

So what are your options? Well, I happened to come across a few different things you can try while nosing through some forums on the topic. To my surprise, these options worked. Flipping through the guide is now much faster and the box responded to the remote like never before. Now, if it stays that way remains to be seen, but I’m hopeful. Here are several things to try if you experience DirecTV box lagging:

Defrag your DirecTV Box

1. Power on the TV and your DirecTV box.

2. Open cover that conceals the access card slot. This cover is located on the front right hand side of your DVR receiver.

3. Push the red reset button that is located underneath the cover, next to the access card. The status of your reset appears on your television screen.

4. Wait until the words “Almost There” appear.  Once you see it,  simultaneously press and hold the Record button and down arrow button on the DVR. Release the record button and down arrow button when the television screen reads “Hello Welcome To DirecTV.”

5. Wait while your DVR completes the defragment process. This can take a few hours, depending upon the amount of data stored on your receiver.

Speed up a slow show guide by clearing ‘NV-Ram’

This worked well for me. It shows you a confirmation if you do it right on the bottom corner of the screen. If completed, it should speed up the channel guide’s response to the remote. It’s called clearing NV-Ram (non-volatile random access memory for you supers geeks out there).

1. Tune to Channel 1.

2. Push RED, RED, BLUE, BLUE, YELLOW, GREEN on your remote (in that order)

One more option…

Go to Menu > Display > Preferences and Turn “Scrolling Effects” to off. This will add some juice to your guide speed.

Happy TV watching! Please comment below if you have any other tricks.

Check out this handy how-to and pull up the instructions on your cell phone with this SnapGuide!

Check out How to Fix a Slow or Lagging DirecTV Box by Josh Benson on Snapguide.

Josh Benson

Josh Benson

Josh is the Editor of GeekLift.com and supreme geek to boot. He spends much of his time learning new software, coding languages, gadgets and more. He loves helping people figure out tech problems - big or small. Josh is a former television news anchor and tech reporter. He spends his days developing websites and producing videos.

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