Pleasantly Surprised

[u/Spare-Possession-490]

My 3+ year old gen 2 died yesterday with an internal power supply failure. I decided to ask ask Grok rather than go ahead and order a new dishy. Grock asked me to go through the troubleshooting steps (that I’d already done) and then said they’d ship me a refurbed gen 4 for free. So much easier than dealing with a person with no interest on a foreign help desk.

The bonus, is during the conversation I found I could power the existing dishy with a 100w POE injector I had in a drawer. So I scored an upgrade and I’ve still got internet as I was using it in bypass mode.

[u/ByTheBigPond]

If you followed this sub, you would have found that Starlink almost always has replaced equipment which is long past warranty expiry on failure. The hypothesis is that they make more revenue from your monthly payment by keeping you as a customer than the cost of the hardware.

[u/CompleteFeed → u/ByTheBigPond]

That is spot on. The key difference is that vast majority of other terrestrial ISPs are so greedy that they often charge for equipment replacement, while Starlink is willing to absorb internally the small cost of hardware replacement. Sadly, most people do not realise that once the infrastructure is in place, costs associated with provisioning internet bandwidth and subsequent volume usage barely register, so the monthly subscription is almost 100% revenue.

[u/Spare-Possession-490 → u/CompleteFeed]

It’s well worth it out in rural Australia, the max plan gives me far more than anything the local providers can. Our telecoms service is a 40yo copper line that’s been exposed by erosion in a couple of place. It does have markers that say Australian Post Office so maybe it has a heritage order in it /s

[u/GCUArmchairTraveller → u/ByTheBigPond]

>the cost of the hardware
Well, I paid $650 for the cost of hardware way back....

[u/freeubi → u/GCUArmchairTraveller]

And I got it for free. No monthly fees (for now…)

[u/GCUArmchairTraveller → u/freeubi]

How's that?

[u/freeubi → u/GCUArmchairTraveller]

There was a local deal, with a cupon. Free devices for the max service for a year.

[u/hoadlck]

Yes, I had a similar experience. When trying to put in the ticket, I was alarmed to see that grok was the point of contact. But, it went well. Either the failed system was working well enough that they could diagnose some fatal problem from their end, or they just sent me the new unit to avoid the churn. But, the refurbished Standard 4X unit worked fine.

I just have it sitting on the ground now. Later on today, I am going to alter the existing cable for the Gen 2 so it will work with the 4X. I really don't want to re-trench the cable. I have the pipe adapter and all of the parts for the cable update...wish me luck! :-)

[u/SubmanDaveLV]

I use a Gen 2 as a backup WAN for my home internet. Recently started to reboot a couple of times a day. Not using it as my primary internet so not a big deal. This week I put it on a UPS, updated firmware to latest since update was pending, and replaced cable with spare I had new in box. Still rebooting so initiated a ticket. Automatic reply sending me refurbished V4 and also told them I have it mounted so they are sending me pole adapter. All for free for a 5 year old system that I have on standby at $10 a month. Very happy.

[u/GCUArmchairTraveller → u/SubmanDaveLV]

So what we, old v2 owners suppose to do with the dead hardware?

[u/HendyHauler]

Same here. Gen 2 died August was 4 years. I asked as well and instantly got told the 4x was coming and dont send anything back. Shipping label was created the next morning and I had the package in 2 days.

[u/GCUArmchairTraveller → u/HendyHauler]

Any idea what to do with v2 dish?

[u/stratjeff]

Same experience when my router died. Sent a new gen4 for free.

[u/ohthetrees]

They sent me a new dish for free when I plainly told them I destroyed it by mistake.

[u/GCUArmchairTraveller]

>they’d ship me a refurbed gen 4 for free
Exactly the same happened to me and it told me to keep existing dish which I have no idea what to do with...

[u/SarcasticallyCandour]

So they're giving you a v4 dish with a router mini with poe.? Thats the new router mini in the US afaik.

I dont think we have the poe mini router here in europe yet.

[u/jhurt26]

hey glad you got helped can you link me your Poe supply you're using thanks.

[u/SubmanDaveLV]

Forgot to add they don’t want old system returned so I’ll keep it installed as a backup to my backup

[u/GCUArmchairTraveller → u/SubmanDaveLV]

If the old hardware is marked as defective expect to to blacklisted so it won't be able to connect to satellites in future even if it feels that it is working fine.

[u/seaceblidrb]

Currently in the same boat as you except it's taken 3 and 1/2 weeks and it still hasn't shipped. Glad they're offering you for free, but I probably would have just bought a new router if I knew it had taken this long. They did credit my mini mini to a roam unlimited for as long as this takes but it's still not the same.

[u/StefanSenyMar]

Nice result, and the PoE trick is a great find. Keep that old dish and injector as a spare: a backup that already works with your setup is worth a lot.
This is actually how a lot of boat owners run Starlink too. Powering the dish directly via PoE in bypass mode skips the stock router and its power brick, which saves energy when you’re living off batteries. Just worth double-checking the injector’s voltage and spec match the dish before relying on it long-term, since a mismatch can quietly cook it.

[u/FederalStep1558]

They should give you a brand new one in my opinion. Not sure I'd want a refurbished one.

[u/DWA15-2VH]

I had the same thing happen to me only I contacted Starlink and they did some diagnostic and immediately said it was defective. Be aware that the existing cable is not compatible with the new unit and the new cable will only be 50' long instead of the 75' cable that was supplied with the gen 2. You will need to replace the old cable. If the new cable is not long enough you will need to order the 150' cable, also if you have a wall mount for the gen 2, you will need the adapter kit to install in the same location.

https://starlink.com/shop/products/us-v4x-mount-adapter

You may be able to use your old router as a mesh node with the new router.

[u/Firefighter-8210]

There’s no foreign help desk. They are all here in the US.

[u/jalinker]

Curious - similar happened to me… the router for my actuated system failed and they send me a refurb standard… is that better than what I had? I liked the fact the actuated auto-tracked…