Second Hand Woes!

The Shaw Direct (Starchoice) latest and greatest HDPVR 630 is $450 after taxes. I found one on the local Craigs List for $260 (no taxes). It had only been used for four months. It was too good a deal to pass up so I bought it. I ran the extra cable to the rooftop dish that the recording function needs and wired it to the bedroom TV. So far so good. I then called Shaw to have the receiver authorized. All went well and I was watching TV. After a half hour the receiver quit responding to the remote (yes, it has new batteries). I did a hard reset and it started working again.... For a half hour. I repeated  the fix... and again... until the receiver locked up completely and refused to reset. I called Shaw and got a woman who treated me as if I were stupid. "Did you install the cable yourself or have an installer do it"?  What does that matter? "Did you check the breaker"? I told you, the display is partly on, it has power. She told me to unplug the receiver for two minutes and as I put the phone down to do that, she hung up. I guess the problem was over her head.

I called back and got someone who sounded brighter. He talked me through a complete reset and everything worked until Norma tried to change the channel a couple of hours later and the screen froze. I did another reset like he had talked me through and it worked again. She switched to watch a DVD movie so I don't know if it is still working or not. I hope the serial resets fixed it but if not, it should be covered by warranty or my mandatory "multi receiver insurance policy" that I am paying $6 a month for. It will still turn out to be a good deal (I hope)!

EDIT: Well, still no luck! Norma watched the same channel late last night for a couple of hours but could not change the channel at the end.The guide worked and the cursor on the guide worked but it would not allow a channel change and the clock was frozen on the front display. I unplugged it for the night and did another hard reset this morning. A commenter suggested it might need a software (firmware) update and indeed it does, The CS rep told me to leave the unit turned off but plugged in overnight and it would update but I cannot get it unfrozen long enough to do that. More phone calls today!