ATV582 behaving erratically

[c0mat0se 0]

Hi guys

Ok, so... when my ATV582 is working it does a stellar job and you guys are heroes, but... I have really been struggling with random failures and network issues for some time now.

I have installed all the firmware updates successfully and even done a couple of factory resets to ensure there's no problems arising from any other apps I may have installed. I'd say it runs fine around 80% of the time, but once it starts acting up this capricious little machine even makes a cross-eyed Charlie Sheen on crusty nose day look stable

*randomly hangs and/or skips to the next video file in XBMC/Kodi

*randomly disconnects from the LAN (both wifi & ethernet)

- firstly, the ethernet port doesn't make a decent connection - have tried several different cables - but always end up having to wiggle it into the 'perfect' position and then hold it in place with some tape

- then the ethernet light will randomly go off without moving the cable, then will not come back on whether I disconnect/reconnect/reboot/unplug/etc. - then I know the meltdown is coming...

- at this point the wifi will also refuse to connect entirely OR will suffer some kind of bizarre partial connection which will randomly allow some apps to connect to the internet but refuse to find local dlna/upnp servers from inside the xbmc/kodi app OR find local dlna/upnp servers but decide that all the scripts like PLEXBMC or subtitles etc are now going to fail

- each reboot just cycles through these problems, whether I make any changes to settings or simply reboot continuously without changing anything

*so then last week I decided "screw the network, I'll play back my video locally", but when connecting external non-flash/hdd USB drives (powered by an adaptor, not by the ATV582) it will either detect the drives no problem (hurrah!), but invariably will hang, or reboot, or reboot and hang before it gets to the launcher, or simply not detect the drives - whether FAT/ FAT32/exFAT

- when it does detect a drive, the actual device gets unbelievably hot

In fact, trying to get these HDDs connected that I think I've finally found the problem: it's an overheating issue... only the drives get the device much hotter, much faster than regular video playback does and I've noticed when it starts acting up there's an ever so faint smell of burning plastic. I've recreated this without the drives just by playing back really heavy HD mkv files through the network (which still don't totally keep the processors running much over 80%), takes a while but eventually bombs out. If I then take it and hold it up in front of the air conditioner, it'll reboot fine inside of 5 minutes, otherwise it has to cool for up to an hour at room temperature.

The problem I sit with now is that it's clearly something that is faulty and I want to replace it under guarantee, but it's just so damn erratic that once I've returned it how do I prove it's faulty? If a technician takes it cold out of the box, it's going to work 100% fine unless he plays back video and puts it through general uses over several hours. I bought the device online from takealot.com in South Africa, so I have to courier it back to them and really don't want to get stuck into a 6 week exchange process because they're having trouble replicating the problems on their end. I have kids, so every day without a media player is a grim one in my house.

What's the easiest way for me to help the technician find the issue? Can you guys please advise on how I might best solve this using logs or something?

Thanks for taking the time to sift through all this