Your opinion of Weaknees?

[ReikiBoy]

Is Weaknees too good to be true? It's pricey but looks good. Why wouldn't Tivo offer these larger capacity models with cooling kits? Do I lose anything by purchasing from them?

I'm thinking of a series 2 dt dvr with wireless lan to be able to move files between either tivos or PC.

Thanks for you reply.

[rsnaider]

TiVo as a company turns a 'blind eye' on these upgrades. They will never condone opening a box with an unshielded power supply.

Weakness has great feedback on these forums. Read the posts in the Upgrade forum.

[Stormspace]

Although I have never bought anything from Weakknees they do provide a great service and I hope they stay in business a long time. They'll definately be my first vendor choice if my drives ever fail in my TiVo's. I recommended them to friends who have purchased items and all of them have been happy with the service and products they provide.

[AJRitz]

I have had excellent experiences working with Weaknees. I have purchased from them before, and would do so again if I was in a time crunch and not up to doing the upgrade work myself.

[lessd]

I have purchased from Weaknees and they are great, you can't go wrong and will get the very quiet drives that you can't get in the normal retail channels, like the Maxtor QuickVIEW. I have looked but Maxtor only sells them OEM to places like Weaknees. They are one of the best drives for TiVo using less power at 5400RPM.

You can use 7200 RPM drives but they do use more power and make more noise.

[JasonD]

I've used weakness and they came through when I purchased a driver for my sony SVR-3000 that had bombed. At the time they were using the Samsung 120 drive. Weakness saved my bacon, so yes I would recommend Weakness.

Jason

[timckelley]

After reading this, you might not like weaknees so much:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=254830

[AJRitz]

Tim - It's a little unfair to pimp that thread in the face of all of the other experiences many of us have had with Weaknees. ONE forum member, with a rousing 8 posts to his credit (almost all of them in that thread) made unreasonable demands and then whined because a small company got a few laughs at his absurd behavior. :rolleyes:

[Dan203]

I've had nothing but good experience with Weaknees as well.

Dan

[timckelley]

Tim - It's a little unfair to pimp that thread in the face of all of the other experiences many of us have had with Weaknees. ONE forum member, with a rousing 8 posts to his credit (almost all of them in that thread) made unreasonable demands and then whined because a small company got a few laughs at his absurd behavior. :rolleyes:

I'm just posting the other side of the opinion... nothing wrong or unfair about posting that link. Let potential customers make up their own minds after weighing everything. Opinions were solicited by the OP, so I thought I'd post that interesting story.

Analagously, if 99% of America favored one presidential candidate over another, it would not be unfair to publicize contrary opinions about him.

[JYoung]

I'm just posting the other side of the opinion... nothing wrong or unfair about posting that link. Let potential customers make up their own minds after weighing everything. Opinions were solicited by the OP, so I thought I'd post that interesting story.

Analagously, if 99% of America favored one presidential candidate over another, it would not be unfair to publicize contrary opinions about him.


And you felt the need to do that, why?


While I personally am unlikely to buy upgrade drives from them as I prefer to roll my own, I have met the guys from Weekknees and thaey seem to be stand up guys.

[timckelley]

And you felt the need to do that, why?

Because the OP asked us for opinions, and that thread certainly plays a significant part of my opinion.

I don't doubt they are capable of good customer service. A reasonable test is how they handle persistent customers. An even better test is how they would handle rude customers, though I'm personally more interested in how they would handle a polite, yet persistent customer.

That thread raises serious questions in my mind if they pass this test.

[ReikiBoy]

I read the negative thread and my final take is that no one can know exactly what transpired without a recording. As the OP I kindly request that continued discussion of it be done in a separate thread.

I appreciate the quick responses AND the varied kind of responses. I would be suspicious if every post were postive. I've made note of the volume of positive responses to negative ones. I've searched the Internet and newsgroups for Weaknees and didn't come up with much of anything in the negative column.

Like I said in the beginning, it's almost too good to be true.

[JYoung]

Right, because you bumped that thread seven months after the fact to say you didn't like the way you perceived the customer was treated.


Of course, I'm of the opinion that vendors should be allowed to fire asshat customers.....

[JFriday]

The only problem I had with weaknees is if you had to deal with customer service, they can be real pricks. If you have no problems with your purchase they're great. I wouldn't use them again because of how the acted towards me when I had a problem.

[Stormspace]

For one I'm glad he posted that link. Information is never a bad thing. Posting that link is hardly like my one man crusade to defame Sonic MYDVD. :)

Basically, if he were the one that experienced the behavior from Weaknees posting the thread link wouldn't have been as credible, however given that the thread had an influence on him and he felt it necessary to include it here lends the complaint some validity.

Also from having read the linked thread I take it the issue was personal as opposed to professional, meaning that the issue was about the approach to the problem and its resolution. Also I wouldn't like to be ridiculed over the phone, though I probably deserved it more than once :), it's not a professional way to handle conflict and a trained CSR should have known better.

As a side note. I've seen this type of thing many times in privately owned companies where the owner feels like he can do or say anything to the customer without repercussions. It's bad business when a company takes that track and I only hope that Weakness has learned from the experience and doesn't repeat it in the future.

As for myself, most of the info I have on weaknees is positive, but I'd be lying if I didn't say I'd proceed with caution in dealing with them and would read the fine print before hitting that submit button.

[timckelley]

The only problem I had with weaknees is if you had to deal with customer service, they can be real pricks. If you have no problems with your purchase they're great. I wouldn't use them again because of how the acted towards me when I had a problem.

Yes, see that's the real test like I said - what happens when you have a problem. The 99% of people raving probably didn't have problems.

Right, because you bumped that thread seven months after the fact to say you didn't like the way you perceived the customer was treated.


Of course, I'm of the opinion that vendors should be allowed to fire asshat customers.....

Yes, you're right. I did not like they way I perceived him to be treated. That customer sounded credible to me (that he wasn't rude or an asshat.) But true, we can't 100% know without a recording; we can only make our best guess.

[mr.unnatural]

Weaknees is an outfit that services a niche community. I have dealt with him for a few Tivo piece parts but I would never buy one of the upgrade kits from him (or anyone else for that matter). That's not to say that there's anything wrong with them but just about everything he sells is way overpriced, at least to me anyway (e.g., he charges $129 for a replacement HDTivo remote and $49 for a replacement S1 SA power supply; the remotes are available on ebay for $12-30 and the power supplies can be had for less than $10).

Lots of folks that haven't got a clue about how to upgrade a Tivo drive will flock to him and vendors like him for the services they provide. The thing is, upgrading a Tivo drive is embarassingly simple, even to the totally inept, yet people are still willing to pay 2-3 times what the drive is actually worth just for the peace of mind it gives them. It's capitalism in it's purist form.

Just to let you know that I have absolutely no axe to grind with him as he was a pleasure to deal with on the few occasions that prompted it. It's just that I work hard for what I have and I'm not all that ready to throw my money into something that can be had for far less with just a little effort on my part. OTOH, if you're independently wealthy and not mortgaged up the wazoo and paying for two kid's college tuition and tons of credit card debt like me then go for it. ;)

[btl-a4]

For my .02 I oreded a P/S got the right one, and it worked perfect. A little pricier than I could have gotten on ebay, but I didn't feel like taking a chance on a bad p/s and all the hassle that would have been.

[mr.unnatural]

I bought several S1 SA power supplies from allelectronics.com when they had them a while back for only $4.25. Chances are that's where Weaknees got them too and jacked the price up more than tenfold.

I agree that dealing on ebay can be a crapshoot but if you take the proper precautions you'll be covered for any purchase. If you use PayPal you're automatically covered up to $175.00. If you use PayPal Buyer Credit then you're covered for the whole purchase, depending on your credit line. I always use PayPal Buyer Credit and then pay it off as soon as I'm satisfied with the item.

[TivoZorro]

I purchased a 700 Hour (540) Series 2 Tivo last year in July that has been sitting in my closet ever since.

I hooked up it and it came with version 5.something and it worked great for a couple of days until it upgraded to version 7.something. Then it would not record a good picture.

I communicated with Weakness via e-mail and after viewing my pictures of the Tivo picture quality they agreed to fix it. I sent it back, they reinstalled everything including the 5.something version and sent it back. I hooked it back up and it worked again until it ugraded to the Version 7 software and once again the picture was bad.

At this point I figured I'd wasted a ton of money and learned a valuable lesson. After all I couldn't send my Tivo back to them every time it upgraded to a new software version and wouldn't work.

I read later something about and I'm not sure how this went but something about the RAM or the bigger hard drives not being able to handle the newer software versions.

They will not be getting anymore of my money.

[greenstork]

TiVo as a company turns a 'blind eye' on these upgrades. They will never condone opening a box with an unshielded power supply.

Weakness has great feedback on these forums. Read the posts in the Upgrade forum.

The HD on my dual tuner DirecTivo went belly up a few months back and I placed an order to weaknees and was very please with my upgraded, larger capacity HD that they sent. It was alreayd preloaded with software to my TiVo unit and worked flawlessly. They repaired a unit that even the manufacturer and directv failed to service, a really good deal considering.

[cheerdude]

Ive ordered a couple of kits from them with no problems. While I know my way around a computer, I had thought (probably incorrectly now) that using a WinXP machine to format/bless the drives was a no-no.

My first upgrade last a couple of years. Ran well except that TiVo would never be able to see it for TiVo Central Online. Never figured out why... but since it was getting the daily updates, didn't bother.

In any case - if I need another upgrade kit (crossing fingers), I would consider them.

I have also used 9th Tee - but that was some time ago.

[Ruth]

I bought an upgraded DT from weaknees. Great product, great service, no complaints at all. :up:

[mattpol]

Weaknees is the BEST!! I have used them for FOUR tivos and each upgrade was a breeze. GREAT service, great products, great instructions, and most importantly, GREAT PEOPLE!

[btwyx]

I've bought several upgreades from Weaknees, and had otherwork and repairs done by them. I'd wholeheartely recommend them. They know what they're doing and are very responsive to email enquiries. I've seen them critisied for being expensive, but I prefer to pay for quality work.

I'll most likely get my next upgrade from them. (1TB S3 anyone?)

[jstaso]

I just checked the Better Business Bureau website and their rating is listed as BB, not F.

[Gregor]

I've bought several things from Weaknees, great service!

[btl-a4]

I agree that dealing on ebay can be a crapshoot but if you take the proper precautions you'll be covered for any purchase. If you use PayPal you're automatically covered up to $175.00. If you use PayPal Buyer Credit then you're covered for the whole purchase, depending on your credit line. I always use PayPal Buyer Credit and then pay it off as soon as I'm satisfied with the item.

Let's not even get into the hassle of doing a dispute with paypal.

[mr.unnatural]

Let's not even get into the hassle of doing a dispute with paypal.
I've had several disputes with sellers after going through PayPal and I was awarded the maximum I could expect each time. I've heard lots of PayPal horror stories but I've never had an issue with them. I won't ever make an ebay purchase again without going through them. The only other methods of secure payment are C.O.D. or a credit card, which not too many sellers can honor.

[yunlin12]

I bought my new DT from Weaknees, it's workign great. I've upgraded HDD's in my old DTivo, as well my old ReplayTV, but Weaknees price seems reasonable. When I upgraded my DTivo last time, I missed the master/slave dip switch setting on my HDD, and had to repeat the process a couple times before I got it right, and since I was copying shows also, it took me a good 8 hours. I consider paying Weaknees somewhere ~ $200 more (than the 80 hr DT) for a 300GB HDD + labor worthwhile.

[Moebius]

I dealt with Weaknees for an HD upgrade in the past and everything went flawless. Enough so that I'm considering them again even though I've learned enough since then to easily do an upgrade myself. Convenience is a great thing.

[MichaelK]

Personally I would never buy an upgrade kit or previously upgraded Tivo(from anyone- not just this vendor- myself, I find i'd rather save the moeny and do it myself) - but I can give weakness a big fat thumbs up for custromer service for when i tried to buy somethign from them.

I actually purchased one of their rf remote converters that you put an adapter in place of the tivo remotes battery and it turns theremote into an RF remote. Idea is awesome and if it works it's a a wonderful thing. But becasue of whatever reason (I suspect rf interfernce from the ballest in the closet where i keep the tivo I couldn't get the thing to work. It was through no fault of their own, the device wasn't defective- it just didn't work in my situation. I emailed them, they gave me some suggestions. I tried the suggestions, researched some more on my own and still couildn't get it to work. I emailed them back and they gave me an RMA no problem.

At no point were they rude or short with me. Nothing but helpfull. I actually felt bad becasue they probably will loose money on the thing having to sell it as open box. But they were totally cool about it.

So I would give them a thumbs up for service.

[MichaelK]

had to go back and read that first thread- man what a train wreck...

[PanamaGixxer]

I have bought my last 3 TIVO's from them (last one was about a year ago) - own 5 TIVO's total. I will continue to buy my TIVO's from them if possible. They are great, I had one of their units have a hard drive failure. I shipped the unit to them and they installed a new drive under their warranty. All thumbs up from my point of view!!!!!!!!

[Phantom Gremlin]

After reading this, you might not like weaknees so much:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=254830

I wanted to read it, but it looked longer than War and Peace. Is there a Cliff Notes available?

Probably written by one of those people who can drone on and on for a half hour, repeating the same thing over and over, and not really saying anything.

[Y-ASK]

Is there a Cliff Notes available?
Weakness customer service was rude to a customer who was trying to work around a policy that the customer was not willing to deal with. The customer walked away dis-satisfied, started that thread, and later in the thread weakness apologized without ever admitting doing anything rude or wrong.

Y-ASK

[JYoung]

Was allegedly rude.

Well over a year ago, BTW.

Then Timckelly decided to bump the thread, seven months after the fact, causing more debate.

[TivoZorro]

I purchased a 700 Hour (540) Series 2 Tivo last year in July that has been sitting in my closet ever since.

I hooked up it and it came with version 5.something and it worked great for a couple of days until it upgraded to version 7.something. Then it would not record a good picture.

I communicated with Weakness via e-mail and after viewing my pictures of the Tivo picture quality they agreed to fix it. I sent it back, they reinstalled everything including the 5.something version and sent it back. I hooked it back up and it worked again until it ugraded to the Version 7 software and once again the picture was bad.

At this point I figured I'd wasted a ton of money and learned a valuable lesson. After all I couldn't send my Tivo back to them every time it upgraded to a new software version and wouldn't work.

I read later something about and I'm not sure how this went but something about the RAM or the bigger hard drives not being able to handle the newer software versions.

They will not be getting anymore of my money.

I wanted to post an update and eat some crow. Someone on the Forum sent me a Private Message asking me if this Tivo had a lifetime subscription and if I wanted to get rid of it.

I booted it up to get the software version number etc. and to see if anything had changed over a year's time. Note that all of my other Tivo's have recorded a good picture from day one. So I wasn't very hopeful, however, in June a house up the street got struck by lightning and the cable line running from the pole to our house got zapped also. TWC replaced it. The picture quality on channels 3,4,5,6 and 20 have been crappy for a long time.

So I recorded a show and the picture quality was great, no wavy lines, no sparkles. Once during a phone call to the Tivo Service the picture froze and then went to a black screen. Upon a reboot I had a block of black screen in the middle of the picture. But after another reboot everything was fine.

I updated to 7.3.1. and installed my Tivo Wireless Adapter and have transfered some shows. Now I have it hooked up to my big TV and will see how it does after several days of heavy use. I am still suspicious of the tuner or maybe the hard drive. So maybe there wasn't a problem with the Weakness Tivo. I sure will be happy to have 700 hours worth of storage.

[timckelley]

Was allegedly rude.

Well over a year ago, BTW.

Then Timckelly decided to bump the thread, seven months after the fact, causing more debate.

Well yes it was 7 months after the fact, but it was the exact thread that caused me to have my doubts about weaknees, and so I thought it was an appropriate thread to reference here, as it displays the other side people before then had not talked about.

[DCIFRTHS]

In addition to asking many questions, and I also purchased a few things from Weaknees. My experiences with the company were great.

[kensteele]

Well yes it was 7 months after the fact, but it was the exact thread that caused me to have my doubts about weaknees, and so I thought it was an appropriate thread to reference here, as it displays the other side people before then had not talked about.

and i'm glad you brought it back up. because i missed it completely last year. now i know more information.

[Georgia Guy]

Because I have other things to do with my time than learn how to do it myself, I've used Weaknee's drives to upgrade 3 of my Tivos. Saving a few bucks wasn't really my top priotity.
I have nothing but the greatest respect for their company and products.

[JediCowboyD]

Weaknees Rules!

I posted my own experience with Weaknees here:

http://archive.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=99949

and Weakness has it linked on his Customer Feedback (http://www.weaknees.com/feedback.php) page, the Yellow box in the top right, Post 2.

3 Years later, I still stand by that. He's been doing it right for a long time.

[TivoPip]

I've used Weaknees to buy drives for my TiVo a couple of times. When my first drive seemed to fail after only a year they offered to fix it for free, even though it was in fact just over a year and the warranty on the drive had expired. Their cusomer service was first class. :up:

[JustAllie]

I bought a preconfigured upgrade drive from Weaknees once -- and it worked like a charm. I'd definitely buy from them again.

[kosherbacon]

Weaknees replaced my modem and upgraded my HD on my old Series1. They are awesome.

[Fuzzy1]

It's ONLY been a month since I ordered TIVO from them and it still hasn't arrived... but that is ok.. I LOVE to wait. Once I'm done posting this I'm going to go slam my hand in the car door just for kicks...


(btw- Weaknees was quick and painless to deal with... it is probably USPS/Canada Post that is to blame)

[DCIFRTHS]

It's ONLY been a month since I ordered TIVO from them and it still hasn't arrived... but that is ok.. I LOVE to wait. Once I'm done posting this I'm going to go slam my hand in the car door just for kicks...


If you get bored with the car door, try the trunk. . . :D . . . probably a good idea to have a baggie filled with ice, and a remote trunk opener though. . .

Additionally, it helps if you know how to sew under a microscope ;) :eek: