pensfan3
10-11-2006, 09:08 PM
hey thanks for reading, i hope you can help! about a year ago my tivo did the whole freeze thing and i would have to do the whole unplug thing. anyway, i did some research and thought that this was a hard drive issue that i didn't want to deal with at that time (since i just upgraded it with 2 120G drives about 3 months earlier), so in the closet it sat until about 2 weeks ago.
something got me thinking and i took it out and started messing with it again. i went on community forums like this and learned that this was a common problem. what i read was that it was a software issue. so i pulled out the tivo, hooked it up, and it worked! i immediately downloaded the newest update to the software and i was up and running again. no problems...until today.
first let me say i have 3 tivos and the one in question, since revived, stays in a room that i hardly go into so it took me a couple of days to find this out but...no video, no lights in the front, no nothing. anyway, i did the whole unplug thing again and it started right up and went to tivo central. about an hour later i checked on it and dead again. so i unplugged and it would only get to the Almost There screen before dying again.
so doing more research, i've believe i have narrowed it down to the power supply. here's why...a couple of days ago i had a storm here and it knocked out my power for a couple seconds...after finding the tivo today it got me thinking back to a year ago. power outages are what i was convinsed of ruining my tivo back then. there were like 4 in a row and my tivo started screwing up right after that. sorry i've been rambling, but i want to give as much info as possible. my question is, is this a power supply issue?
technically the drives would still be considered brand new from weaknees since they were only in use for 3 months and a power supply problem is the only other thing i can think it could be. by the way, before anyone asks, i do not use a wireless connection with it. another reason i thought it could be the power supply is because the cool breeze fan was humming it's ass off (to me indicating too much power to the fan while no power to tivo/or broken fan) but i disconnected it to hear the hard drives and they sounded fine, and worked fine to me. i am 99.9% sure it isn't a hard drive issue, but i am not an expert, so any suggestions or statements are greatly appreciated.
oh a side question, i have a lifetime subscription on this tivo and my question is, is the subscription tied to the mother board? if so, and my motherboard is screwed, i'm screwed out of the life time sub right? or (and i hope) can the motherboard be replaced and still have the subscription tied to the box? thanks again for everyone's help.
Christopher
something got me thinking and i took it out and started messing with it again. i went on community forums like this and learned that this was a common problem. what i read was that it was a software issue. so i pulled out the tivo, hooked it up, and it worked! i immediately downloaded the newest update to the software and i was up and running again. no problems...until today.
first let me say i have 3 tivos and the one in question, since revived, stays in a room that i hardly go into so it took me a couple of days to find this out but...no video, no lights in the front, no nothing. anyway, i did the whole unplug thing again and it started right up and went to tivo central. about an hour later i checked on it and dead again. so i unplugged and it would only get to the Almost There screen before dying again.
so doing more research, i've believe i have narrowed it down to the power supply. here's why...a couple of days ago i had a storm here and it knocked out my power for a couple seconds...after finding the tivo today it got me thinking back to a year ago. power outages are what i was convinsed of ruining my tivo back then. there were like 4 in a row and my tivo started screwing up right after that. sorry i've been rambling, but i want to give as much info as possible. my question is, is this a power supply issue?
technically the drives would still be considered brand new from weaknees since they were only in use for 3 months and a power supply problem is the only other thing i can think it could be. by the way, before anyone asks, i do not use a wireless connection with it. another reason i thought it could be the power supply is because the cool breeze fan was humming it's ass off (to me indicating too much power to the fan while no power to tivo/or broken fan) but i disconnected it to hear the hard drives and they sounded fine, and worked fine to me. i am 99.9% sure it isn't a hard drive issue, but i am not an expert, so any suggestions or statements are greatly appreciated.
oh a side question, i have a lifetime subscription on this tivo and my question is, is the subscription tied to the mother board? if so, and my motherboard is screwed, i'm screwed out of the life time sub right? or (and i hope) can the motherboard be replaced and still have the subscription tied to the box? thanks again for everyone's help.
Christopher