My Series 3 nearly died - What now?

[rbienstock]

So I had a really scary thing happen to my Series 3 this morning. I had just started playing a recorded show when, about 15 seconds in, the screen went black and a few seconds later, I got the standard "powering up" screen. Though I've never had my unit spontaneously reboot before, I wasn't too concerned until the screen went black instead of going to the next bootup screen. I then got the powering up screen and the machine proceeded to go into a continuous reboot loop never getting past the "powering up" screen. I unplugged the machine for about 5 minutes, then plugged it in again. It went through the reboot loop two more times, and then on the third time through, the boot went on to the next stage. The boot then completed normally, and since them the unit appears to be working fine. So was this a one-time glitch or is something in my machine failing or about to fail? What should I do now other than wait for the machine to completely fail and then get warranty service?

[jessicag6]

It started Thursday during Smallville. The Tivo just froze on a commercial. Then it wouldn't unfreeze and I couldn't watch any channels through TiVo. Friday it was fine. But then Saturday night it went into to that automatic reboot faze and wouldn't move off of the "Welcome ... Powering Up" screen. I unplugged (maybe not a full 5minutes, am trying that now) and it would do the same thing ... but then went black. This morning (Sunday) it has now gone WHITE. I am very confused ...

Any other thoughts to fix?

Jess

[ScottEllsworth]

You might have a bad cable card, or a TiVo that went flaky.

I am in Orange County, CA, so I use Cox. S3 with two S cards, just over a year old, and worked pretty much flawlessly since we got it. (Pretty much -> had to get cards refreshed by Cox once, and had one freeze. Otherwise, 13 months of good service, sufficient to get me to consider a DVR expander.)

Thursday: starts reboot cycle - boots up, and freezes at the Now Playing screen.
Friday: three hours of phone calls to Cox and Tivo, over a dozen calls, and a visit by the cable tech. Tech leaves, with both old and new cards in slot 1 working, and no card he tried in slot 2 working. After tech leaves, Tivo CSR notes that the tech never put either of the two cards that worked in slot 1 into slot 2. Demand another Cox service call.
Saturday: Tech arrives, and the card in slot two has started working. Tries card in slot two that was in slot one. Notices damage to the plastic on card in slot two, and that ejector does not eject slot two, conclude that, if nothing else, the ejector is broken, and the slot might get compromised by the fiddling we are doing. Call Tivo and arrange for swap.
Sunday: Watch Tivo reboot over and over. Enjoy TiVo startup movie while I wait 5-7 business days.

So, tedious that it broke, but perhaps a week without TV will be good for me.

Scott

[kirk1701]

Have not had any of the problems mentioned above however mine did spontaneously reboot Thursday night :confused:
I would never had known except the red lights on the front all lit up and I knew what that was. Thing was, I moved the unit to look behind it and thats when it rebooted.

No, wasn't the electrical plug I checked it and was snug.