Minor picture problems (stutter)

[scsiguy72]

I have had my HD Tivo for just about 6 weeks now and I have very few problems. But right out of the box I had one, Picture froze and I had to reboot system less than 1 hour after set-up.

The next morning I had a software upgrade (9.2a) and I hoped that would be the end of my problems.

I have the most basic set-up. OTA only, no Cable cards, no cable just antenna.


I have been following the threads on this forum about recording two HD channels at once while watching another and that never failed. I even was able to record 2 HD shows, watch a 3rd and download something from Unbox. Then last night while I was watching Live SD TV, the picture started to stutter and it would totally freeze. If I hit the 8 second rewind button, it went away and would not repeat until I changed channels and then it would stutter until I built up time in the buffer again.

I upgraded my internal HD 3 weeks ago with a 500 GB WD.

I love my Tivo and this is my 3rd one. I have great confidence in Tivo and hope this will go away with the next software upgrade.

[richsadams]

What you're seeing has all of the earmarks of a hard drive problem. You could try running TiVo's built in diagnostic program, Kickstart 57 and/or Kickstart 58 (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showpost.php?p=5643823&postcount=2).

If that doesn't help, try slipping the original drive back in, run it for a while and see what happens. (Hopefully you put it on the shelf for safe keeping.) If you still see the problem, contact TiVo for a replacement. (Don't mention that you upgraded the internal drive of course.) Under the one-year labor warranty it will cost you $49 for a replacement. Since it happened out of the box only six weeks ago you could make a fuss and threaten to cancel your account in which case TiVo might offer to replace it for free.

If the kickstart(s) didn't help but TiVo runs fine with the original drive you may want to try running WD Lifeguard Diagnostic (http://support.wdc.com/download/) on the upgraded drive. The regular diagnostic program will keep all of your recordings, OS, etc. If you run an extended diagnostic (read/write/read) it will wipe all of the info and you'll have to run WinMFS again. You may find that your new drive is bad. As with most CE's if something is going to go wrong it usually will earlier than later. Your WD drive should have a 3 year warranty.

Best of luck and let us know how things go.

[bmgoodman]

What you're seeing has all of the earmarks of a hard drive problem. You could try running TiVo's built in diagnostic program, Kickstart 57 and/or Kickstart 58 (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showpost.php?p=5643823&postcount=2).



Rich,

Not to hijack this thread, but I tried kickstart 58 on my Series 3 and it keeps telling me that it is installing a software update! My understanding is that KS 58 runs diagnostics. I have tried KS 58 twice now and got the same "software update" message, but the version number never changes from 9.2 and I've not seen any "pending restart" messages under system information.

Has KS 58 changed lately? Any suggestions? Thanks!

[richsadams]

Rich,

Not to hijack this thread, but I tried kickstart 58 on my Series 3 and it keeps telling me that it is installing a software update! My understanding is that KS 58 runs diagnostics. I have tried KS 58 twice now and got the same "software update" message, but the version number never changes from 9.2 and I've not seen any "pending restart" messages under system information.

Has KS 58 changed lately? Any suggestions? Thanks!KS58 is the same AFAIK; it won't show the GSOD screen, but the update screen is normal according to TiVoJerry. The software version won't change with any of the kickstarts...it will always be the same as what was on the box when the KS is initiated. Software upgrades can only be generated by the mother ship. Other than that it's transparent and the only way to tell if it worked is, well, if it worked. ;)

[HPD]

I am OTA too but no problems with the internal or external drive. I doubt your problem is the software because then everyone would be having that problem. Sounds like a few bad sectors on the hard drive. The magnetic coating can easily be damaged if the heads make contact with the disk. Never move a hard disk device while it is running. Laptops supposedly have protection against that kind of damage but it is far from foolproof.

[bmgoodman]

KS58 is the same AFAIK; it won't show the GSOD screen, but the update screen is normal according to TiVoJerry. The software version won't change with any of the kickstarts...it will always be the same as what was on the box when the KS is initiated. Software upgrades can only be generated by the mother ship. Other than that it's transparent and the only way to tell if it worked is, well, if it worked. ;)

Rich, thanks for the information. I realize that the updates only occur when pushed from the mother ship, but there had recently been some talk about a 9.3 version arriving for some users. I wanted it to be clear that was NOT what had happened! As for my seeing the software update screen, I was concerned that Tivo was switching OS partitions.

In any event, in both cases of KS 58 the Tivo rebooted pretty fast, so I'm not sure any thorough diagnostics had been done. I guess it's just a wait and see.