Choppy Playback

[Choppy21]

My series2 Dual Turner has just out of the blue decided to playback everything choppy. It even lags live TV, making you skip/ fast forward to get it back to being live because it keeps pausing and unpausing every 2-3 seconds.
I've rebooted several times, checked all my connections, made sure no wires are bent, etc. I even get lag on the home screen. Any ideas what I might have missed?

[chip_r]

Sounds like you've already covered the basics and it's most likely a failing hard drive. Fairly easy to replace yourself but if you're not a tinkerer then you can send it out.

Usually the biggest downside is losing shows. If you're using Tivo Desktop, you could try transferring some shows to your PC if they're worth keeping.

[Hpalmer]

I went to weaknees.com and bought a new harddrive, installed it and was back runnig quickly.

[Choppy21]

Thanks for the reply, but the cheapest hard drives for my unit is $109.00. That's nuts when you consider I paid $149.00 for the entire DVR. Am I missing something here? Does Tivo replace these for free, or are they suppose to crap out shortly after the warrenty is up?

[chip_r]

Unfortunately that's the nature of something based on a hard drive. They can last for years or if Murphy has anything to do with it, it's 3 days after your warranty expires. Sorry to hear it's with a newer box.

Some cheaper alternatives compared to weakness.com is InstantCake ($20) to load the correct image on an IDE drive plus the cost of a IDE drive itself. If you have a 'retired' IDE drive around from an older computer then the hardware is free. It might not be as quiet as DVR-specific drive but if it's a living room Tivo, you might not care. You don't need a fast drive for a DVR so don't bother with anything fancy.

There are free ways to get an image but IMHO, the $20 is a good investment against future drive failures. The process is pretty simple if you have access to a PC with and IDE interface and you know how to burn a iso CD and plug in an IDE drive.

A quick search and I see 250GB Seagate DB-35 drives (DVR specific) for about $59 shipped from reputable sellers. Add your InstantCake image for $20. OK $79 isn't much better than $109 but it's 250GB vs 160GB.

If you're really *just* outside of your warranty period then Tivo *might* offer a refurb or some other options. Never hurts to try.