Help! S3 HD recordings pixelated/incomplete, TivoHD recordings fine in same house

[Trauma]

I've posted on this earlier but did some testing and would love some community input.

My ~3 year old S3 downstairs with a 500 GB MyDVR Expander has been having trouble watching live HD and recording HD for a few weeks now. Pixelation, dropouts, partial recordings, the works. The unit never reboots or has the green screen. I noticed it originally on ESPN and TNT during the NBA playoffs but now it has spread to pretty much any HD channel including OTA HD. If I watch regular digital cable or analog there is no pixelation or dropouts. When I watch HD channels show on my Tivo HD upstairs there are no problems. Originally I assumed the hard drive was dying and ran the kickstart 57, then 54 which reported no problems with either the internal HD or the expander. Since then I have searched this forum and the 'net in general and don't have a great idea what's going on.

Should I replace the HD? Is this a Tivo software issue? Any thoughts?

[bkdtv]

This is a common issue with the My DVR Expander after 10-14 months.

The reports on this forum are virtually unanimous -- removing the My DVR Expander eliminates the issues.

Reading these forums, it is obvious that a significant percentage of customers with the 500GB My DVR Expander start to experience problems after 10-14 months. The drive almost never reports no errors with TiVo's own SMART tests, but the problems do not go away until the 500GB My DVR Expander is removed.

It's still not clear whether the issue is a hardware or software issue that develops after prolonged use (i.e. around a year) with the 500GB My DVR Expander. Google's published reports show that such SMART tests are not a reliable indicator of drive problems. In some cases, members on this forum confirmed a faulty or failing power supply as the culprit, and were able to restore normal (reliable) operation with a replacement power supply from Western Digital. In other cases, a replacement power supply made no difference.

I have not seen any problems reported with the 1TB My DVR Expander, but it was only released a few months ago. Ten months from now, people could be reporting the same problems with that unit. Or the problems could be specific to the 500GB version; we don't know.

If you are out-of-warranty on the 500GB My DVR Expander, I would suggest you follow the instructions in Section V of the Drive Upgrade FAQ (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=370784) to upgrade to TiVo's hard drive to 1TB (or more) for $90-$100.

Partial recordings are almost always an indication that there is a problem with an internal or external drive, even if no errors are reported by the TiVo's SMART tests. TiVo's SMART tests are not a reliable indicator of the drive's health, especially with the My DVR Expander. Based on reports to this forum, my impression is that external drive failures are at least 50x as common as internal drive failures within the first 18 months.

Since you've had your TiVo Series3 for more three years, it is possible that your internal drive is failing and may need to be replaced. You can't confirm that until you disconnect the external drive to see whether the problem continues. Note to upgrade the internal drive, you'd have to disconnect the external drive anyway.

[CrispyCritter]

As far as I know, the SMART tests are even less reliable with the external drives than on the internal drives. My understanding is that the external disk can be perfectly fine, but the external case hardware or the cable can turn faulty (and it's my pet theory that the case bridge hardware is responsible for many of the external MyDVR failures), and the SMART tests will not pick up the problems, since they are administered within the disk itself.

[Trauma]

Time to buy the new internal drive then.