Tivo HD USB Ports = Dead = No Wireless

[chanster]

I have had my Tivo HD for about a year. USB ports completly died over the weekend. I can't get a constant connection with my wireless network. On the phone with Tivo for about 2 hours. Problem is not the USB adapter as My other Tivo HD works with both USB adapters fine.

This bricked TIVO has lifetime sub. Tivo is sending me a new Tivo HD I guess "under warranty" for $50. Problem is that the bricked Tivo has a larger hard drive. What should I do? Can I swap out the hard drives when I get the replacement TIVO?

Anybody have any ideas on how to get these darn USB ports working? Anybody heard on USB ports failing?

[socrplyr]

If they are dead, you really don't have much choice here. It is not a completely uncommon thing to fail in electronics. I would say that the number of failures are roughly the same as any other consumer electronic device as USB ports go. Your other option is to use an ethernet to wireless bridge instead of the USB port. This however wouldn't fix the situation, only avoid it. If later you need a port for say a Tuning adapter, you are SOL. Thus probably it isn't a bad idea to go down the replacement road. Sorry I don't have any advice on the harddrive, but if you have the original, I would put that back in.

[ZeoTiVo]

I had USB prots fail on me once - but it was during a lightening storm and I know a surge hit them.

You are getting a good deal from TiVo as usually it is 149$ for a warranty replacement after 3 months. You did not specify that the lifetime was being transferred to the unit TiVo inc. is sending - make sure that will happen.

as to the drive - you can swap it into the new TiVo DVR - but will have to do a clear and delete everything to have it run right and the shows and season passes will be lost. Without active USB ports you will want to hook up to the network via the ethernet port and copy off shows you want to keep to a PC.

[AbMagFab]

I have had my Tivo HD for about a year. USB ports completly died over the weekend. I can't get a constant connection with my wireless network. On the phone with Tivo for about 2 hours. Problem is not the USB adapter as My other Tivo HD works with both USB adapters fine.

This bricked TIVO has lifetime sub. Tivo is sending me a new Tivo HD I guess "under warranty" for $50. Problem is that the bricked Tivo has a larger hard drive. What should I do? Can I swap out the hard drives when I get the replacement TIVO?

Anybody have any ideas on how to get these darn USB ports working? Anybody heard on USB ports failing?

Sounds like a wireless network problem, not a USB problem. If you get a connection sometimes, USB is fine. Wireless networks are sketchy to begin with, and an inconsistent connection is typical of a weak signal or some other interference.

The adapter works in the other Tivo because it's got a better wireless signal path.

Don't expect any improvement with the new Tivo HD. And unless you don't care about your recordings, I would cancel the replacement and just fix your wireless network.

[bkdtv]

Rather than swapping the wireless adapters, you should swap the locations of the TivoHDs to see if wireless connectivity improves. If so, that confirms that either original location is a poor for place for wireless connectivity and/or you have other devices in the immediate area that are causing RF interference.

If you have two TivoHDs, I would probably look into an alternative to wireless anyway. Wireless 802.11g is not an optimal solution for multi-room viewing. You don't have to run a long ethernet cable; there are other alternatives to that, such as MoCA (networking using existing coax) and Homeplug AV / Powerline AV (networking use power lines). Both will provide a superior experience with MRV.

[chanster]

Sounds like a wireless network problem, not a USB problem. If you get a connection sometimes, USB is fine. Wireless networks are sketchy to begin with, and an inconsistent connection is typical of a weak signal or some other interference.

The adapter works in the other Tivo because it's got a better wireless signal path.

Don't expect any improvement with the new Tivo HD. And unless you don't care about your recordings, I would cancel the replacement and just fix your wireless network.

When I say I get a connection sometimes, I mean I got it once over the last 6 days. That was after I jammed the wireless adapter into the USB really really hard and the connection lasted about 10 minutes. About 60% of the time, the TIVO was telling me no wireless adapter was not plugged in. When I did get it to recognize, The USB adapter simply won't recognize any wireless networks running around, whereas the other working one - recognizes about 20.

Prior to this failure, I was getting 95% reception rate according to Tivo, and the Tivo had a direct line of sight to the wireless connector. The working TIVO is behind literally a brick wall. We went through everything with the TIVO rep and she said it appeared to be a USB failure, I know that TIVo reps aren't always right, but I can't think of anything else.

[AbMagFab]

When I say I get a connection sometimes, I mean I got it once over the last 6 days. That was after I jammed the wireless adapter into the USB really really hard and the connection lasted about 10 minutes. About 60% of the time, the TIVO was telling me no wireless adapter was not plugged in. When I did get it to recognize, The USB adapter simply won't recognize any wireless networks running around, whereas the other working one - recognizes about 20.

Prior to this failure, I was getting 95% reception rate according to Tivo, and the Tivo had a direct line of sight to the wireless connector. The working TIVO is behind literally a brick wall. We went through everything with the TIVO rep and she said it appeared to be a USB failure, I know that TIVo reps aren't always right, but I can't think of anything else.

#1 - Don't jam things in
#2 - Still sounds like a wireless reception problem to me

Try the above suggestion of swapping the Tivo box locations and see what happens.

[cjhrph]

I had similar wireless problems. The adapter was really flaky. TIVO tech support could not resolve it and a new adapter behaved the same way. I resolved it by getting rid of the TIVO wireless adapter and buying another Linksys WRT54GL and creating a bridge between the two routers.

It works flawlessly.

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Image:Standard_bridge_large.jpg