jamietalbot
10-06-2009, 01:42 PM
I know there have been a number of threads on Tivo freezing, but none seemed to describe my specific scenario so thought I would start a new one. (FUll disclosure: After posting, I saw a similar thread just a few posts down, but my symptoms are different - no screech, for one thing)
I am not as technically sophisticated as many of you, so please bear with me. If you have any questions I can answer, I will try to do so as soon as I can (I am not in the same place as the box right now)
We have a refurbed HD Tivo, purchased over a year ago. Using Time Warner cable (with HD service). We have an expansion drive as well - one of the ones you buy through Tivo itself. 500g. No problems until the last month or so.
In the last month, Tivo seems to lock up and eventually reboot when we view or record HD channels. Non-HD channels have no problems. By "lock up" I mean the picture sometimes freezes, the remote becomes non-responsive, and sometimes we just have a black screen. When the remote does respond, sometimes the menus take an extremely long time to populate, or to transition from one to another.
When recording, we find that Tivo has recorded the show in a series of "partials" with significant gaps between them (we suspect the time that passed during the reboot). Sometimes it reboots as we watch - again while either we are watching an HD channel or Tivo is recording one while we watch something else.
We have not noticed this as being more of an issue with some channels than with others, but that is possible. It also does not happen all the time, but is common enough for us to stop watching/recording HD channels until we can fix this.
Tivo support initially thought it was a bad drive (or bad expansion drive) but when I told them that non-HD channels had no problems, they changed their minds and thought that perhaps the HD signal was coming in too strong for Tivo to handle, so it was crashing. They suggested I purchase an "RF filter" for the cable line, which they said would reduce the signal strength.
Coincidentally, we had Time Warner cable in the house last weekend to look at an unrelated problem, and I asked them to check the signal strength to our HD box. They said it was a little higher than average, but not significantly so, so they doubted the strength of the HD signal was the problem.
I think that's about all of it. Does anyone have any suggestions? Does an RF filter seem like a worthwhile approach to fixing the issue?
I am not as technically sophisticated as many of you, so please bear with me. If you have any questions I can answer, I will try to do so as soon as I can (I am not in the same place as the box right now)
We have a refurbed HD Tivo, purchased over a year ago. Using Time Warner cable (with HD service). We have an expansion drive as well - one of the ones you buy through Tivo itself. 500g. No problems until the last month or so.
In the last month, Tivo seems to lock up and eventually reboot when we view or record HD channels. Non-HD channels have no problems. By "lock up" I mean the picture sometimes freezes, the remote becomes non-responsive, and sometimes we just have a black screen. When the remote does respond, sometimes the menus take an extremely long time to populate, or to transition from one to another.
When recording, we find that Tivo has recorded the show in a series of "partials" with significant gaps between them (we suspect the time that passed during the reboot). Sometimes it reboots as we watch - again while either we are watching an HD channel or Tivo is recording one while we watch something else.
We have not noticed this as being more of an issue with some channels than with others, but that is possible. It also does not happen all the time, but is common enough for us to stop watching/recording HD channels until we can fix this.
Tivo support initially thought it was a bad drive (or bad expansion drive) but when I told them that non-HD channels had no problems, they changed their minds and thought that perhaps the HD signal was coming in too strong for Tivo to handle, so it was crashing. They suggested I purchase an "RF filter" for the cable line, which they said would reduce the signal strength.
Coincidentally, we had Time Warner cable in the house last weekend to look at an unrelated problem, and I asked them to check the signal strength to our HD box. They said it was a little higher than average, but not significantly so, so they doubted the strength of the HD signal was the problem.
I think that's about all of it. Does anyone have any suggestions? Does an RF filter seem like a worthwhile approach to fixing the issue?