Tivo HD reboots spontaneously

[bigusmfan]

A few times a week my Tivo HD will spontaneously reboot. It's been upgraded to a 2TB internal drive and sits behind a power conditioner. None of my other equipment shows signs of any power surge or disconnect.

From what I've read, it might be a HDD problem or a power supply/cable capacitor issue.

I actually have an old HD that I tried to repair with a new power supply when it would hang forever at the "Just a few minutes more" screen. So I will probably try to examine the power supply/cable and replace if there's any question about them. Seems a lot easier/quicker than copying the content of my current drive onto a new drive.

Anything I should check or other ideas as to a cause?

[dlfl]

Check the voltages going to the HDD, without disconnecting the HDD power cable, i.e., where the black, red and yellow wires connect to the PS board. WARNING SHOCK HAZARD. Red-to-Black should be 5V within 5%. Yellow to black should be 12V within 10%. Look for bulging or leaking capacitor cans.

For the HDD, run **KickStart 54** overnight test or remove the drive and run the mfr's extended test. My understanding is that for Western Digital drives the extended test doesn't destroy data as long as no problems are found. If problems are found the drive probably should be replaced anyway.

[takeshi]

Originally Posted by bigusmfan

Anything I should check or other ideas as to a cause?

This seems to be a much less likely cause but see if your Tivo reboots only when tuned to specific channels. If so, it might be signal related. Thought I had random reboots with my THD when I first got it but it was signal related ("noise" on certain frequencies affecting certain channels).

IIRC one other clue I could find to this particular cause was looking at the error rates on one of the settings/info/troubleshooting screens. They were way out of normal range on affected channels.

[Soapm]

Is the Tivo hacked? If so check the logs.

If not you may have to pull the drive and connect it to a linux box with tivopart to see the logs.

[unitron]

Originally Posted by bigusmfan

A few times a week my Tivo HD will spontaneously reboot. It's been upgraded to a 2TB internal drive and sits behind a power conditioner. None of my other equipment shows signs of any power surge or disconnect.

From what I've read, it might be a HDD problem or a power supply/cable capacitor issue.

I actually have an old HD that I tried to repair with a new power supply when it would hang forever at the "Just a few minutes more" screen. So I will probably try to examine the power supply/cable and replace if there's any question about them. Seems a lot easier/quicker than copying the content of my current drive onto a new drive.

Anything I should check or other ideas as to a cause?

What is the brand and model number of that 2TB drive?

What is the date of manufacture?

How long have you had it in that HD?

[jrtroo]

Do you have a cablecard? Try reseating that, I had an issue where the card either worked loose or was never 100% pushed in.

An unlikely scenario, but it happened to me and is easy to try.

[bigusmfan]

So apologies for dropping off on this. I lived with the pretty frequent random reboots for a while. Finally caved and replaced the HD as I was adding capacity in another Tivo at the same time. I misspoke earlier when I said it was a 2TB drive. It was a 1.5TB that I have now replaced with a 2TB WD20EURS drive.

I had originally checked the capacitors for leaking or bulging. But I'm not sure I knew what to look for. I know none had burst. Now I know, from weaknees site, what a bulging capacitor looks like. I'm going to reexamine. But I may also plan on replacing the capacitors in the PS anyway.

Where can I find the types of capacitors to pick up in advance?

[unitron]

Originally Posted by bigusmfan

So apologies for dropping off on this. I lived with the pretty frequent random reboots for a while. Finally caved and replaced the HD as I was adding capacity in another Tivo at the same time. I misspoke earlier when I said it was a 2TB drive. It was a 1.5TB that I have now replaced with a 2TB WD20EURS drive.

I had originally checked the capacitors for leaking or bulging. But I'm not sure I knew what to look for. I know none had burst. Now I know, from weaknees site, what a bulging capacitor looks like. I'm going to reexamine. But I may also plan on replacing the capacitors in the PS anyway.

Where can I find the types of capacitors to pick up in advance?

You want capacitors that are the LowESR type (Equivalent Series Resistance) and rated for operation at up to 105 degress celsius/centigrade.

The microFarad (uF) rating, and working voltage rating should be the same as the capacitor being replaced, although you can go the next notch up voltage wise if necessary, like using a 25V rated one if the original was a 16.

But the uF has to be the same.


The S3 HD used two different model power supplies, and I don't know which one you have, and I didn't make a list of all the caps in mine, I just replace the 2 that needed replacing.

You might want to read through this thread

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb...d.php?t=473394