Problem Statement
At some point a couple of months ago my Tivo Mini became unable to properly display HD channels. They would be pixelated and halting. SD channels worked ok (mostly). Upstairs Bolt appeared to be working fine.
My Setup
My only other box is a Bolt which runs the Moca network. Fairly simple configuration with two TVs and two Tivo's. Should be easy to isolate the problem, right? Keep in mind this had been working fine for the better part of a 1.5 years, so we have a baseline of "stuff was working".
The Journey
For the past several weeks I've gone a familiar route bouncing back and forth between Tivo and my cable provider. Tivo has been pretty adamant that the signal is wonky, need attenuators, and so on.
Cable company has been out several times to check the lines. Last guy was pretty experienced and tightened up my Moca configuration. He put a PoE filter and reduced the splits down to just the two cables with a higher quality splitter. Something that could have been done sooner, but again... everything had been working.
I had also monkeyed around with the signal levels, trying to hit the magic (but moving) target of SNR 29-35 keeping signal strength above 80. I didn't have attenuators on hand, but was able to daisy chain a few splitters to hit SNR:30 & SS:80. Still... same problem.
Replacement Mini
At this point Tivo reached the end of the script so they sent a replacement mini. Quite a few hours involved in switching those, while also waiting 2-3 days for the mini to finish "downloading", with the final result being... same problem. Put my old mini back and sent back the broken replacement.
The AHA Moment
I went to switch some cabling around on the Bolt almost burned my fingers on the cable connector. The connection was crazy hot, along with other areas of the chassis that were too hot to touch for long. So after weeks of trying to figure out cabling and signaling, I was now looking into heat capacity of the unit.
From several resources, including some posts on this board (many thanks!) I learned about ODT and other potential issues this unit has with cooling. First thing I wondered is with all those minutes (hours?) spent on the phone talking with Tivo support about SNR and all the other acronyms they care about to prove bad signal, why is not on the script to ask about temperature? Pretty basic problem if a device is overheating. This part I find especially frustrating.
Just from the specs, the unit is supposed to handle room temps up to 95 F and shut down if it gets too hot. Makes sense, but what tells it to shut down? The temp sensor in the core could be in range while other onboard components are melting. Most PCs have shut down switches if the core overheats, but if the power supply burns hot and melts stuff around it the PC will soldier on (and have a lot of really weird problems).
My bolt had an ODT of 72... that's flipping hot for a device. Tivo also doesn't appear to have an operating range for ODT, which is really baffling. If it doesn't shut down at that point... then when!? At that temperature it could not display HD video without pixelating; nor could it record without pixelating. This was the same issue I'd had on the mini for weeks that now is being seen on the Bolt.
The Big Test
So the intermittent nature of the problem made this more challenging, since depending on the temperature of the box things worked sometimes. Still, the ultimate test is cooling down the Bolt and seeing if order is restored (assuming parts aren't melted). So the Bolt was turned off for 2-3 hours and allowed to completely cool. Upon restarting it came up at ODT 36.
And at that temperature everything... worked.
All of the problems were gone. I could watch all the channels on the Mini without pixelating, record and playback with no issues.
Remaining Problem to Solve
So moving forward I need to figure out how to keep the Bolt cooler. I'll do more research but don't really want to crack the box open as some have done.
The Bolt sits in a large, open closet in a good sized stand on a shelf to itself. Other components are also on their shelves with a lot of ventilation. So it's not getting super heated by neighbor components or sitting on hot things. It just can't operate on its own without overheating.
Maybe this will help someone else to check temp much sooner and save time. There is without a doubt a temperature above which the Bolt will not operate properly.
At some point a couple of months ago my Tivo Mini became unable to properly display HD channels. They would be pixelated and halting. SD channels worked ok (mostly). Upstairs Bolt appeared to be working fine.
My Setup
My only other box is a Bolt which runs the Moca network. Fairly simple configuration with two TVs and two Tivo's. Should be easy to isolate the problem, right? Keep in mind this had been working fine for the better part of a 1.5 years, so we have a baseline of "stuff was working".
The Journey
For the past several weeks I've gone a familiar route bouncing back and forth between Tivo and my cable provider. Tivo has been pretty adamant that the signal is wonky, need attenuators, and so on.
Cable company has been out several times to check the lines. Last guy was pretty experienced and tightened up my Moca configuration. He put a PoE filter and reduced the splits down to just the two cables with a higher quality splitter. Something that could have been done sooner, but again... everything had been working.
I had also monkeyed around with the signal levels, trying to hit the magic (but moving) target of SNR 29-35 keeping signal strength above 80. I didn't have attenuators on hand, but was able to daisy chain a few splitters to hit SNR:30 & SS:80. Still... same problem.
Replacement Mini
At this point Tivo reached the end of the script so they sent a replacement mini. Quite a few hours involved in switching those, while also waiting 2-3 days for the mini to finish "downloading", with the final result being... same problem. Put my old mini back and sent back the broken replacement.
The AHA Moment
I went to switch some cabling around on the Bolt almost burned my fingers on the cable connector. The connection was crazy hot, along with other areas of the chassis that were too hot to touch for long. So after weeks of trying to figure out cabling and signaling, I was now looking into heat capacity of the unit.
From several resources, including some posts on this board (many thanks!) I learned about ODT and other potential issues this unit has with cooling. First thing I wondered is with all those minutes (hours?) spent on the phone talking with Tivo support about SNR and all the other acronyms they care about to prove bad signal, why is not on the script to ask about temperature? Pretty basic problem if a device is overheating. This part I find especially frustrating.
Just from the specs, the unit is supposed to handle room temps up to 95 F and shut down if it gets too hot. Makes sense, but what tells it to shut down? The temp sensor in the core could be in range while other onboard components are melting. Most PCs have shut down switches if the core overheats, but if the power supply burns hot and melts stuff around it the PC will soldier on (and have a lot of really weird problems).
My bolt had an ODT of 72... that's flipping hot for a device. Tivo also doesn't appear to have an operating range for ODT, which is really baffling. If it doesn't shut down at that point... then when!? At that temperature it could not display HD video without pixelating; nor could it record without pixelating. This was the same issue I'd had on the mini for weeks that now is being seen on the Bolt.
The Big Test
So the intermittent nature of the problem made this more challenging, since depending on the temperature of the box things worked sometimes. Still, the ultimate test is cooling down the Bolt and seeing if order is restored (assuming parts aren't melted). So the Bolt was turned off for 2-3 hours and allowed to completely cool. Upon restarting it came up at ODT 36.
And at that temperature everything... worked.
All of the problems were gone. I could watch all the channels on the Mini without pixelating, record and playback with no issues.
Remaining Problem to Solve
So moving forward I need to figure out how to keep the Bolt cooler. I'll do more research but don't really want to crack the box open as some have done.
The Bolt sits in a large, open closet in a good sized stand on a shelf to itself. Other components are also on their shelves with a lot of ventilation. So it's not getting super heated by neighbor components or sitting on hot things. It just can't operate on its own without overheating.
Maybe this will help someone else to check temp much sooner and save time. There is without a doubt a temperature above which the Bolt will not operate properly.