Can you place it behind a wall? Or maybe in a closed media cabinet? I have my doubts about the acousitpack working well since you can't cover the air holes. There would be limited room for it anyway.
Anyone install acoustic foam in S3 or other TiVo?
I upgraded the internal hard drive on my S3 with a 1TB Hitachi. The seek noises are pretty loud. I'll try changing the drive's acoustic management settings. If that doesn't work, I was thinking of installing acoustic foam inside the case. Has anyone done this in an S3 or other TiVo? The foam would be the kind that is used to line the inside of PC cases, like Dynamat or Acoustipack. I have Acoustipack in my PC and am very happy with it, so I was going to try that.
I'm wondering if (a) it will help, and (b) if it will cause a problem with cooling inside the TiVo.
Any other ideas on how to deaden the sound? Will putting the S3 on a foam mat help?
I'm wondering if (a) it will help, and (b) if it will cause a problem with cooling inside the TiVo.
Any other ideas on how to deaden the sound? Will putting the S3 on a foam mat help?
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I also have a 1 TB Hitachi. I think it is quite loud and am unhappy with it, to the point that I may replace it. I am not sure what the acoustic settings are, but, I would assume that they are already set. I will see if I can figure that out.
In the current setup, I can't move the S3 or enclose it in anything. I agree there is probably not much clearance between the inside of the case and the interior components (certainly not as much as in a PC). That's why I was worried about the temperature if I put in the foam. But if you picture a PC with vents and holes for the fans and cards, the Acoustipack nevertheless helps. I don't know the physics of it, but probably because the sound bounces around the hard surfaces of the case, and the foam deadens this so by the time the sound escapes through the holes and the case itself, it's quieter. Just a guess.HiDefGator said:Can you place it behind a wall? Or maybe in a closed media cabinet? I have my doubts about the acousitpack working well since you can't cover the air holes. There would be limited room for it anyway.
If you search for the word Hitachi on this board you'll see links to the program you download to control the acoustic settings on the drive. You basically slow the drive down to make it quieter, but I think the speed doesn't matter to the TiVo as much as it would in a PC, so you can slow it down more than in a PC, thus making it quieter.chg said:I also have a 1 TB Hitachi. I think it is quite loud and am unhappy with it, to the point that I may replace it. I am not sure what the acoustic settings are, but, I would assume that they are already set. I will see if I can figure that out.
Do you know if the WD DB35 750gb is quieter than the Hitachi 1 TB? If it is, I'd consider downgrading.
Your should not consider doing anything else until you have changed your AM settings. Many others have done so with the Hitachi drive.
I have two of the Hitachi 1TB drives with the AM set to 192.(this is what they were set to in the external enclosure I think the bare drives have AM set to normal so they are louder)My WD 1TD drive is set to 128AM. The WD drive is only slighty softer than the Hitachi drive. They are both very quiet. And are pretty much equal to the stock drive in how quiet it is..
I have a 1TB Hitachi drive in my S3. I reduced AAM to 128 via the Hitachi Feature Tool. The drive is no louder than the original 250. I rarely even hear it (its 8 feel away).
Keep in mind that AM=192 may not behave any differently from AM=128. It all depends on how the drive implements that function. No drive engineer in the right mind would implement more than a few different acoustic/power settings, and definitely not 128 levels.
The feature tool has a noise 'test' routine where you can slide a slider back and forth and listen to the difference. There are more than a couple levels in there as you can hear the noise ramp up and down with the slider.c3 said:Keep in mind that AM=192 may not behave any differently from AM=128. It all depends on how the drive implements that function. No drive engineer in the right mind would implement more than a few different acoustic/power settings, and definitely not 128 levels.
The RF Remote converter shown already in 2 different posts works great. I used it for about 2 years to share one tivo's output between 2 tv's. From time to time it would go through spells of working kinda strange. Missed keypresses, duplicate keypresses. It turned out that the tivo was getting an echo-like effect. If I was in the room with the tivo, and it got a signal from the remote's IR, and again from the RF extender's IR, like the tivo was getting confused listening to 2 voices saying the same thing.
Putting a piece of tape over either the remote's IR sender, or the Tivo's IR receiver was all that was necessary to eliminate this problem.
Putting a piece of tape over either the remote's IR sender, or the Tivo's IR receiver was all that was necessary to eliminate this problem.
Listening to the Hitachi drive last night, I noticed that it would go through periods where it was very quiet. It would then get pretty loud for awhile and then quiet back down again. When it gets loud, it can be distracting and annoying. Is this normal, or, do I have bad spots on the drive?
I did not upgrade this myself. Bought it from one of the well known online upgrade sites. Thought I would get opinions here, before I decide if I should contact them. May get a second Tivo for another room and try upgrading myself now that I have seen all the post in this forum.
I did not upgrade this myself. Bought it from one of the well known online upgrade sites. Thought I would get opinions here, before I decide if I should contact them. May get a second Tivo for another room and try upgrading myself now that I have seen all the post in this forum.
I'm not sure how much cost and effort something like the foam will end up being. But for a couple more days there is a sale at Best Buy on the new Western Digital 1TB "GP" drives. They're reputedly very quiet (even less than the WD 500GB ones) and cooler than the stock S3 Tivo drives. Reports are coming in that they make very nice S3 drives.
On the S3 peanut remote, there is a button just below the "Aspect" button. Press it repeatedly and you should find that the hard drive noise should become less noticeable.
I had the acoustic management settings adjusted (don't know what they were set to), and that did it. The Hitachi is roughly the same sound as the stock OEM drive. Maybe a wee bit louder, but certainly manageable. I'll monitor it for a week or so to see how much it bugs me and decide then if the foam is necessary. Thanks everyone for their input.
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