[jaspar1]

Two weeks ago my Series 3 started freezing up. Tivo tech service said it was a response to the signal strength being too high (95%). Did a 3 way with Charter tech service and they sent out one of their contractors. He put a splitter in line and signal strength bounced between 90 & 95%. Still kept having the problem only now I can't get pass the WUP screen and the Tivo makes an intermittent buzzing sound for 3 -4 minutes and goes silent. Tried holding "Pause" after plugging in the unit but no response.

Should I

1) replace the hard drive
2) Get a refurb S3
3) Get a Premier

(I moved the Charter DVR downstairs but it is not an acceptable replacement.)

 

[unitron]

Two weeks ago my Series 3 started freezing up. Tivo tech service said it was a response to the signal strength being too high (95%). Did a 3 way with Charter tech service and they sent out one of their contractors. He put a splitter in line and signal strength bounced between 90 & 95%. Still kept having the problem only now I can't get pass the WUP screen and the Tivo makes an intermittent buzzing sound for 3 -4 minutes and goes silent. Tried holding "Pause" after plugging in the unit but no response.

Should I

1) replace the hard drive
2) Get a refurb S3
3) Get a Premier

(I moved the Charter DVR downstairs but it is not an acceptable replacement.)

If your signal strength was too high (WTF?!?) he should have used an inline attenuator instead of a splitter.

You could always get a new one and send me the old one to play^^^experiment with. : - )

 

[V7Goose]

Absolutely replace the HDD - almost 100% chance that is your problem.

This is actually one of the biggest reasons I think everyone should upgrade their HDD as soon as they buy a TiVo (or at the very least, as soon as their warranty expires). Besides just getting a lot more recording time for little effort and cost, you get easy troubleshooting. By placing the original drive on the shelf and keeping it as a backup, when something like this happens, it is just a matter of minutes to temporarily put the old drive back in to verify the problem. Good luck.

 

[dlfl]

95 sig strength too high? TiVo tech support must be getting worse than I imagined. 95 is perfect. You never checked it before? Has it changed?

Odds are almost 100% it's the drive but it could also be the power supply, especially if your unit is several years old.

Recommendations depend on several factors:
1. Do you have lifetime sub?
2. How much of a DIY person are you?
3. How concerned are you about cost?

 

[jbell73]

I agree 100% - Replace the drive! Buy a preconfigured drive from DVR_Dude or Weaknees for whatever size you want, just make sure it's for the correct TiVo model you have.

The drives or the fan's are the items most likely to fail on these things (they are the only moving parts and thus have much more limited life).

I have all Premiere's now, only because of the increase in transfer speed between units. If I only had one TiVo, and it was an S3/HD I would not have upgraded (especially in hind sight since the Premiere has had no advancement in the HDUI in over a year.) Just upgrade the drive, and get the Series5 Tivo (Premiere Plus?) when it comes out.

 

[unitron]

...

The drives or the fan's are the items most likely to fail on these things (they are the only moving parts and thus have much more limited life).
...

Except now that capacitor disease seems to be striking Tivos as well, you can add power supplies to that list.

 

[steve614]

Except now that capacitor disease seems to be striking Tivos as well, you can add power supplies to that list.

Capacitors fail. Without capacitors to level out voltage spikes, where would we be?

 

[unitron]

Capacitors fail....

Especially if they're made with an electrolytic made from an industrial espionaged secret recipe where the thieves got an incomplete version of the formula, which formula was then used in the manufacture of almost every electrolytic capactitor to come out of Asia for a decade or so.

 

[jaspar1]

Thanks, I bought a new 1T hard drive. Installation took <20 minutes and I am up and running. The primitive Charter DVR is now back upstairs.

 

[lrhorer]

Absolutely replace the HDD - almost 100% chance that is your problem.

Well, I would troubleshoot a bit more. Especially check the power supply.

This is actually one of the biggest reasons I think everyone should upgrade their HDD as soon as they buy a TiVo (or at the very least, as soon as their warranty expires). Besides just getting a lot more recording time for little effort and cost, you get easy troubleshooting. By placing the original drive on the shelf and keeping it as a backup, when something like this happens, it is just a matter of minutes to temporarily put the old drive back in to verify the problem. Good luck.

:up::up::up:

I agree, absolutely. 1T drives can be had for under $60. That's a lot of bang for the buck, and cheap insurance, to boot. (Pardon the pun.)

 

[lrhorer]

I agree 100% - Replace the drive! Buy a preconfigured drive from DVR_Dude or Weaknees for whatever size you want, just make sure it's for the correct TiVo model you have.

Well, that's cerrtainly a viable option for many folks, but a significant fraction of the folks on this forum are quite capable of upgrading using a bare drive. I'm not saying the value added resources coming from Weaknees or DVRupgrade are not worth anything, but many people simply have no need to spend the extra money.