# Roamio fried? Solid Red and Blue Lights



## jstevenson (May 6, 2007)

Last night, mid show, my roamio froze up with a solid red and blue light on the front.

It seemed to eventually recover, before doing it again.

A look at the history log showed a bunch of recordings over the weekend had failed due to "no power" (system had power the whole time...) and many others were partial recordings. I'm assuming it froze during these times.

Some reboots did nothing, though a reboot with no cable card/ethernet/tuning adapter got it up and running. Seemed to be working fine last night, but this morning we're frozen on blue/red with no signal again.

When frozen the TiVo app can't connect to the box.

Hardware failure vs software failure? Thoughts? I'm kinda thinking I should wipe the box and hope it's some software fault, which would be a bummer recording wise but at least give me a shot at keeping it.

If this guy is dead, it may finally be cord cutting time and the end of TiVo, as I'm not sure I want to invest in a bolt and lifetime


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## uw69 (Jan 25, 2001)

First thing I always consider is a hard drive issue. Might be worth a shot to throw a new drive in and check.


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## L David Matheny (Jan 29, 2011)

jstevenson said:


> Last night, mid show, my roamio froze up with a solid red and blue light on the front.
> 
> It seemed to eventually recover, before doing it again.
> 
> ...


Removing the cable card cuts power requirements a bit, so that could point to a power supply issue, but Roamio units are not known for having those. Did you install a larger (and maybe more power-hungry) disk drive? There were some early indications that the wall-wart AC adapter provided with the 4-tuner base Roamio may be only marginally adequate, and many of us replaced it with a slightly larger AC adapter made by LiteOn.


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## jstevenson (May 6, 2007)

L David Matheny said:


> Removing the cable card cuts power requirements a bit, so that could point to a power supply issue, but Roamio units are not known for having those. Did you install a larger (and maybe more power-hungry) disk drive? There were some early indications that the wall-wart AC adapter provided with the 4-tuner base Roamio may be only marginally adequate, and many of us replaced it with a slightly larger AC adapter made by LiteOn.


Nope. It's a Roamio Plus, a little over 3 years old (ordered the day they announced it).

I just ordered a 3TB WD Red hard drive from Amazon for delivery tonight, so we'll pop that in and see. I don't see any reason to upgrade to the Bolt+ (esp for 750 with lifetime), but I also find cable the cheapest way to get all the sport channels I want.

I'm not sure if removing the cable card had anything to do with the reboot working or not... it seems to be intermittantly locking up but then recovering, based on the fact that I was out of town and it completely missed recordings, partially recorded others, and successfully recorded one. Was working when I got home, froze, and eventually was working again, left it working last night but was frozen this AM. Doubting any of that would be power supply related, but might be worth a swap if the hard drive swap doesn't fix.


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## thyname (Dec 27, 2010)

jstevenson said:


> Nope. It's a Roamio Plus, a little over 3 years old (ordered the day they announced it).
> 
> I just ordered a 3TB WD Red hard drive from Amazon for delivery tonight, so we'll pop that in and see. I don't see any reason to upgrade to the Bolt+ (esp for 750 with lifetime), but I also find cable the cheapest way to get all the sport channels I want.
> 
> I'm not sure if removing the cable card had anything to do with the reboot working or not... it seems to be intermittantly locking up but then recovering, based on the fact that I was out of town and it completely missed recordings, partially recorded others, and successfully recorded one. Was working when I got home, froze, and eventually was working again, left it working last night but was frozen this AM. Doubting any of that would be power supply related, but might be worth a swap if the hard drive swap doesn't fix.


Have you tried Kickstart 54?

https://www.weaknees.com/tivo-kickstart-hd-tests.php


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## jstevenson (May 6, 2007)

thyname said:


> Have you tried Kickstart 54?
> 
> https://www.weaknees.com/tivo-kickstart-hd-tests.php


no I tried last night but didn't do it successfully, I think. It fully rebooted and then I just left it up to see if it'd freeze again, which it had by this morning.

will pop the new HDD in tonight and see what's up.


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## jstevenson (May 6, 2007)

new HDD didn't fix. Still locks up with a solid red and blue light.


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## jstevenson (May 6, 2007)

TiVo reports this is a motherboard failure and the unit is RMA-ed.


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## UCLABB (May 29, 2012)

jstevenson said:


> TiVo reports this is a motherboard failure and the unit is RMA-ed.


Sorry for your loss. Getting another Plus? How much did TiVo charge.


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## jstevenson (May 6, 2007)

UCLABB said:


> Sorry for your loss. Getting another Plus? How much did TiVo charge.


260 or so


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## thyname (Dec 27, 2010)

jstevenson said:


> 260 or so


For that price, you should try to get a Bolt from TiVo with a handsome discount for your troubles


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## UCLABB (May 29, 2012)

jstevenson said:


> 260 or so


Not too bad considering it is long past any warranty. A used Plus with lifetime is going for around $500. It's good to know that TiVo offers a deal if any of our lifetime Roamios go belly up.


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