# Help! Terbonet problems.



## OG Quantum (Oct 13, 2001)

Hi
I just purchased a second tivo and separately a terbonet card from ebay. I have already upgraded my first tivo a year and a half ago with a cachecard and a 200MB hard drive so while not an expert I have some clue as to what I am doing. Anyway I removed the hard drive, installed the drivers for turbonet/terbonet on the hard drive and put it back in and inserted the terbonet card. The tivo boots fine but the trouble is the terbonet card doesn't seem to work. Since I haven't installed a terbonet card before I could be missing something obvious. The card is fully in with no pins showing. The card itself has all pins present and correct. The foot has been removed. But when I power up the tivo my router doesn't see the tivo. By this i mean my router has lights that flash when a network cable is attached and this light doesn't illuminate suggesting no network connection. I have tried 2 different cables that work fine on other devices and connected them directly to the terbonet card with the lid off. Even if my network configuration stuff didn't work properly or the ip address is out of range or whatever(though I have no reason to think either of these are the case) wouldn't that light flash on my router when the cable is connected? I can't see any LEDs on the terbonet card to show if it is working or not.
Any ideas or should I contact the seller and look to exchange as faulty?
Thanks
Paul


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## RWILTS (Apr 21, 2006)

Not very helpful I know but a very similar question was posted a couple of weeks ago by another member who had purchased card from ebay... Maybe they have relisted that faulty card after it was returned or the suppliers whole batch is dodgy.


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## PaulWilkinsUK (Mar 20, 2006)

I also have two TiVo units. Like you say, one of them refused to work with the TurboNet card. For all intent and purposes the card 'looks' like its ok. It lights up on the router ok, but I found that the 'cache' functions of the card did not work at all. If you look at the turboNet card are the green 'link' light and 'red' cache light illuminated? On my 'dodgy' unit only the green 'link' light would come on.
I know its no consolation but I could not get the beastie to work  . I suspected that the underside port connections need cleaning, but the PCB seems to be 'glued' down.
Good luck and if you find a solution let us know.


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## dribble (Jun 8, 2002)

RWILTS said:


> Not very helpful I know but a very similar question was posted a couple of weeks ago by another member who had purchased card from ebay... Maybe they have relisted that faulty card after it was returned or the suppliers whole batch is dodgy.


Yes, I had a problem with a terbonet card purchased from ebay.

However, mine caused the TiVo not to power up at all when attached (no fan, no lights - nothing!). If I took the card off, then all was fine. This was the same on two different TiVo's, so I sent the card back.

The replacement card worked okay, although I am still not convinced that the Terbonet cards are as good as the cache cards. However, they're less than half the price, so I guess I can't grumble.

I'd send it back and get a replacement if I were you.

David.


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## OG Quantum (Oct 13, 2001)

Thanks for the replys
looked again and the network socket does have leds on it and these do not illuminate at all. I guess it must be duff and am going to send a message to the seller.
Thanks
Paul


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## OG Quantum (Oct 13, 2001)

The seller has replaced my terbonet card and the new one seemed to be working fine initially as I installed all the hacks and stuff however...


when I try to transfer large files to or from the tivo (including using methods not discussable here) it starts out fine then stops and will not accept any connections not just ftp but also telnet and tivoweb (plus others not discussable here) and needs to be rebooted. The light on my router stays illuminated.

When I installed the drivers and the card didn't work initially I did install the drivers again i.e. i ran the nicconfig program twice. 

Anyone got any ideas? Is it a duff card or something I can do to the configuration.

Thanks


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## dribble (Jun 8, 2002)

OG Quantum said:


> The seller has replaced my terbonet card and the new one seemed to be working fine initially as I installed all the hacks and stuff however...
> 
> when I try to transfer large files to or from the tivo (including using methods not discussable here) it starts out fine then stops and will not accept any connections not just ftp but also telnet and tivoweb (plus others not discussable here) and needs to be rebooted.


Hi,

Funny you should mention this! The 'second' card I fitted for my parents does EXACTLY the same thing. Works fine on TiVoWeb, but if you try and run TyTool *cough*, the whole thing just locks up! The only way to get the network card operational again is to re-boot the TiVo 

As it was for my parents, I have kind of 'let it be'. It's not very often they want to transfer programs to their PC (if ever), and I thought that it might have been something to do with the TyTool program install, or maybe their PC ?

Now, from the sounds of it, it's not limited to my replacement card. Would be interesting to know if anyone else with a Terbonet card has similar issues. Please don't confuse with other network cards, as I believe you can also get Turbonet, and of course cachecards.

The one I am referring to is a TERBOnet card.

David.


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

dribble said:


> Now, from the sounds of it, it's not limited to my replacement card. Would be interesting to know if anyone else with a Terbonet card has similar issues.


Don't use mine for that sort of thing much, but had no problems on the occasions that I have done so.


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## bigwold (Jun 4, 2003)

Are these x-factor terbonet cards (x-factor on the board) or yet another clone of the original turbonet? I saw some going very cheaply recently on ebay so maybe someone has had a batch made and not quite got it right or bad quality control? 
There should not be a problem with either the original turbonet or x-factor terbonet cards and unspeakable tools


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## OG Quantum (Oct 13, 2001)

Can't see xfactor anywhere on the board. I have attached images of the front and back of the board.

Unless anyone can come up with any ideas I guess I need to get in touch with the seller and see how he wants to proceed

Thanks

Paul


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## bigwold (Jun 4, 2003)

Not that it makes any difference to you but this has a different layout to the original Turbonet and to the x-factor terbonet so I guess it's another clone.


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## mrtickle (Aug 26, 2001)

Good grief, not another clone! I wouldn't have thought the Series 1 standalone market was big enough to support another one, especially so long after the launch of the Cachecard.


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## dribble (Jun 8, 2002)

mrtickle said:


> I wouldn't have thought the Series 1 standalone market was big enough to support another one, especially so long after the launch of the Cachecard.


Ah yes, but the Cachecard will cost you approx £70, while the Terbonet is currently selling for a shade under £25!

I would think twice before spending £70, but it's more tempting to upgrade a TiVo for £25.

However, saying that, IMHO I feel the Cachecard is a better product. I suppose you get what you pay for.

David.


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Not to mention the extra £50 or whatever for the memory on a cachecard


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## fboner (Feb 28, 2005)

OG Quantum said:


> Can't see xfactor anywhere on the board. I have attached images of the front and back of the board.
> 
> Unless anyone can come up with any ideas I guess I need to get in touch with the seller and see how he wants to proceed
> 
> ...


These pictures show a TERBONET made from the plans available on the yahoo group of the same name. It is not one of the original Canadian builds though.

Any issues with "works like this but not like that" are due to the choice/version of driver installed. The hardware cannot be selective about packets...

Fred.


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## Restorer (Jan 6, 2002)

dribble said:


> Hi,
> 
> Would be interesting to know if anyone else with a Terbonet card has similar issues. Please don't confuse with other network cards, as I believe you can also get Turbonet, and of course cachecards.
> 
> ...


I have been doing a lot of the erm you know what stuff with this card for 18 months or so now and it has been nothing but fast and efficient. It has proven a great £30's worth of kit. Sorry to hear others seem to be having problems.


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## KiNeL (Feb 6, 2006)

I've had 3 Terbonet cards from ebay and all worked perfectly.


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## sdunne (Jul 6, 2002)

I had a problem with my cachecard, after starting to mess with tyt<cough>. This on a series 1 with tivowebplus

Turned out my system scripts ended up starting two copies of the networking daemon such a proggie might use. Once that was cleaned up, stability and throughput shot up


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## tartan_haggis (Jun 13, 2005)

erm stupid question I know, but the two Terbonet cards do have different IP addresses, don't they?

If they were the same IP, then you would get IP clashes on the network.

Also, if not on the correct IP / Subnet, then your router wouldn't "see" the Terbonet card.

AFAIK, only options to change the IP address are to use a serial cable to get a bash prompt, or put the hard drive in a PC so you can run the network config utility.


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## akilgore (Nov 10, 2002)

OG Quantum said:


> when I try to transfer large files to or from the tivo (including using methods not discussable here) it starts out fine then stops and will not accept any connections not just ftp but also telnet and tivoweb (plus others not discussable here) and needs to be rebooted. The light on my router stays illuminated.
> 
> When I installed the drivers and the card didn't work initially I did install the drivers again i.e. i ran the nicconfig program twice.
> 
> Anyone got any ideas? Is it a duff card or something I can do to the configuration.


Make sure you give each card a different MAC address! I'm not sure if they still get the same one by default but this has happened to me in the past and it resulted in the sort of behaviour you're seeing.

Hope this helps,
Andy.


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