# Does the Mini Vox self-destruct in 5 years like the A93?



## Doug G (Mar 3, 2005)

Bought a one-owner, lightly used, excellent condition A93 on eBay back in January this year to replace the Premiere in the living room. Worked great until a few weeks ago. Now stuck in the boot loop of death. It just displays the Tivo icon for about 3-4s and reboots, ad infinitum. Tried all the workarounds here with no success.

I see that there are lots of "factory refreshed" VOX (A95) units out there which certainly doesn't make me want to consider replacing it with a new unit if all I'm really doing is renting time, especially given the price. No idea where they get off charging 2 bills for something this cheap and poorly designed.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

My 3 A92s have not self-destructed after 5 years.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

We've had 3 or 4 v2/A93 Minis die this year, so, yeah, there seems to be an issue with them ... or at least a batch of them.

As for the A95/VOX|LUX Mini ... no way to know, given they've only been on the market for 3 years.


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## jaredmwright (Sep 6, 2004)

One more my Mini Vox just failed with similar symptoms. Not sure if it is bad flash in the unit and after an update and partition change it causes an issue. Would be nice if there were a way to manually reset it to defaults to attempt a repair since there is no removable drive on these.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

jaredmwright said:


> One more my Mini Vox just failed with similar symptoms. Not sure if it is bad flash in the unit and after an update and partition change it causes an issue. Would be nice if there were a way to manually reset it to defaults to attempt a repair since there is no removable drive on these.


The Minis are small enough that I'm just stashing them in a storage box, pending the long-shot that someone may some day determine a fix.


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

Doug G said:


> Bought a one-owner, lightly used, excellent condition A93 on eBay back in January this year to replace the Premiere in the living room. Worked great until a few weeks ago. Now stuck in the boot loop of death. It just displays the Tivo icon for about 3-4s and reboots, ad infinitum. Tried all the workarounds here with no success.
> 
> I see that there are lots of "factory refreshed" VOX (A95) units out there which certainly doesn't make me want to consider replacing it with a new unit if all I'm really doing is renting time, especially given the price. No idea where they get off charging 2 bills for something this cheap and poorly designed.


I read in a previous thread that someone called Tivo when their mini failed and Tivo sold them a Mini Lux at a reduced price.


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## brobin (Feb 14, 2014)

Always test with a new power supply before writing them off.


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## Doug G (Mar 3, 2005)

shwru980r said:


> I read in a previous thread that someone called Tivo when their mini failed and Tivo sold them a Mini Lux at a reduced price.


And I read a thread where someone was told since the failed unit was bought second hand on eBay they were "SOL" which I tend to believe this is the reality here.


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## Doug G (Mar 3, 2005)

brobin said:


> Always test with a new power supply before writing them off.


Good advice. I had a WD My Book I swore was failing about a year ago and it turned out the supplied switching P/S was just dying (couldn't provide the req'd startup current anymore.) I replaced it and the drive sprung back to life and has been fine ever since.

I did locate another 12V/1.0A unit in my basement but it didn't change a thing.


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## keithg1964 (Feb 2, 2006)

Doug G said:


> And I read a thread where someone was told since the failed unit was bought second hand on eBay they were "SOL" which I tend to believe this is the reality here.


I purchased two Minis off ebay and within an year one failed and they sold me a new Lux Mini for less than $50 about an year ago. I was surprised. Sidenote, I have a long term Tivo Customer and have had about a dozen or more Tivos. Not sure if that matters.


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## pfiagra (Oct 13, 2014)

keithg1964 said:


> I purchased two Minis off ebay and within an year one failed and they sold me a new Lux Mini for less than $50 about an year ago. I was surprised. Sidenote, I have a long term Tivo Customer and have had about a dozen or more Tivos. Not sure if that matters.


That was pre-Xperi. TiVo doesn't seem to be offering these deals anymore.


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## FiosUser (Nov 16, 2007)

shwru980r said:


> I read in a previous thread that someone called Tivo when their mini failed and Tivo sold them a Mini Lux at a reduced price.


yeah I had two minis fail that fit this scenario. They gave me 25 bucks off a lux and told me to call Weaknees to repair the minis--which Weaknees doesn't do repairs on minis.

Weird to me these are all failing. Wouldn't be the first time an update caused what symptoms to be a hardware issue, but really is soft.


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## mlcarson (Dec 31, 2007)

I purchased 4 mini's and they were all new at the time.
1/19/2016
12/25/2015
8/3/2015
12/9/2013

Three of them have now died. I know one died in 2019, one died earlier this year, and the other died today. So they don't seem to live more than about 5 years. The only one that I was able to check did not have an external power supply issue -- it was the Mini itself.


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## cjgadd3 (Mar 30, 2008)

My A9200 died today after 6 years. Stuck in reboot loop. Checked power adapter, is good. I guess it's just EOL. Oh well, looking at the new ones. Don't know if it's worth 200 to me.


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## cjgadd3 (Mar 30, 2008)

shwru980r said:


> I read in a previous thread that someone called Tivo when their mini failed and Tivo sold them a Mini Lux at a reduced price.


I called Tivo after my 6 year old mini died and they gave me $25 off. Not a lot, but it's something.


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## Corran Horn (Feb 12, 2002)

mlcarson said:


> I purchased 4 mini's and they were all new at the time.
> 1/19/2016
> 12/25/2015
> 8/3/2015
> ...


My TCDA92000 (2013 OG model) still lives and works very well. Knock on wood.

It has always been free-breathing out in the open so no ventilation problem at all. I wonder if that's why.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

mlcarson said:


> I purchased 4 mini's and they were all new at the time.
> 1/19/2016
> 12/25/2015
> 8/3/2015
> ...


Your TiVo account page may assist in identifying which of the above 4 units is still living. (And it would be interesting to know which it is; my expectation would be the 2013 unit, hypothesizing component/manufacturing issues with the 2015-era boxes.)


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## mlcarson (Dec 31, 2007)

The Tivo account page still shows all 4 mini's. The Act date is the date that the unit first went online and not the last day it was active. So I see no way of determining which one is live based on the Tivo account page. If I were onsite, I could just check the serial number but I am not. It still shows my old DVR 534A (series 3) and a DVR 0BDF (Series 2) too.



krkaufman said:


> Your TiVo account page may assist in identifying which of the above 4 units is still living. (And it would be interesting to know which it is; my expectation would be the 2013 unit, hypothesizing component/manufacturing issues with the 2015-era boxes.)


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