# Flip Bolt upside-down?



## jccfin (Aug 28, 2008)

We all are aware at how moronic both the industrial design team as well as the engineering team at Tivo are. That's how we ended up with a product like the Bolt.

Cheap plastic that doesn't sit flat and vents from the bottom even though heat radiates *up*! 

After using it for a couple of days I see that the box gets pretty warm especially if you have it on an enclosed shelf. I decided to just do a simple hack, I flipped the unit on it's back. Since it's going to be behind a glass door, no one will see that it's like a turtle flipped on it's back. Now, it's venting correctly. I'll check it in a day to see how it holds up!

Anyone else?


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Mine are fine heat wise with a 4TB drive in each of them. They are both being cooled like they should be when sitting like the Bolt was designed for.

Previous TiVos have no vents on the sides or top either.

I'm no fan of the design, but it does seem to work.

EDIT: I just used a non contact thermometer to check the temps at several locations on the tops of my TiVos. All four of them have temps in the seventies(F). My Roamio Pro with a 5TB drive, a ROamio Basic with a 1TB drive, and two Bolts with 4TB drives.

Although the Bolts ranged from the mid 70's to upper 70's, the Roamio Pro was the low 70's to the mid 70's, and the Roamio Basic was in the mid 70's. So the Bolts were only a little warmer.


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## jccfin (Aug 28, 2008)

aaronwt said:


> Mine are fine heat wise with a 4TB drive in each of them. They are both being cooled like they should be when sitting like the Bolt was designed for.
> 
> Previous TiVos have no vents on the sides or top either.
> 
> ...


Mine is warmer than 70 degrees. Especially in the center where the CPU heatsink sits. When you're recoding and watching a program is really starts to heat up. Although I don't have it sitting out in the open which could also contribute to the heat.

My previous Tivo was a Premier which was perfectly designed to dissipate heat with the fan facing out the back like a computer.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

jccfin said:


> Mine is warmer than 70 degrees. Especially in the center where the CPU heatsink sits. When you're recoding and watching a program is really starts to heat up. Although I don't have it sitting out in the open which could also contribute to the heat.
> 
> My previous Tivo was a Premier which was perfectly designed to dissipate heat with the fan facing out the back like a computer.


The only time my Bolts gets noticeably warmer is when transferring content to another TiVo or PC(and probably while streaming to a tablet but I have not checked temps when doing that). When I checked the temps last night, there were three recordings on one and four recordings on the other Bolt being made. I was using one Bolt to watch TV while the other Bolt was in standby. The temps from both of them were similar.

I guess i need to go through and check the temps under more conditions. I remember checking temps with the first Bolts I had and those were little higher. But these two Bolts have consistently run cooler than the first three Bolts I owned.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

jccfin said:


> Cheap plastic that doesn't sit flat and vents from the bottom even though heat radiates *up*!


You were looking for expensive plastic? 

Hot air rises, heat radiates. Since the tivo uses active cooling, the importance is that air is being pulled across the heatsink and out the fan.


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## jccfin (Aug 28, 2008)

jrtroo said:


> You were looking for expensive plastic?
> 
> Hot air rises, heat radiates. Since the tivo uses active cooling, the importance is that air is being pulled across the heatsink and out the fan.


Yes, there are higher quality plastics and then the cheap, soft, brittle ones that Tivo chose for the Bolt.

The importance is knowing how to design a proper ventilating case. Putting the vent on the bottom of something you're trying to cool is dumber than dumb...even if it's active.

So here's how bad the design is.
1. They put the venting fan at the bottom of what they are actively trying to cool.
2. They put as little space as possible for the air to vacate the area below the box they're trying to cool.
3. They put the air intake also below, close to where the warm air is suppose to leave the area surrounding the box, but because it can't, gets sucked back into the unit thereby perpetually warming the box.
4. Because they use cheap plastic instead of metal, heat can't radiate from the chassis itself.

Have I left anything out of this disaster? They should do a case study at some design school on exactly what *not* to do...I think they hit every single characteristic perfectly. Normally, you see a product that perhaps hit one or two of those, but Tivo has hit them *all*! WOW!


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## jccfin (Aug 28, 2008)

aaronwt said:


> The only time my Bolts gets noticeably warmer is when transferring content to another TiVo or PC(and probably while streaming to a tablet but I have not checked temps when doing that). When I checked the temps last night, there were three recordings on one and four recordings on the other Bolt being made. I was using one Bolt to watch TV while the other Bolt was in standby. The temps from both of them were similar.
> 
> I guess i need to go through and check the temps under more conditions. I remember checking temps with the first Bolts I had and those were little higher. But these two Bolts have consistently run cooler than the first three Bolts I owned.


Thanks for your input. I think I may have to keep mine out in the open and not in a cabinet. Mine is still getting too warm when inside even though one of the sides is open...


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