# Fan noise



## Fifty1Ford (Sep 11, 2005)

I just checked, my new Premiere has a noisy fan.
The harddrive is quite as can be. If I open the Tivo up and unplug the fan the noise goes away.
It is a rattling or ticking sound.. Somewhat like a bad bearing.

I'm getting kinda' disappointed here. I have an issue with HDMI through my receiver not working and now I have a bad fan.

I can put up with temporary glitchy software. I went through that 10 years ago with my Series 1 (still working) and they got the software issues sorted out within a month or so. 

But a fan going bad within a week? I don't want to send it back and loose all the programs and go through the hassle of new season passes and ANOTHER cable company 'truck-roll' charge, plus being without this Tivo on my main tv.

I had an old series 1 or 2 fan from swapping out the stock fan for a higher cfm when I added a second hard drive, plug fits but it does not spin up. I'm guessing that the variable speed fan on the TivoP must spin up at a lower voltage than the older models?? 

Any chance that I could get through to some kind of higher level tech support and have them just send me a replacement fan? It's all of 5 screws and a plug to do it. I've had Tivos forever and replaced so many drives and fans for friends and family I can't even count.. Too bad they are all older SD boxes or I would already have spare fans around. 

Any others with this problem?


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## Rexrod (May 8, 2010)

My fan is noisy on the Premiere too. It doesn't whir it buzzes. I know it is the fan I am hearing because I stuck something in the fan to stop it and the buzz stopped. I can hear the hard drive too but I have no problem with that since it is a sound that should be coming from the hard drive. But the fan...I know it is a quality thing like the magnets or bearing or something is the bad one out of a batch of a 1000. So when you disconnected the fan did the Tivo software fire an alert to the screen? I am just thinking of running the Tivo without the fan connected. And yes I agree if they could send a new fan to me that would solve the problem. But I bet that would be too difficult to inventory those little fans as a part to send to customers.


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## chrispitude (Apr 23, 2005)

The fan on our Premiere is silent. I'm sure it uses a standard-size fan. Measure the fan size, then go to the SilentPCReview forums and find a good quiet fan to plunk in there. Make sure the connection type (3-pin, 4-pin, etc.) is the same.


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## jlib (Nov 22, 2002)

TiVo can't do anything that suggests you are allowed to open the box (exposed power supply being the main reason). Just bite the bullet and buy a replacement on your own. I'm sure the upgrade companies that advertise here have the right size fan for you if you can't find one on the open market. Careful: The 70mm size is often used as a computer CPU fan (i.e., loud) so make sure you are getting an exact or equivalent replacement if searching on your own.


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## _Ryan_ (Apr 4, 2010)

For what it's worth, my Premiere's fan is slightly more noisy than the TiVo HD's fan. I think a very very slight ticking sound is how I would describe it. It's not loud though at all, and I can only hear it if the room is silent. Maybe mine has a slight problem too?


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## sunkil (Mar 18, 2011)

I appreciate the idea about testing the fan by sticking something in it. I briefly stuck the tip of a pencil into mine and not only did it verify that the fan was the issue, it must have knocked whatever was off kilter back into place and stopped the noise completely.

I upgraded an 8-year-old Series 2 to a Premiere about 6 months ago. 2 days ago it started making an abnormally loud rattling noise as if the hard drive was doing some heavy processing, but it never stopped. I felt a bit better seeing that it's a common and relatively minor problem, I guess, but I feel even better that I've stopped the rattling for now at least.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Just replace the fan.


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## h2oskierc (Dec 16, 2010)

The fan on mine is going out now too. If I replace the fan myself will that void the warranty?

I've worked on many computers, so doing it myself doesn't bother me, but the warranty does...


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

h2oskierc said:


> The fan on mine is going out now too. If I replace the fan myself will that void the warranty?
> 
> I've worked on many computers, so doing it myself doesn't bother me, but the warranty does...


Just keep the old fan if you did need warranty work, just put it back in. People do this with hard drive upgrades all the time. (you just don't tell the TiVo CSR that you did anything)


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## h2oskierc (Dec 16, 2010)

lessd said:


> Just keep the old fan if you did need warranty work, just put it back in. People do this with hard drive upgrades all the time. (you just don't tell the TiVo CSR that you did anything)


Cool, I take it they can't tell the box has been opened?


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

h2oskierc said:


> Cool, I take it they can't tell the box has been opened?


As long as you never replaced the hard drive they can't.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

aaronwt said:


> As long as you never replaced the hard drive they can't.


If you did replace the hard drive and put back the original before calling TiVo (and have your TiVo call home a few times) most CSRs would not look at the history of your TiVos call in an find out that at one time you had replaced the drive, most of the time the CSR don't even look at the TiVo call in history when you call with a problem.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

lessd said:


> If you did replace the hard drive and put back the original before calling TiVo (and have your TiVo call home a few times) most CSRs would not look at the history of your TiVos call in an find out that at one time you had replaced the drive, most of the time the CSR don't even look at the TiVo call in history when you call with a problem.


True most of the time, but I know first hand that most of the time is not never. Since I ran into an issue where they saw I replaced the hard drive and would not do anything under warranty. So I just put the original back in and exchanged it at the store i purchased it from since it was within the return period.

Of course the issues were never even hardware related. It was when the TiVoHDs were first released and it was putting out a mono signal from the analog stereo channels when I had Comcast. I never did find out if they fixed it since I got FiOS a couple of months later and never watched their analog channels when they had them back in 2007.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

aaronwt said:


> True most of the time, but I know first hand that most of the time is not never. Since I ran into an issue where they saw I replaced the hard drive and would not do anything under warranty. So I just put the original back in and exchanged it at the store i purchased it from since it was within the return period.
> 
> Of course the issues was never evan hardware related. It was when the TiVoHDs were first released and it was putting out a mono signal from the analog stereo channels when I had Comcast. I never did find out if they fixed it since I got FiOS a couple of months later and never watched their analog channels when they had them back in 2007.


You are correct that why I said you may get away with it.


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## cmthomson (Jun 30, 2011)

sunkil said:


> I appreciate the idea about testing the fan by sticking something in it. I briefly stuck the tip of a pencil into mine and not only did it verify that the fan was the issue, it must have knocked whatever was off kilter back into place and stopped the noise completely.


Ditto. My premiere fan started making noise after about six months, and when I stopped it, it was quiet again for about a week, then got even noisier. I replaced it with a fan from weaKnees, which had a slightly different part number (both are CoFan); let's see how long this one lasts.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

At least it's an easy fix.


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## rajiv (Apr 1, 2002)

the fan in my premiere is unexpectedly loud when the box reboots (before fan control kicks in?). afterwards it quiets down and is not audible. could it be failing?


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

rajiv said:


> the fan in my premiere is unexpectedly loud when the box reboots (before fan control kicks in?). afterwards it quiets down and is not audible. could it be failing?


This is normal. The TiVo veries the speed of the fan depending on the temperature(At least I guess that is what the speed is based on). Anyway when the Premiere first boots up the fan runs at 100% speed for a few seconds. Every Premiere I've owned has done this.


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## KCcardsfan (Feb 20, 2011)

aaronwt said:


> This is normal. The TiVo veries the speed of the fan depending on the temperature(At least I guess that is what the speed is based on). Anyway when the Premiere first boots up the fan runs at 100% speed for a few seconds. Every Premiere I've owned has done this.


I just had this problem for the first time in the 6 months I owned it. The fan was really loud as soon as it was done rebooting it went back to its normal quiet self. I have never had any noise when rebooting and this noise was very loud. You say this is normal?


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

KCcardsfan said:


> I just had this problem for the first time in the 6 months I owned it. The fan was really loud as soon as it was done rebooting it went back to its normal quiet self. I have never had any noise when rebooting and this noise was very loud. You say this is normal?


With my Premieres the fan has always been loud when first booting until it slows the speed of the fan down.

But I am talking about at the beginning of the reboot. When it is first booting up. Not at the end of the bootup time.


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