# Noisy Fan?



## flotzie (Nov 30, 2006)

Hi, My Tivo makes a whirring noise even when in standby mode. It's not that loud but I notice it when in bed at night. Could it be the fan?


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

flotzie said:


> Hi, My Tivo makes a whirring noise even when in standby mode. It's not that loud but I notice it when in bed at night. Could it be the fan?


The hard drives still run even in Standby mode. The only difference is the video output and the lights on the front of the unit are switched off in Standby.

The fan hardly makes any noise that you are likely to be able to hear above the original hard drive noise of the Quantum drives.


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## terryeden (Nov 2, 2002)

Get an air blaster from Maplin or Costco, unplug the TiVo at the wall, open it up and blow all the dust out of there.

The fan will run quieter and your TiVo will be cooler.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

terryeden said:


> Get an air blaster from Maplin or Costco, unplug the TiVo at the wall, open it up and blow all the dust out of there.
> 
> The fan will run quieter and your TiVo will be cooler.


Some vacuum cleaners can be tuned into air blowers for free and I assume would do the job just as well. Of course make sure the vacuum isn't still in suction mode when you use it or you will live to regret it severely.


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## flotzie (Nov 30, 2006)

terryeden said:


> Get an air blaster from Maplin or Costco, unplug the TiVo at the wall, open it up and blow all the dust out of there.
> 
> The fan will run quieter and your TiVo will be cooler.


I'll try that first :up:


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## aerialplug (Oct 20, 2000)

If its never had its drives changed and has been in use for most of its life, chances are that by now the drive bearings will be worn and the drive makes more of a whining noise.

TiVo will always make a little noise though both through the fan and the drives - this is inewvetable I'm afraid.


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## flotzie (Nov 30, 2006)

aerialplug said:


> If its never had its drives changed and has been in use for most of its life, chances are that by now the drive bearings will be worn and the drive makes more of a whining noise.
> 
> TiVo will always make a little noise though both through the fan and the drives - this is inewvetable I'm afraid.


It is 6 years old and I did get th GSOD the other day


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

flotzie said:


> It is 6 years old and I did get th GSOD the other day


Its only a matter of days, weeks or at best months before the end is nigh for your hard drives.

Why not act now before they decide to let you down on Christmas Eve.


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## flotzie (Nov 30, 2006)

Pete77 said:


> Its only a matter of days, weeks or at best months before the end is nigh for your hard drives.
> 
> Why not act now before they decide to let you down on Christmas Eve.


I was wondering that. If it seizes up will it do TIVO any other damage?


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

flotzie said:


> I was wondering that. If it seizes up will it do TIVO any other damage?


Nope it won't damage the unit in any other way but it will wipe out all your Tivo recordings and all your thumbs settings and Season Passes and Wishlists (all of which could be saved if you upgraded now) leaving you needing to download the CD image of a factory supplied Tivo system to create the new hard drive or alternatively buying a preformatted drive from www.TivoHeaven.co.uk or TivoLand.com

Others may wish to correct me but if your hard drives are that old and you have had a GSOD then it tells you that they are about to finally kick the bucket any time soon. You really should take the hint rather than the Tivo going belly up on Dec 24th when TivoLand and TivoHeaven have perhaps shut up shop for a week, and even if they haven't the Royal Mail is going to stop you getting a new drive for a few days.


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

Pete77 said:


> The hard drives still run even in Standby mode. The only difference is the video output and the lights on the front of the unit are switched off in Standby.


Standby does a little more than that:

tivo starts recording suggestions immediately in standby mode, 
instead of waiting for 30mins without a keypress in normal mode.

it releases the SCART control, so another device can switch in to the tv,
and the tv will auto switch to tivo's scart when tivo comes out of standby.

and it switches off the tv if you have set the tv/volume controls for your tv.


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## flotzie (Nov 30, 2006)

I think I will change the HDD. Which supplier do you reckon is best for someone who is an ex-electrical tech but not familar with the inside of a TIVO?

www.TivoHeaven.co.uk or TivoLand.com


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

mikerr said:


> Standby does a little more than that:
> 
> tivo starts recording suggestions immediately in standby mode,
> instead of waiting for 30mins without a keypress in normal mode.
> ...


I knew about all of those apart from there being a 30 minute activity timeout required to start recording Suggestions when not in Standby mode.

Obviously what everyone would have really wanted Standby to do though would be to power the hard drives down except when a scheduled recording was due. This would be especially true for people who don't use Suggestions and only record a modest number of programs each week. Having said that even in the absence of such a mode many Quantum hard drives seem to have lasted for 5 or 6 years.

Personally I only ever use the Standby button on the remote when a Live tv program appears to record that I don't want to watch at that time as background noise (I am usually on the computer at that stage) and I also don't want to watch another Now Playing item.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

flotzie said:


> I think I will change the HDD. Which supplier do you reckon is best for someone who is an ex-electrical tech but not familar with the inside of a TIVO?


It seems to me that both these outfits are pretty knowledgeable with Tivos and I wouldn't like to express a personal preference - that has to be a customer choice.

The only major difference between the two is that one of them seems to be trying to build the business up to a larger scale a bit harder than the other by regularly plying the forums here a little more often and offering helpful advice. But the other firm does also post on the forum too from time to time.

If you are an ex electrical tech though you really ought to be able to do the whole thing yourself by following www.steveconrad.co.uk/tivo and his guide there if you have a desktop PC you can use to hand (if you only have a Notebook PC and can't borrow a desktop then buying a preconfigure drive is really your only option). But you would probably have to give yourself 4 or 5 hours at least to read up on it and go through with it. Blindlemon and one or two others here are usually prepared to offer a helping hand on the forum if you get stuck with a self upgrade.

A nice aspect of doing the upgrade yourself is you should be able to keep all your recordings and thumbs data and season passes if you ask people on here to give you the right set of commands as to how to do this.


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## flotzie (Nov 30, 2006)

Pete77 said:


> It seems to me that both these outfits are pretty knowledgeable with Tivos and I wouldn't like to express a personal preference - that has to be a customer choice.
> 
> The only major difference between the two is that one of them seems to be trying to build the business up to a larger scale a bit harder than the other by regularly plying the forums here a little more often and offering helpful advice. But the other firm does also post on the forum too from time to time.


I think you might mean www.TivoHeaven.co.uk ?


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## aerialplug (Oct 20, 2000)

flotzie said:


> I think I will change the HDD. Which supplier do you reckon is best for someone who is an ex-electrical tech but not familar with the inside of a TIVO?
> 
> www.TivoHeaven.co.uk or TivoLand.com


Both provide a good service asa far as I can see - but if you're reasonably computer literate, you may also enjoy the challenge of doing it yourself. I've upgraded my own TiVo and also that of two colleagues - the hardest part each time was getting the case open!


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

flotzie said:


> I think you might mean www.TivoHeaven.co.uk ?


As a potential customer you might very well say that but I couldn't possibly comment. 

HealeyDave of TivoLand does also make some posts on the forum but not as many as blindlemon of TivoHeaven.

But as I posted above in my revised post as an electrical tech you ought to have the necessary skills to be able to do the upgrade yourself. It is quite a bit cheaper as one possible incentive to try the DIY route but then again you have to trade that against the worry that it might all go horribly wrong.............


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

I make this many posts on the forum because I'm addicted to it 

The full-on DIY route is really only for people who don't mind getting into problems - and getting into problems with your TiVo is a worrying thing  I remember when I upgraded a mate's TiVo a number of years ago (only my 2nd upgrade after doing my own!) that from the expression on his face you'd think I was performing brain-surgery on one of his kids! I have never seen a grown man look so petrified....


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> The full-on DIY route is really only for people who don't mind getting into problems - and getting into problems with your TiVo is a worrying thing


As to being addicted to the forum its also a case of "mea culpa" here too I fear.

Well the old saying is no pain, no gain and in a way by doing the upgrade yourself you do get far more idea of how the Tivo operating system all fits together. Also you are better set up mindset wise for installing subsequent hacks on the Tivo as not all the hacks come with instructions documented up to the stunning standard set by www.ljay.org.uk

But anyhow if you decide to do your own upgrade and get your own Cachecard and so on and get hopelessly stuck I bet I know a man on here that you could send your new hard drives to in the post and who would sort it all out for you. Of course no doubt that helpful person would have to charge a service fee to make up for the service charges normally built in to their pre configured drive and Cachecard prices.  

Still as the old saying goes you only get the level of service that you actually pay for................


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## George (Nov 14, 2001)

I've done both methods. I upgraded the drives in my own machine using the DIY method (in fact I don't think anyone was offering a paid service back then). If you follow the instructions it really is quite easy (although a little scary the first time).

My parents machine gave the GSOD and they were not worried about trying to recover recordings or settings. I was a bit busy at the time so I took the easy option of ordering from Tivoheaven. It was delivered quickly and worked first time but you have to trade that off against the time it takes to set up season passes again and setting up customised channels - don;t underestimate this. Working out which channels can be received on their freesat box and then working out which of these they actually would want to receive can take some time.


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