# Tivo slow down



## benallenuk (Aug 1, 2005)

Hi guys, My Maxtor 120GB died a few months back, thread here: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=342295

I replaced it with a samsung 300HD drive. All works fine, but tivo menus have slowed down quite a lot. Ive got NTL Cable setup so quite a few channels etc. I have the default setting quality on basic. i deleted all but 30 recordings and still the now-showing list takes ages to appear.

All my hacks are running in the background, apart from suggestions involving a cache card, I have a turbonet card, what else can i do to inprove speeds.

I just bought a basic 40GB tivo, dont know why but was only £35 from ebay, and its unltra quick.

Has all my 3 years of hacking messed up my tivo?

thanks

ben


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## AMc (Mar 22, 2002)

As Tivoweb lets you undelete shows, perhaps they're still hanging around in the background clogging up the interface. 
Is there a lot available on your http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/ui/deletedshows page?

I'm impressed you can watch "basic" - I used "High" even with a 40GB drive and quickly went to Mode 0 "Best" when I got network access.


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## healeydave (Jun 4, 2003)

I would think you only have two options.

1. Install a cachecard with sdram as you already know.

2. Run a clear and delete everything.

I don't know what is causing your slowdown but I imagine it is through usage which simply deleting programs doesn't cure. The slowdown is caused by the tivo accessing the database before it progresses onto the next screen, I have seen tivos with pages of basic quality recordings and not suffer from a slowdown and yet units with not too many recordings suffer. It tends to be Season pass, wishlist and database intensive requirements that cause the phenomena. 

I would opt for option 1 and be done with it, perhaps moving the turbonet into Tivo 2


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## terryeden (Nov 2, 2002)

I find that a slowdown is caused by excess Season Passes. Once I'd trimmed them down to below 50*, everything seemed to speed up. Now playing included.

Terry
*They're not bringing back "Trumpton"... have a season pass won't help...


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## kitschcamp (May 18, 2001)

50! Eek! How long would it take to remove over 200...


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

Not long if you do it with tivoweb.

TW is missing the multi select capability in the season pass page though to do it all in one.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Although I get regular reboots when using more demanding Tivoweb apps like Digiguide and Search by Advisory Code and Highlights my Tivo almost never reboots on its own when left unattended. It ran for over 31 days without a reboot last summer when I was away overseas.

I have however had a couple of complete freezes of the Tivo television user interface even though both Telnet and FTP continue to respond as normal. This is why I am considering getting Cron to do a once a day Restart or Reboot in the early hours so that I don't lose any significant number of recordings on the rare occasions that this happens. On the other hand I would then lose a minute or two of any recordings happening at that time of day (which would also get split in two).

As to the reboots caused by demanding Tivoweb apps that many of us experience but that TCM does not I wonder if using the el cheapo 512MB PC133 SDRAM DIMM from Ebuyer may have anthing to do with it. No doubt TCM will tell us that he is using the finest Class 1 Crucial memory or similar in his Cachecard.


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

Can you remember what command line you used to do the upgrade?

The "-r 4" option makes the tivo use a bigger blocksize so uses less RAM and might be a little faster, as does the "-p" option which positions stuff better.

Probably too late for all that now though, so have a look here  for using setpri to streamline your hacks' priority 
- it stops the background processes slowing tivo down

I'd also check you aren't runnning without a swap file as using the wrong value, or wrong CD can cause that:

cat /proc/meminfo

should show you, as will tivoweb info page http://tivo/info


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

benallenuk said:


> *I have the default setting quality on basic*.


Most other posters in this thread seem to have missed this crucial point.

With 300Gb of hard drive space but no Cachecard and 512MB of RAM you can't go on using Basic (which will generate over 300 hours of recordings on this hard drive size) without expecting a big, big slow down.

If you delete all or most of your existing Basic recordings and then start recording everything only at Best (limiting you to around 85 Hours) your Tivo will speed up again.

If you want to keep more hours of recordings then you have to invest in the Cachecard and RAM.

Your Ebay Tivo presumably has no recordings or next to no recordings on it and this is why it is ultra fast.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

Pete77 said:


> Most other posters in this thread seem to have missed this crucial point.


But you missed that he only has 30 recordings!

Tried rebooting the TiVo? Memory leaks can add up over time.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

Pete77 said:


> As to the reboots caused by demanding Tivoweb apps that many of us experience but that TCM does not I wonder if using the el cheapo 512MB PC133 SDRAM DIMM from Ebuyer may have anthing to do with it. No doubt TCM will tell us that he is using the finest Class 1 Crucial memory or similar in his Cachecard.


It's not that I don't get them, it's that in many years of being on this forum only you have ever mentioned them, whereas every ailment is usually gone through in detail. So I conclude they are not a common problem, and your use of the word "many" is, erm, interesting.

Are you seriously suggesting that using chap RAM would slow the menus down?


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Any PC133 (or even PC100) RAM is way over-specified for TiVo use anyway as the TiVo CPU only runs at 54mhz, so as long as it's not faulty then who made it will be irrelevant.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> Any PC133 (or even PC100) RAM is way over-specified for TiVo use anyway as the TiVo CPU only runs at 54mhz, so as long as it's not faulty then who made it will be irrelevant.


Well that's reassuring to know and certainly it never fails the testing and preparation routine when the Cachecard starts up.

Of course I don't recall mentioning one of the most frequent proponents of the use of the Ebuyer memory in a Cachecard in this thread though? To be honest your enthusiasm for this product has always been a bit of a mystery to me given your normal approach of only using the very quietest IDE hard drive available, regardless of cost.  

However to be fair at the time you were most keen on the Ebuyer memory all the alternatives were nearly double the price, whereas these days a well known memory brand is only a few quid extra so I know which one I would go for if I was making the choice of memory today.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

TCM2007 said:


> It's not that I don't get them, it's that in many years of being on this forum only you have ever mentioned them.


Quite a few TivoWeb 1.9.4 users who have also tried TivoWebPlus 2.0 seem to have also mentioned the issue.

Still I have long ago become resigned to knowing that you always consider your own view on almost any Tivo UK matter to be authoritative regardless of the existence of any evidence to the contrary.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> To be honest your enthusiasm for this product has always been a bit of a mystery to me


Well, as I said, and you quoted:-


blindlemon said:


> Any PC133 (or even PC100) RAM is way over-specified for TiVo use anyway as the TiVo CPU only runs at 54mhz, so as long as it's not faulty then who made it will be irrelevant.


Does that not explain it? 

I test all the RAM I supply in a cachecard before shipping it, so any duds get caught by me not my customers. In 3 years I have not had a single customer return a RAM module to me.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> Well, as I said, and you quoted:-
> Does that not explain it?
> 
> I test all the RAM I supply in a cachecard before shipping it, so any duds get caught by me not my customers. In 3 years I have not had a single customer return a RAM module to me.


So the only disadvantage of cheap RAM is that you act as a free tester for the manufacturer but so long as it actually works when you get it then it should work just as well as RAM from Crucial, Kingston etc? 

Its just that Crucial and Kingston's marketing pitch always seems to be the opposite of this and they tend to try to imply some kind of enhanced performance by their memory as well?


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> So the only disadvantage of cheap RAM is that you act as a free tester for the manufacturer but so long as it actually works when you get it then it should work just as well as RAM from Crucial, Kingston etc?
> 
> Its just that Crucial and Kingston's marketing pitch always seems to be the opposite of this and they tend to try to imply some kind of enhanced performance by their memory as well?


Of course - that's what encourages people to pay more for it 

Have you not noticed how the advertising for expensive brands always tries to imply that their product is in some undefinable way _better _than the rest...?  With some products there may be an element of truth in it, but in this case I seriously doubt it unless, maybe, you are running the RAM at 100% (or more) of its rated speed in a hot overclocked PC.

In the case of the RAM for a cachecard, even PC100 RAM is running at, at most, 54% of it's rated speed, and the PC133 stuff we're discussing is running at only 41% - so any marginal differences in RAM performance are really not going to make any difference at all in this scenario.

Of course, if you want to go out and spend extra on the most expensive, heavily advertised RAM in the nicest possible presentation case you can find, you're very welcome to do so - but given your well-known aversion to high prices , I somehow doubt if you will be doing that any time soon...


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> Have you not noticed how the advertising for expensive brands always tries to imply that their product is in some undefinable way _better _than the rest...?  With some products there may be an element of truth in it, but in this case I seriously doubt it unless, maybe, you are running the RAM at 100% (or more) of its rated speed in a hot overclocked PC.


While Samsung I suppose turns out a far better quality hard drive for PVR use than any of its competitors (i.e. HA250JC and HA200JC) and then fails to advertise that fact? 

Or is it just that hard drive manufacturers in the main only sell to PC and PVR manufacturers and so have no need to promote the merits of their product with the ordinary general public?


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Samsung aren't more expensive than other decent quality drives - they're just better :up:

The price of the HA250JC is now an anomaly caused by the fact that they have been discontinued and remaining stocks are scarce. Look at the price of the HD400LD compared to other decent 400gb drives and you'll see what I mean


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

Pete77 said:


> Quite a few TivoWeb 1.9.4 users who have also tried TivoWebPlus 2.0 seem to have also mentioned the issue.
> 
> Still I have long ago become resigned to knowing that you always consider your own view on almost any Tivo UK matter to be authoritative regardless of the existence of any evidence to the contrary.


I look forward to the day that you provide any evidence to back up any of your statements on any subject!

I did a search on "tivoweb reboots tivo" which came back with 997 hits, but most were not about the issue you describe. Those that were, were by you!

I got bored reading after a while, but I certainly cannot easily find anyone other than yourself reporting the issue?

I'm not saying it never happens, but you make it out to be a common problem, and it just isn't.


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## jeremy Parsons (Jan 6, 2002)

I run TW1.9.4 and endpad and a cachecard on my tivo's I found that having tivoftpd running in the background seemed to push the memory usage over the top and caused more reboots , now i just load it when I want to use it and tend not to get reboots ,my tivos runtime has sometimes exceeded 300 days at one point however it had slowed down a lot at this point.

I must also point out however thena i now used tivo web infrequently as my work has put a ban on me accessing tivo :-(


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

jeremy Parsons said:


> I must also point out however i now use tivoweb infrequently as my work has put a ban on me accessing tivo :-(


Has it specifically banned you using Tivoweb or just banned access to any IP address or URL not on a standard list of safe well known websites? Clearly dyndns is also going to be banned as its URLs can redirect absolutely anywhere.

You might therefore want to consider using the new cut down version of Tivoweb for mobile phones produced by another UK member of this forum.


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