# Repeated Failed Roamios



## don544 (Nov 18, 2009)

We are on our fifth failed Roamio in just less than 11 months. The symptoms are they lose sound, then sometimes video, and sometimes color of video . The units all run what I would consider hot. Powering down by turning of the power at our power filter/surge protector that we have for our media center and then rebooting the unit sometimes brings them back up, sometimes it takes several reboots.

We have tried leaving it off for as much a half hour at times and that does not seem to matter. The question is is this product so poorly quality controlled that this is going to continue for as long as our lifetime service lasts, changing out and paying for a replacement or is it just a run of bad luck here?

Has any one else experienced similar problems?

I see no reason we should have to reboot all the time as that is not part of the design I would hope. However based on past history I am beginning to wonder.


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

Sounds like a bad power filter / surge protector to me frying every Roamio you've bought. I'd connect the next one directly to the wall and see what happens.

I've only had a couple of Roamios, but none have ever done anything you listed and never run hot.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

I would start looking at environmental causes. This is not normal. I would start with your power filter- could it be injecting bad power into the system or no effective due to usage/age? Are you cable or antenna?


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## wtkflhn (May 12, 2006)

jrtroo said:


> I would start looking at environmental causes. This is not normal. I would start with your power filter- could it be injecting bad power into the system or not beign effective due to usage/age? Are you cable or antenna?


 You might want to check and see that unit running to hot. Make sure you have good air circulation, I remember the older TIVO's had a temp reading in the diagnostics that would tell you if it was running too hot. But I looked for that feature in the Roamio and wasn't able to find it.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

wtkflhn said:


> You might want to check and see that unit running to hot. Make sure you have good air circulation, I remember the older TIVO's had a temp reading in the diagnostics that would tell you if it was running too hot. But I looked for that feature in the Roamio and wasn't able to find it.


System Information. MBT, motherboard temperature. It's C, and average is 40C.


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

Having that many failed units at one location over such a short period of time seems very suspicious. I agree with the above that you should consider external factors that might be causing these failures.


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## wtkflhn (May 12, 2006)

JoeKustra said:


> System Information. MBT, motherboard temperature. It's C, and average is 40C.


 Thanks for the info, Joe.


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## lgnad (Feb 14, 2013)

The hardware is solid, its something going on with your situation....

-Are you trapping it in an unventilated entertainment center? (especially with other heat generating hardware)
---
-Id also be suspicious of power/ground issues.... 

e.g. i had a friend with a mis-wired house, which as it turns out was grounding everything through the cable tv, regularly cooking various pieces of equipment... and eventually lightly toasting a cable tv installer who was trying to troubleshoot.

-Do you have an amp on your incoming video signal? it might be defective or too hot and cooking tuners.


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## Series3Sub (Mar 14, 2010)

The base Roamio does not have a robust a fan nor the same physical layout for how the Roamio is cooled compared to the Plus and Pro, so in some situations, heat can be a problem for the Roamio. Also, the larger the HDD, the more heat it creates.

If it is heat, you can raise the TiVo box using clear round casters that cost something like $2 for a pack of two. I choose clear color because the are the least noticeable and are most aesthetic. However, I recommend additional height to allow air to circulate below the box. You do this by super-gluing TWO casters together, one on top of the others. You can even go triple or quadruple height. This is especially important if the TiVo is on top of another piece of equipment that generates its own heat. Heat rises into the box on top of it.

I don't know if this would work for the TiVo Roamio, but it works for my Dish Hopper with Sling that is in a cabinet: I use a laptop cooling pad. It is powered by USB (the Roamio has USB connectors) and runs silently, but it significantly cools my HWS that used to have its fan roaring. Of course, the HWS was having all sorts of operational issues until I put the laptop cooling fan under it, and now it has been years of working well at proper temps inside a cabinet.

I, too, have had great experience with the two Roamios I got, and never had to return them. As stated, this very high number of failures might indicate quality of power or many other things or even just HEAT, which can cause all sorts of nutty problems when ANY piece of CE gets too hot.

Please let us know how things turn out.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

Series3Sub said:


> The base Roamio does not have a robust a fan nor the same physical layout for how the Roamio is cooled compared to the Plus and Pro, so in some situations, heat can be a problem for the Roamio. Also, the larger the HDD, the more heat it creates.


It's hard to tell why there is a difference between the MBT between the base Roamio and it's bigger brothers. True, the fan in a basic Roamio is tiny. TiVo could have added the S.M.A.R.T. reading for drive temperature, but they left out a lot of information in the Kickstart readings. Total run time would have been great.

As for the bigger drives, both of my base Roamios started with a MBT of 40C in a 72F room. Then I put a WD10EURX into one and no change in the MBT. I just added a WD30EURX into the next one and again no change in MBT. I don't find this surprising given the specs. But specs are not always correct: http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/SpecSheet/ENG/2879-701250.pdf


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

Just for the fun of it I decided to check the temp of the 4 TiVos I have plugged in at the moment:
Bolt with factory 1TB: ODT = 61
Roamio with 3TB Upgrade: MBT = 46
Premiere with 2TB upgrade: MBT = 34
TiVo HD with 2TB Upgrade: Internal Temperature = 37
All are in the open on their own shelves & the Bolt has a Roku sitting on it. So I guess my Roamio is also running a little hot.


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## dahacker (Jan 14, 2004)

Anecdotally, one of my Roamio Pros has for two years been severely heat abused sitting in an enclosed entertainment center with a huge Motorola heat generating set top box on top of it.


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## wtkflhn (May 12, 2006)

I checked the MBT pf my Roamio Pro and it is 38 degrees C.


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## don544 (Nov 18, 2009)

First off Tivo now claims this is a software issue. If that were so I asked them then why is it not being reported by thousands as it is the same on everyone's?
To address some basic questions and post some information I should have in the first place.
The Tivo is in a Home Theater Center that is cooled with filtered air and maintained at 68F +-2f by a forced air ventilation system . The electrical runs on server class UPS/Filter system that is fed from a whole house filtered/protected panel.( I am a retired electrical contractor and have several Systems from past work) The cable is run through a protector/surge system and is also connected to tuners in our HTPC , TV ,HDHOMERUN and home theater receiver/amplifier none of these have ever displayed and problems other than the Tivo.
If it were a tuner issue I would tend to think that recordings would be failing and they do not, it is the HDMI output that fails and restarts fine after a cold power off reboot.
I have thrown a line recorder on both the coax input and the line voltage input and left it connected to the system for several weeks and it has never shown any anomalies. I have (just out of frustration) remoted the Tivo to the outside of the cabinet and rerun the hdmi as a test.
The TV that this first started with has been replaced, the UPS was switched out just in case and the line feed was swapped to the other side of the box, once again as a just in case.
As nothing I have done seems to be the fix other than replacing the Tivo I tend to believe I have a run of bad luck with them.

Thank you all for your suggestions.


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## SomeRandomIdiot (Jan 7, 2016)

don544 said:


> First off Tivo now claims this is a software issue. If that were so I asked them then why is it not being reported by thousands as it is the same on everyone's?
> To address some basic questions and post some information I should have in the first place.
> The Tivo is in a Home Theater Center that is cooled with filtered air and maintained at 68F +-2f by a forced air ventilation system . The electrical runs on server class UPS/Filter system that is fed from a whole house filtered/protected panel.( I am a retired electrical contractor and have several Systems from past work) The cable is run through a protector/surge system and is also connected to tuners in our HTPC , TV ,HDHOMERUN and home theater receiver/amplifier none of these have ever displayed and problems other than the Tivo.
> If it were a tuner issue I would tend to think that recordings would be failing and they do not, it is the HDMI out put that fails and restarts fine after a cold power off reboot.
> ...


You have certainly covered most bases.

Is the UPS an APC? If so, put a scope on it and look at the square wave (and it's not just APCs).

What software issue did TiVo Techs say to be the cause?


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## just4tivo (Dec 9, 2015)

SomeRandomIdiot said:


> Is the UPS an APC? If so, put a scope on it and look at the square wave (and it's not just APCs).


Roamio OTAs use a wall wart which, in my experience, are pretty tolerant of the AC they feed on.
Most likely not the highest quality wall wart but with 12V DC output hardly likely that is causing
heat problems in the Roamio chassis.

One could hook up their Roamio to a 12V battery and see if the operating temp of the receiver goes down...


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## don544 (Nov 18, 2009)

SomeRandomIdiot said:


> You have certainly covered most bases.
> 
> Is the UPS an APC? If so, put a scope on it and look at the square wave (and it's not just APCs).
> 
> What software issue did TiVo Techs say to be the cause?


Output from the both the Eaton's and APC's looks as close to perfect on a scope as I have seen. My line recorder show no anomalies at all and I have removed that to eliminate any added possibilities.
Tivo techs, now on the third one say they pushed a software change to the Tivo Roamios back in August of last year and that they are working on a fix for this problem and they suggested changing the power saving feature to power down sooner. My fix so far has been to power down the unit , wait a few minutes and power it up before my wife turns on her programs and that seems to work so far. However it does not address the root cause.


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## don544 (Nov 18, 2009)

just4tivo said:


> Roamio OTAs use a wall wart which, in my experience, are pretty tolerant of the AC they feed on.
> Most likely not the highest quality wall wart but with 12V DC output hardly likely that is causing
> heat problems in the Roamio chassis.
> 
> One could hook up their Roamio to a 12V battery and see if the operating temp of the receiver goes down...


I had thought about that and have looking at where to locate a battery so my wife does not find it objectionable, as I believe I would want one that would last for at least a week for the experiment to be valid. As a last resort I think I could put it in the basement and pull an extra feed for it and parallel three good size vehicle batteries to get the time.

As an aside I see they no longer feature the Roamio on their site as they have moved on to the Bolt.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

don544 said:


> I had thought about that and have looking at where to locate a battery so my wife does not find it objectionable, as I believe I would want one that would last for at least a week for the experiment to be valid. As a last resort I think I could put it in the basement and pull an extra feed for it and parallel three good size vehicle batteries to get the time.
> 
> As an aside I see they no longer feature the Roamio on their site as they have moved on to the Bolt.


Before buying three car batteries, check out a deep cycle marine battery. I have one connected to my pure sine wave inverter. It weighs 70 pounds. Rated at 1000AH at 0 degrees F. Not cheap. It paid for itself during a 12 hour power failure when it ran my fridge a few years ago.


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## don544 (Nov 18, 2009)

JoeKustra said:


> Before buying three car batteries, check out a deep cycle marine battery. I have one connected to my pure sine wave inverter. It weighs 70 pounds. Rated at 1000AH at 0 degrees F. Not cheap. It paid for itself during a 12 hour power failure when it ran my fridge a few years ago.


Have no need to buy as I have at least six or more that are not needed elsewhere at the moment and would probably use the deepcycles from our rv anyway .
But thanks for the suggestion.


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## don544 (Nov 18, 2009)

Just a follow up, did run it on 12v dc from a couple of rv deep cycle batteries in parallel, do not know how to get any cleaner power than that and problem persisted.
However after contacting tivo support again and persisting for 7 weeks with their troubleshooting efforts(all nice folks by the way) the unit has totally failed in the video and audio out. Nothing on either the hdmi or the breakout avi cable( that was fun trying to look through all my antiques to find those and a tv that has inputs, good thing I am an electronics hoarder) 
Unit still is alive and I can access via the lan and still can push and pull video and schedule recordings so it did not just die.
Here is the kicker , because I went through the troubleshooting steps and it drug out for an extra 7 weeks they now want to charge a $149 to replace the unit and the customer service rep said yes that this is a known problem with the Roamio but it is still $149.
Lesson learned is do not wait insist that they replace as soon as it gives me problem. So far my $200 Roamio has cost me about 40 hours of my time and another $200 .
Thanks to all who have made suggestions


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## SomeRandomIdiot (Jan 7, 2016)

don544 said:


> Just a follow up, did run it on 12v dc from a couple of rv deep cycle batteries in parallel, do not know how to get any cleaner power than that and problem persisted.
> However after contacting tivo support again and persisting for 7 weeks with their troubleshooting efforts(all nice folks by the way) the unit has totally failed in the video and audio out. Nothing on either the hdmi or the breakout avi cable( that was fun trying to look through all my antiques to find those and a tv that has inputs, good thing I am an electronics hoarder)
> Unit still is alive and I can access via the lan and still can push and pull video and schedule recordings so it did not just die.
> Here is the kicker , because I went through the troubleshooting steps and it drug out for an extra 7 weeks they now want to charge a $149 to replace the unit and the customer service rep said yes that this is a known problem with the Roamio but it is still $149.
> ...


Take them to small claims court and file with FTC/BBB


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

don544 said:


> Just a follow up, did run it on 12v dc from a couple of rv deep cycle batteries in parallel, do not know how to get any cleaner power than that and problem persisted.
> However after contacting tivo support again and persisting for 7 weeks with their troubleshooting efforts(all nice folks by the way) the unit has totally failed in the video and audio out. Nothing on either the hdmi or the breakout avi cable( that was fun trying to look through all my antiques to find those and a tv that has inputs, good thing I am an electronics hoarder)
> Unit still is alive and I can access via the lan and still can push and pull video and schedule recordings so it did not just die.
> Here is the kicker , because I went through the troubleshooting steps and it drug out for an extra 7 weeks they now want to charge a $149 to replace the unit and the customer service rep said yes that this is a known problem with the Roamio but it is still $149.
> ...


So you reported the problem within the pathetically short warranty period and they're basically saying "We managed to stall you with troubleshooting and BS, so it's out of warranty now and not really our problem."?


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## jmbach (Jan 1, 2009)

Out of curiosity, and maybe I missed it earlier, have you tried using a different HDMI cable or even tried connecting to the TV another way other than HDMI?


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## don544 (Nov 18, 2009)

jmbach said:


> Out of curiosity, and maybe I missed it earlier, have you tried using a different HDMI cable or even tried connecting to the TV another way other than HDMI?


Sorry for the late reply but yes I had replaced the cable as I have six in the setup so it was tried on all, For all of your suggestions I thank everyone. What appears to have worked so far is to add redundant hdmi protectors on both ends of the hdmi cables or we just lucked out with our last replacement unit as it is still working. Now if only we had this kind of luck with clueless cast xfiniti.


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