# Broken TiVo Stream



## Thom (Jun 5, 2000)

I ordered a Stream direct from TiVo and just received it this morning.

It arrived broken. When I unboxed it, I could hear and feel something heavy banging around inside the Stream as I moved it around. Turns out the heatsink/fan assembly adhesive compound had broken loose from the chip it was supposed to keep cool.

So now I'm waiting for a replacement. Heavy sigh.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

That sucks. I bought one back when there were first released and mine sounded like a jet engine. It functioned but I complained and got a replacement that was much quieter. (although still pretty loud considering)


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## PCurry57 (Feb 27, 2012)

Thom said:


> I ordered a Stream direct from TiVo and just received it this morning.
> 
> It arrived broken. When I unboxed it, I could hear and feel something heavy banging around inside the Stream as I moved it around. Turns out the heatsink/fan assembly adhesive compound had broken loose from the chip it was supposed to keep cool.
> 
> So now I'm waiting for a replacement. Heavy sigh.


bought mine with rewards from best buy. It's very quiet most of the time. Dinning summer months it got a bit loud, till I turned it on its side.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 (SM-T817P)


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## Thom (Jun 5, 2000)

My replacement stream is supposed to arrive tomorrow. Hope this one has a better heatsink compound adhesive connection.


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## Thom (Jun 5, 2000)

Growl...

So I order a Stream directly from TiVo for $129 plus tax and shipping.

It arrives broken. The fan and heatsink assembly had come loose and was rattling around inside the Stream.

So I contact TiVo and arrange for a second Stream to be immediately shipped for another $129. This $129 will be refunded/not-charged when they receive the broken Stream in a timely manner with the RMA paperwork.

I connect the 2nd Stream and attempt setup. There is a SNAFU with Preconditioning Failed, but the setup process eventually recovers and corrects that problem.

Setup then goes to 2: Checking Activation and eventually passes that step.

Setup then goes to 3: Linking and fails. The 2nd Stream, which I received directly from TiVo, IS ALREADY ACTIVATED ON SOMEONE ELSE'S ACCOUNT. It needs to be deactivated from the original owner's account before I can activate it under my account. And, of course, TiVo Support is closed now.

Considering that TiVo will charge my credit card an additional $129 for this 2nd Stream (if I don't return the 1st Stream), I would expect to have received a new, never used Stream as the replacement. After all, that's what I paid for with the 1st Stream, which was broken even before the box was opened, and what I would be paying for again if I don't return the first (never used) Stream.

I'm making a bet with myself that TiVo is unwilling/unable to deactivate this 2nd Stream from the other user's account on my say-so, and will want to send me a 3rd Stream.

If they are going to send me a used Stream, then I want a discount.

[Heavy sigh]

@TiVoMargret


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## Thom (Jun 5, 2000)

So I called TiVo customer support today. 

When they look up the Stream service number, they show it as activated under my account. So I tried my TiVo app again while they were on the line and it repeated that the Stream was on a different account.

They then found that I have two accounts, one with no devices or email address, and the other with several devices (including some deactivated ones) and my email address. The no device account is probably my very first dial-up only account with series 1 DVRs setup back in year 2000, and the second account has all my current devices and deactivated devices going back to my series 1 DVRs.

The solution they are trying is to move all my deactivated devices to the account that had no devices. I ASS.U.ME this may because I had hit some sort of upper limit for total number of devices on an account. They said to wait 24 hours and try setting up the Stream again.


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## Thom (Jun 5, 2000)

While waiting 24 hours, I decided to try something different. I have four Roamios and had only been using the first Roamio for Stream setup with the TiVo Android app. The v3 app said I had to use the v2 app. The v2 app said my Stream was on an account different from my Roamio account.

So when I tried setting up the Stream using a different Roamio, it worked immediately. But when I switched back to my first Roamio, I was back to failing with the same symptoms. Forcing a daily call didn't fix it, but a reboot of the first TiVo did fix it.

It would be nice to know the various internal process steps the Stream and the DVR go through during setup.


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## JBDragon (Jan 4, 2004)

Thom said:


> Growl...
> 
> So I order a Stream directly from TiVo for $129 plus tax and shipping.
> 
> ...


There is no FAN in the Tivo Stream as far as I know. I can still not stream anything on my Windows 10 PC for a number of months now. A known issue that still doesn't seem to be fixed. So I'm still using my SlingBox, but It's slower to get around and the commercials it has are quite annoying. My slingBox plays just fine on my iOS devices.


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## Thom (Jun 5, 2000)

JBDragon said:


> There is no FAN in the Tivo Stream as far as I know. I can still not stream anything on my Windows 10 PC for a number of months now. A known issue that still doesn't seem to be fixed. So I'm still using my SlingBox, but It's slower to get around and the commercials it has are quite annoying. My slingBox plays just fine on my iOS devices.


I opened the broken stream up to see if I could do a simple fix for what was rattling around. It was the chip heatsink with attached fan rattling around. The heatsink/fan assembly is only attached via adhesive heatsink compound to the chip. No mechanical tie-downs.

I could not say whether or not your Stream has a fan, but mine definitely has a fan.


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## ej42137 (Feb 16, 2014)

JBDragon said:


> There is no FAN in the Tivo Stream as far as I know. I can still not stream anything on my Windows 10 PC for a number of months now. A known issue that still doesn't seem to be fixed. So I'm still using my SlingBox, but It's slower to get around and the commercials it has are quite annoying. My slingBox plays just fine on my iOS devices.


Yeah. You should probably get your hearing checked. Either that or the fan in your stream is broken.


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