# Blinking green light, will not reset, black screen



## BlaineMurphy (May 20, 2014)

After a recent electrical storm my Tivo has a constantly blinking green light and will not reset. I am interested in a possible remedy without having to do the "exchange" with TiVo and wish to retain my lifetime service.
I have the Series 3 HDTV DVR (about 4-5 yrs. old).


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## lgnad (Feb 14, 2013)

Blinking green light is likely either a power supply or motherboard failure. Be careful if you follow these directions, the power supply is open, not in a cage like in a pc and there is possibly danger

Open the unit, clean it out with compressed air, check connections, and inspect the power supply and motherboard for visible damage from a power surge, and the caps in the power supply for visible bulging on top, or leakage, etc. (bad power supply is often the failure of units of your generation, storms notwithstanding... lots of threads on here)

Nothing obvious? Then try and power it up with only power connected.. no change? Then power it off and then pull the power from the hard drive... if the tivo then powers up, then its likely the power supply, weakened so that it cant supply enough power to spin up the drive and power up the motherboard at the same time.

If its the power supply, there are threads on here discuss that in depth... that list all the caps that need replacement, or you can get another power supply and swap it in...


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## pledoux (May 4, 2015)

Thanks, I found one cap and replaced it, but it did not fix it. I am not sure which other caps I should change, do you know where I can get a list of the other caps I should look to replace. Thanks again


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

pledoux said:


> Thanks, I found one cap and replaced it, but it did not fix it. I am not sure which other caps I should change, do you know where I can get a list of the other caps I should look to replace. Thanks again


There's no doubt a cap is bad if the top is rounded, but if it's not it might still be bad.

This thread

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=473394

is fairly long, but in there somewhere are cap lists for the three different possible power supplies, the one used in the original S3, and the two, either of which you might have, used at different times in both the S3 HD and the S3 HD XL.

Crossing my fingers for you that the problem is not the motherboard itself.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I asked Weaknees about this once. They said that this particular problem is one they've never found a fix for. Once this happens the TiVo is toast.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

Dan203 said:


> I asked Weaknees about this once. They said that this particular problem is one they've never found a fix for. Once this happens the TiVo is toast.


There's a guy in Australia who can sometimes fix it on their version of the HD, and shortly after I mentioned him here at TCF, weaKnees started saying they could sometimes fix it.

I suspect it has to do with the CPU's Ball Grid Array mounting or the Surface Mount technique used on some of the other chips and probably something to do with lead free or reduced lead solder as well.

Also, there are some electrolytic caps on the motherboard, so it's not impossible one or more of them is of the "capacitor plague" type and is going or has gone bad without showing outward signs.

But you need to use a voltmeter and be sure you're using a problem free power supply before trying to isolate the problem to the motherboard.


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

"Unitron" I have heard of users heating up the onboard memory with a hair dryer and getting the TiVo to power up. I wonder if the onboard memory might have a cold solder problem that's rearing it ugly head? And what they call on board memory could be video mem. I pulled a CPU of a HD last night "from a toasted board" it's a Broadcom CPU. I would love to get my hands on a unsubed HD board that's stuck in flashing green light and trace it down with the oscope.


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## gkottner (Jun 5, 2010)

I believe I have just the TiVo HD you need. I had the flashing green light and had PM'd you about checking the power supply for me. The hair dryer worked a couple times for me, but eventually that stopped working. I ended up just getting another Roamio. The HD is sitting in the basement gathering dust. PM me the shipping details and I'll get it out in the next week or so.


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

gkottner said:


> I believe I have just the TiVo HD you need. I had the flashing green light and had PM'd you about checking the power supply for me. The hair dryer worked a couple times for me, but eventually that stopped working. I ended up just getting another Roamio. The HD is sitting in the basement gathering dust. PM me the shipping details and I'll get it out in the next week or so.


I Sent you a new message and lets see what we can do.

Thanks so much for a victim to test with.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

timhbtr53 said:


> I Sent you a new message and lets see what we can do.
> 
> Thanks so much for a victim to test with.


Whatever you learn, PM or email it to me a few days before going public.



(It won't make me any money, I just want to feel smug for a little while)


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

unitron said:


> Whatever you learn, PM or email it to me a few days before going public.
> 
> 
> 
> (It won't make me any money, I just want to feel smug for a little while)


If I figure it out I will pm you...


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## gkottner (Jun 5, 2010)

timhbtr53 said:


> I Sent you a new message and lets see what we can do.
> 
> Thanks so much for a victim to test with.


I'm looking to get it out next Tuesday or Wednesday.


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

I have power supply and a front panel so all I need is the main board cut down on shipping cost.
Thanks for the kind use of your board...


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## CrashHD (Nov 10, 2006)

timhbtr53 said:


> I Sent you a new message and lets see what we can do.
> 
> Thanks so much for a victim to test with.


I have one with the same symptoms. If you develop a solution and need a second test, let me know. I'm not particularly attached to this one, over a year or two I bought 5 broken lifetime S3's/THD's for cheap, and repaired either power supply caps, or hard drives. 80% success rate is fair for what I put in them, but 100% would sound better.


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## gkottner (Jun 5, 2010)

timhbtr53 said:


> I have power supply and a front panel so all I need is the main board cut down on shipping cost.
> Thanks for the kind use of your board...


I'm sending it from work, so it shouldn't be that much. I was just planning on sending the whole thing.


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

unitron I hope you see this, This is a crazy one here... The unit will post super fast then the blinking light and the fan is not working. I tested voltage the 5 volt line was a little low so I put my recapped P/S in and same thing super fast post no fan blinking green... I have a A/C that pop it's top on the run/start cap today so I have to find a cap in the morning but the fan part is got me thinking something is not resetting the CPU.... Will keep you updated


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

I got the TiVo to boot. I'm going to let it run tonight. I think it's the memory on the board. I reseated the cpu cleaned up a lot of old bad solder. It might take some time but I hope I can get it fixed.


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## CrashHD (Nov 10, 2006)

timhbtr53 said:


> I got the TiVo to boot. I'm going to let it run tonight. I think it's the memory on the board. I reseated the cpu cleaned up a lot of old bad solder. It might take some time but I hope I can get it fixed.


That is awesome!!


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

I have it down to one memory chip. U800 the first memory chip to the front of the HD has been running VERY hot. I can heat that chip up and it will power right up no where else will that work. I pulled two chips off my parts board and going to float off the bad chip then a good clean up and refloat a chip down and keep my fingers crossed for no cold solder joint or bridges.


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

timhbtr53 said:


> I have it down to one memory chip. U800 the first memory chip to the front of the HD has been running VERY hot. I can heat that chip up and it will power right up no where else will that work. I pulled two chips off my parts board and going to float off the bad chip then a good clean up and refloat a chip down and keep my fingers crossed for no cold solder joint or bridges.


_____________________________________________________________
With u800 out of the circuit I get the same no power blinking green... Now it's clean and seat the new used chip...


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

I replaced U800 and still have the same problem. So back to the old drawing board I go. My old eyes need a break from looking at micro traces on this board. I do have to think it's a "low or no lead solder" problem as unitron pointed out to me... I have to say he a pretty smart dude. Well it's back to the dungeon to try again......


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## CrashHD (Nov 10, 2006)

Good luck.

Let me know if you need a different unit to test with.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

I have a lifetime HD with the same problem. Power supply and hard drive are good. I think a mobo problem is all that's left.



timhbtr53 said:


> I got the TiVo to boot. I'm going to let it run tonight. I think it's the memory on the board. I reseated the cpu cleaned up a lot of old bad solder. It might take some time but I hope I can get it fixed.


By "reseating" do you mean you reflowed or reballed the CPU? I think I have access/ability to reflow the chip, but reballing is in the next higher paygrade.

Anxiously awaiting your next progress report...


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

SirKnowsALot said:


> I have a lifetime HD with the same problem. Power supply and hard drive are good. I think a mobo problem is all that's left.
> 
> By "reseating" do you mean you reflowed or reballed the CPU? I think I have access/ability to reflow the chip, but reballing is in the next higher paygrade.
> 
> Anxiously awaiting your next progress report...


_____________________________________________________________

It. What a mess it was. I have a SMD station but not the one we used, it was a 10 grand station that just about does every thing for you. I did replace the memory chip U800 with mine but it lifted a lan but I was lucky it was a trace that was a ground. So I made a trace from the board to the leg. I had to rest my poor eyes after that job. It's something on the mobo you can heat the memory chips up and it will pop from blinking to a power up. I was starting to think it might be the flash prom with the label on the a SST chip. It has a W/R life of about 5 years but I don't know how many times TiVo has sent commands to it. And as "unitron" pointed out to me and it's a great point is it a lead free solder problem? The time frame is right and I know when the CPU floated off it was horrible I have seen other chips from TV set that float off and it's just a little flux and alcohol clean up but no not on this mobo.... I am open to any feedback.. Thanks Tim


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

timhbtr53 said:


> _____________________________________________________________
> 
> It's something on the mobo you can heat the memory chips up and it will pop from blinking to a power up. I was starting to think it might be the flash prom with the label on the a SST chip.


I want to move from a leech to a contributor as quickly as possible, so please forgive all the questions. Are you saying here that the LED was blinking and as you added heat it booted up without power-cycling? How much heat? I've tried the hair-dryer trick without success, but I wasn't sure how long I needed to hit it with heat.

Regarding the prom chip, I seem to remember from (probably series 2) that the Tivo did not have the capability to write to the chip. If indeed the prom is just bootstrap code, it could be read-only and fairly durable.


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

SirKnowsALot said:


> I want to move from a leech to a contributor as quickly as possible, so please forgive all the questions. Are you saying here that the LED was blinking and as you added heat it booted up without power-cycling? How much heat? I've tried the hair-dryer trick without success, but I wasn't sure how long I needed to hit it with heat.
> 
> Regarding the prom chip, I seem to remember from (probably series 2) that the Tivo did not have the capability to write to the chip. If indeed the prom is just bootstrap code, it could be read-only and fairly durable.


It takes a lot about 250C but I did heat it with my SMD station at 200 C and unplugged it and plugged it right back and it booted. Keep the heat on the first memory chip to the front of the mobo. If you look on the board look for U800. Let me know if you have any luck doing that please.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

Using a hairdryer (don't have a heatshrink gun--yet) and a length of PVC to direct the heat better, I did not succeed but at least got a change in the green LED behavior. Might be a clue.

Heating the RAM chips didn't seem to help any. Because of the diameter of my PVC I heated the chips in pairs. Neither pair seemed to make any difference.

I moved to the CPU and heated it while the LED was blinking. After several minutes of blasting it with hot air the LED went from a 1/sec blink rate to something like 10/sec. It blinked so fast that it almost looked on solid. I cycled the power, but no cigar. 

Based on what I'm seeing, I think I'll focus on the CPU. If I get the chance, I'll try reflowing the solder with an SMD rework station.


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

SirKnowsALot said:


> Using a hairdryer (don't have a heatshrink gun--yet) and a length of PVC to direct the heat better, I did not succeed but at least got a change in the green LED behavior. Might be a clue.
> 
> Heating the RAM chips didn't seem to help any. Because of the diameter of my PVC I heated the chips in pairs. Neither pair seemed to make any difference.
> 
> ...


_____________________________________________________________

Get ready for a pile of goop. You will see what I mean about the no lead or low lead solder. It can be done with a SMD station it's a Broadcomm chip. Let me know if you have the blob also.. Thanks for the info.
Tim Oh if you look at U800 does it look burnt on the top? If not it maybe from over heating from the great guy that donated the TiVo HD.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

Here's a photo of my HD's RAM chips. U800 looks okay to me.
Regarding the CPU, I'm going to try to just heat it up enough to melt the solder underneath and not open the can-of-worms by removing it as a first test. 

If that doesn't get me anywhere, then I'll remove it and go from there.


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

You know everyone of this HD's went in to the blinker hole after some kind of power event "loss of power" If you have a SMD rework station like I think you do try heating up around the U800 chip area and the SST Bios chip the one with the white label on it. Try around 250C for oh 15-30 secs and pull power and replug power and see if you get a boot. The one I am testing on had one cap that was in the breaking down stage I check it on my LCR and it was not 2200 mfd it was more like 1100 then it would drop down to 500 -600 a bad cap.. Now we have a potable power supply break down with a mobo problem wow this is almost as bad as what was first the egg or the chicken? I still think it's going to be a simple fix but finding the fix is going to be the fun part but I like a nice challenge.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

It's interesting that everything seemed to be fine for all these HDs until the power went out. To me that indicates that the problem is with a component that is only accessed during the power-up phase. I'm going to have to think about that for a while.

The way I ruled out the power supply on my unit was to swap it out with another supply that I had (another--mostly working--HD). I don't have an LCR but have been eying some on eBay.


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

HD... And try to fellow the post with my oscope. It has to do a power good, memory test good, hard drive good, bios call, check for a phone or Ethernet line. So somewhere in the chain of POST it's not finding one link of the chain but what?????? It's not power that was the first thing I replaced. I tried a new drive not it. So like you said it's mobo... I need to test every SMD cap just to see if there is not one are more in break down.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

timhbtr53 said:


> HD... And try to fellow the post with my oscope. It has to do a power good, memory test good, hard drive good, bios call, check for a phone or Ethernet line. So somewhere in the chain of POST it's not finding one link of the chain but what?????? It's not power that was the first thing I replaced. I tried a new drive not it. So like you said it's mobo... I need to test every SMD cap just to see if there is not one are more in break down.


I wish I had access to that semi-good one again. Right now I'm just working with the sick one too.

Regarding the bad cap you found...was it on the motherboard? There is lots of history with bad power supply caps, but the mobo caps seem to be of better quality (or have an easier life).


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

But I still want to test all the SMD caps on the mobo. All of them or in the cap cancer list "capcon" so I think I'm going to start from power in back. It's has to be done so I might as well do it... I am going to check the ESR also.
Keep you updated.. 
Tim


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

SirKnowsALot said:


> It's interesting that everything seemed to be fine for all these HDs until the power went out. To me that indicates that the problem is with a component that is only accessed during the power-up phase. I'm going to have to think about that for a while.
> 
> The way I ruled out the power supply on my unit was to swap it out with another supply that I had (another--mostly working--HD). I don't have an LCR but have been eying some on eBay.


Chances are it's not something only accessed during power up so much as something that was okay as long as it was powered, in which state it would have remained during warm boots as well as operation, but once power was removed and re-applied later, the sudden current inrush took it out.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

SirKnowsALot said:


> I wish I had access to that semi-good one again. Right now I'm just working with the sick one too.
> 
> Regarding the bad cap you found...was it on the motherboard? There is lots of history with bad power supply caps, but the mobo caps seem to be of better quality (or have an easier life).


The power supply caps that have gone bad have been the ones subjected to the high switching frequencies and considerable current (relative to any one component on the motherboard) involved in a switch-mode power supply, so they're the first to go, so I'd vote for easier life as the reason the motherboard caps don't die as often.

They were still manufactured and put into the international supply chain at the same time as the known "capacitor plague" caps, so they could be waiting to go bad as well.


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

unitron said:


> The power supply caps that have gone bad have been the ones subjected to the high switching frequencies and considerable current (relative to any one component on the motherboard) involved in a switch-mode power supply, so they're the first to go, so I'd vote for easier life as the reason the motherboard caps don't die as often.
> 
> They were still manufactured and put into the international supply chain at the same time as the known "capacitor plague" caps, so they could be waiting to go bad as well.


_____________________________________________________________

unitron you have gave me an idea... I think I'm going to put MOV on all the voltage legs on the P/S. I put them on the main AC in but did not think about the low voltage DC. With any cap there is some inrush and I would hope that a MOV would clamp that.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

timhbtr53 said:


> _____________________________________________________________
> 
> unitron you have gave me an idea... I think I'm going to put MOV on all the voltage legs on the P/S. I put them on the main AC in but did not think about the low voltage DC. With any cap there is some inrush and I would hope that a MOV would clamp that.


Do they make MOVs down to that low of a voltage? I don't have a lot of experience here, but I don't recall seeing any like that.


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

SirKnowsALot said:


> Do they make MOVs down to that low of a voltage? I don't have a lot of experience here, but I don't recall seeing any like that.


_____________________________________________________________

It's made for AC but any inrush with the caps in the list of cap cancer it can't hurt... I need to go look on mouser the MOV line has changed so much. I use them on the AC in but... Why not add a small cap in the Dc lines? Just a small cap to add a little clamp time to a voltage drop.


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

timhbtr53 said:


> _____________________________________________________________
> 
> It's made for AC but any inrush with the caps in the list of cap cancer it can't hurt... I need to go look on mouser the MOV line has changed so much. I use them on the AC in but... Why not add a small cap in the Dc lines? Just a small cap to add a little clamp time to a voltage drop.


_____________________________________________________________

http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail...=sGAEpiMZZMuQmL5N8IqpX4X6Yim3dlWHanvJG/Jw1jw=


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

timhbtr53 said:


> _____________________________________________________________
> 
> http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail...=sGAEpiMZZMuQmL5N8IqpX4X6Yim3dlWHanvJG/Jw1jw=


_____________________________________________________________

How about a good old silver mica cap? Still use them in RF apps. I think I'm going to add a few silver mica to help with inrush. They have a real high voltage rating but I think it would hold up and clamp any stray voltage and RF.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

timhbtr53 said:


> _____________________________________________________________
> 
> unitron you have gave me an idea... I think I'm going to put MOV on all the voltage legs on the P/S. I put them on the main AC in but did not think about the low voltage DC. With any cap there is some inrush and I would hope that a MOV would clamp that.


I thought we were talking about motherboard components suddenly going bad after a power outage.

And the problem isn't an overvoltage spike, it's a heavy current inrush, kinda like what an incandescent bulb sees before the filament warms up.

Of course if we knew *which* motherboard components were the ones going bad, we could refine this theory considerably.


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

I over looked the inrush to the mobo. I put MOV's on the AC line on all of mine but you have a good point with a inrush and cap cancer why not use MOV's on the DC side? I still think you hit the nail on the head with the unleaded solder. I tested every SMD cap and everyone is within +- 2% so it's back to the dungeon.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

Has there been any work done with the serial port connector on the mobo? I'm thinking we might be able to get some debug info out during powerup. Or not if it fails right away. 

Anyway, this is something I'm starting to look at.


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

SirKnowsALot said:


> Has there been any work done with the serial port connector on the mobo? I'm thinking we might be able to get some debug info out during power up. Or not if it fails right away.
> 
> Anyway, this is something I'm starting to look at.


_____________________________________________________________

I have noticed that when I heat the board up to get a boot the lights on the Ethernet port with no cable hooked up stay on???? So that brings me back to the post chain. Boy what I would do for a set of prints on this guy. It's fun to troubleshoot but sometimes you need the road map. I did test all the SMD caps with my Q meter and they or within the range the ESR is good. But I did find a diode on the board that test bad in circuit out checks good out of circuit. I did not get much time today to work on it it was 97 today and my radio/work room gets super hot.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

timhbtr53 said:


> _____________________________________________________________
> 
> I have noticed that when I heat the board up to get a boot the lights on the Ethernet port with no cable hooked up stay on???? So that brings me back to the post chain. Boy what I would do for a set of prints on this guy. It's fun to troubleshoot but sometimes you need the road map. I did test all the SMD caps with my Q meter and they or within the range the ESR is good. But I did find a diode on the board that test bad in circuit out checks good out of circuit. I did not get much time today to work on it it was 97 today *and my radio/work room gets super hot*.


So just leave everything in there for a few days and the solder joints will get reflowed all by themselves.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

unitron said:


> So just leave everything in there for a few days and the solder joints will get reflowed all by themselves.


:up: I've been thinking that since application of heat seems to "fix" or at least change the behavior that it's _got_ to be a solder problem.

I thought some more about my comment regarding the serial port and I am fairly confident that we crap out prior to ever getting any activity on the debug port. I shoulda thought more before posting.


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## squint (Jun 15, 2008)

Have any of you removed the CPU heatsink? I was always wondering how to go about doing that.


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

squint said:


> Have any of you removed the CPU heatsink? I was always wondering how to go about doing that.


Squint it's a Broadcom chip, when we flowed the one off this board it was a mess. I have removed many SMD chip's before but OMG it looks like the blob. I understand it low lead solder but I think unitron might have a good point is it unleaded solder? It's in the time frame of "Big Brother" saying it's bad for you... Is it solder break down from heat and time?
Any ideas I'm open?

"unitron" that's about right it's been super hot this summer just hope no big wind storms this year.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

squint said:


> Have any of you removed the CPU heatsink? I was always wondering how to go about doing that.


I haven't done this (yet), so take my advice with a grain of salt.

It looks like the heatsink is attached with an adhesive pad. What I'm planning to do is to heat the sink to around 125 C and then try to slowly pull up on one corner to remove (hopefully) both the heatsink and pad at the same time. If I'm lucky, I should be able to reuse them both once the CPU is reflowed or reballed. Anyway, that's the plan.

EDIT: Oh, I just saw Tim's comment that it is glued on. Since he's been there already I'd have to go with his observation.


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## Nicosia (May 27, 2015)

timhbtr53 
Can you give me a call to discuss a repair. The community won't let me PM you back until I have 5 posts.
228.332.1623


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

Nicosia said:


> timhbtr53
> Can you give me a call to discuss a repair. The community won't let me PM you back until I have 5 posts.
> 228.332.1623


_____________________________________________________________

I have to go into town this afternoon but yes I will give you a call.


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

It's a Broadcom BCM7401XXXXXX

http://www.alldatasheet.com/datasheet-pdf/pdf/175170/BOARDCOM/BCM7401.html


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

Nicosia said:


> timhbtr53
> Can you give me a call to discuss a repair. The community won't let me PM you back until I have 5 posts.
> 228.332.1623


_____________________________________________________________

I sent you a message with the info


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

If you're talking about the heat sink on the main CPU in an S3 HD or HD XL, that is, as I understand it, a Ball Grid Array chip, and it would probably be easier to leave the heat sink attached and unsolder the chip IF YOU HAVE HOT AIR REWORK EXPERIENCE.

Also, trying to pry the heat sink off might wind up prying the entire chip off and damaging, as in ripping loose, the little copper lands to which the solder balls on the bottom of the chip are supposed to melt themselves onto.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

unitron said:


> If you're talking about the heat sink on the main CPU in an S3 HD or HD XL, that is, as I understand it, a Ball Grid Array chip, and it would probably be easier to leave the heat sink attached and unsolder the chip IF YOU HAVE HOT AIR REWORK EXPERIENCE.
> 
> _Also, trying to pry the heat sink off might wind up prying the entire chip off and damaging, as in ripping loose, the little copper lands to which the solder balls on the bottom of the chip are supposed to melt themselves onto._


I was wondering if that might be a risk. The reballing procedures I've seen have been done without the heatsink, but man oh man if you tear up those solder pads underneath the chip...you're hosed.


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

SirKnowsALot said:


> I was wondering if that might be a risk. The reballing procedures I've seen have been done without the heatsink, but man oh man if you tear up those solder pads underneath the chip...you're hosed.


_____________________________________________________________

On the chip the heat sink fell off. It's just a thin glue pad that takes very little heat to remove. I would not try to removed the chip with the heat sink on. You can't see if you have a loss chip or just a hot stuck chip. The station we used had a vacuum unit that you just put on top of the chip. As soon as the chip started to move the vacuum took over and pulled the chip up. I wish I had 10 grand but being a poor man you have to do it the hard way.


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

This is the first one that I could smell the caps when I opened the box not the TiVo the shipping box. So I tried it and wow the oscillation in the supply can be heard it's bad. I check all the caps NONE where in any kind of specs. So Nicosia do you won't me to recap it supply? I'm kind of thinking that's way it's hear and also do you have a ext drive or this 500gb is it? Do you won't to go up to a larger drive? I will call you later today how about that?


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

Do you have enough post yet to send a message? If so send me your landline number and I will give you a ring.


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

I recapped the power supply and all is well. I have the heat on it now it will be at the 24 hour mark in the morning. I will call you and find out how we or going to get this jewel back to ya.

Oh it's working GREAT... I set it back up for your cable comp... I tried OTA and cable both work great... Oh it's a 160gb hard drive but for what you use it for I don't see the reason to upgrade.


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

PLEASE tell me you have not floated the CPU yet? I thinks me might have found a fix. I just got a new mobo that when I plugged the power supply in I got blinker with no fan and a clicking power supply. I unplugged the power connector and plugged it back with some cleaner and it worked. So if you get a second try that or pull the board and hit the solder joints on the power block... Let me know...


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

timhbtr53 said:


> PLEASE tell me you have not floated the CPU yet? I thinks me might have found a fix. I just got a new mobo that when I plugged the power supply in I got blinker with no fan and a clicking power supply. I unplugged the power connector and plugged it back with some cleaner and it worked. So if you get a second try that or pull the board and hit the solder joints on the power block... Let me know...


I have not! Been busy, so no Tivo-time. This sounds too good to be true, but it is sure easy enough to try!


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

timhbtr53 said:


> PLEASE tell me you have not floated the CPU yet? I thinks me might have found a fix. I just got a new mobo that when I plugged the power supply in I got blinker with no fan and a clicking power supply. I unplugged the power connector and plugged it back with some cleaner and it worked. So if you get a second try that or pull the board and hit the solder joints on the power block... Let me know...


I hit the power connector joints with a soldering iron...no joy.

However, when I powered it up to test I noticed that several indicators on the front panel briefly lit up and then back to the dreaded blinking green LED. I took the panel apart and saw no logic device on there so that means the main CPU is responsible for controlling the individual front panel indicators. That means that the CPU is at least executing some amount of code and actually running (versus some kind of watchdog timer that the CPU needed to reset--and wouldn't if it was dead).

I think I'm going to try to rig up a serial output port and see if there is any activity on that. Might shed some light on the issue. Stay tuned.


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

It's a start it has to be a hiccup in the boot command but since you got something new on the panel do you think it might be some or one of the SMD caps? I wonder if I pull one by one off the blinking board and swap to the working board hum it's just time?
Let me know if you find anything I tried with quad trace but not knowing what the CPU hook and power good legs are well we need some prints...


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

timhbtr53 said:


> ... but since you got something new on the panel do you think it might be some or one of the SMD caps? I wonder if I pull one by one off the blinking board and swap to the working board hum it's just time?
> Let me know if you find anything I tried with quad trace but not knowing what the CPU hook and power good legs are well we need some prints...


I can't say that the other indicators coming on briefly was new or just that I never noticed. I'm leaning toward the latter, since they only stay on for less than a second.


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

SirKnowsALot said:


> I can't say that the other indicators coming on briefly was new or just that I never noticed. I'm leaning toward the latter, since they only stay on for less than a second.


My bad to many hours in a TiVo dude..

Time to back away and take a break for the weekend...


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

A little reading on the CPU. It has 3 UART I/O channels, I tried going from a USB to RS232 with no luck but I wonder if we can find out just 3 cont points? Tx/Rx/Gnd if we could watch a working HD them see what a blinker unit does? At this point without a print I up for anything... Think about it and let me know what you think... Thanks Dude.
Tim


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

timhbtr53 said:


> A little reading on the CPU. It has 3 UART I/O channels, I tried going from a USB to RS232 with no luck but I wonder if we can find out just 3 cont points? Tx/Rx/Gnd if we could watch a working HD them see what a blinker unit does? At this point without a print I up for anything... Think about it and let me know what you think... Thanks Dude.
> Tim


Hey Tim, Take a look at this page: https://blog.playerx.net/2012/06/03/an-unhappy-tivo/ This guy has a different problem, but maybe we can learn something from his work.

I've attached a photo there (_really_ close up) that shows there is a serial port already brought out. It is towards the back, roughly in the middle.

I've got some stuff on order to try and hook this up and read what Tivo says. Maybe this will get us heading in the right direction!


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

I have looked at that board 1000's of times but I never noticed it but it's there. I like that idea when I read about 3 uarts and only 2 usb ports I had a felling but I am so glad you found that.... Thumbs up :up: :up: :up:
Man I have a toothache from hel* so I think I might have to hold on a day or two but if you find anything out let me know... 
Take care W-Man talk at U later...
Tim


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

The left side cable card slot... 
https://www.google.com/search?q=xil...nx;600;600&usg=__ThWq0l1u2KCeREmfyVFPRhVS8Ug=

The number on the chip is XC3S200A Check out what it used for...

Thanks W-Man Tivo-Tim


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

timhbtr53 said:


> The left side cable card slot...
> https://www.google.com/search?q=xil...nx;600;600&usg=__ThWq0l1u2KCeREmfyVFPRhVS8Ug=
> 
> The number on the chip is XC3S200A Check out what it used for...
> ...


_____________________________________________________________

check this out,
http://www.techzonics.com/memory-programmable-arrays-ics.htm


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

timhbtr53 said:


> _____________________________________________________________
> 
> check this out,
> http://www.techzonics.com/memory-programmable-arrays-ics.htm


That is one complex chip. Wow. And this website looks like it might be fun to shop around on...

I had been looking at the previous datasheet you uncovered (for the XC3S200A) and saw this:

```
Additionally, each Spartan-3A FPGA contains a unique,
factory-programmed Device DNA identifier useful for
tracking purposes, anti-cloning designs, or IP protection.
```
I wonder if they could be using this unique ID in conjunction with data from the PROM (that could theoretically hold the TSN) and doing some crypto on it to lock a given TSN to the particular Tivo. Then, instead of just a (relatively) simple-to-remove PROM, you'd also have to remove the very difficult-to-remove BGA Xilinx chip.

Just thinkin' out loud. If I'm starting to violate some forum rules or something, please let me know. I think the Tivo is a wonderful piece of technology and I don't want to harm them in any way.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

SirKnowsALot said:


> That is one complex chip. Wow. And this website looks like it might be fun to shop around on...
> 
> I had been looking at the previous datasheet you uncovered (for the XC3S200A) and saw this:
> 
> ...


The TSN was never in the PROM.

Up through the first of the Series 3 models it was on a separate "crypto chip" made by Atmel, and you could move it to another of the same model motherboard and move the TSN that way--provided you knew what you were doing working with Surface Mount Devices.

With the introduction of the second iteration of the S3, the TCD652160 and the TCD658000, the crypto chip function was incorporated into the main chip.


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

it's the same CPU on all the S3. I guess they had no idea someone would figure it out but someone did so they moved it to the CPU. I have found a few chips in odd places that have the same specs as the Atmel chip just a different manufacture. I guess the thing to do is float the cpu off and put it on a working board and look and the tsn number. I would have to think someone has tried this by now? I don't know this blinker syndrome is about to get the best of me with out a print. It's hard just looking up chips and guessing so I will just try to fix the blinker first, save the rest for a later date.....


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

unitron said:


> The TSN was never in the PROM.
> 
> Up through the first of the Series 3 models it was on a separate "crypto chip" made by Atmel, and you could move it to another of the same model motherboard and move the TSN that way--provided you knew what you were doing working with Surface Mount Devices.


Thanks for the clarificaton Unitron.



> With the introduction of the second iteration of the S3, the TCD652160 and the TCD658000, the crypto chip function was incorporated into the main chip.


This would imply there is some type of non-volatile memory on the main chip. It sure would make TSN swaps more difficult as Tim mentioned.

I guess I kinda got distracted on the TSN stuff...I'm really interested in chasing down the blinking green LED problem. My Tivo already has lifetime, so I'd like to get it working but I don't think I want to go through a "heart transplant" into another box. You can only tinker so much before the wife starts to wonder what's going on...


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

I need someone that has a HD board hopefully without a lifetime sub so I can do some more testing. I have a working HD board that is not a lifetime but it works. If you have a HD board that has the blinker syndrome please let me know. I don't need the case just the board... I will pay shipping to me...


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## CrashHD (Nov 10, 2006)

I have an HD board with the blinking problem, but it has lifetime. I've been eagerly watching this thread in hope that you find something. Weaknees claims they can fix this, but their repair charge is in excess of the value of the unit.

If you don't find any other boards, I'd be willing to send this one in to test on. (or are your test plans fully destructive?).


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

CrashHD said:


> I have an HD board with the blinking problem, but it has lifetime. I've been eagerly watching this thread in hope that you find something. Weaknees claims they can fix this, but their repair charge is in excess of the value of the unit.
> 
> If you don't find any other boards, I'd be willing to send this one in to test on. (or are your test plans fully destructive?).


_____________________________________________________________

We have made some progress but just can't quite get them steady. It's looking like it's the CPU it's self. And OMG it's a job to float and move to new board butt we might have to soon... Will keep you updated...


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

Here's a little (very little) more info from a blinking LED THD.

I connected up the serial port and (with a known good serial setup) I get a short burst of gibberish from the sick Tivo. Nothing even close to ASCII...70's, 8C's, etc. Actually, the range of values from the serial bytes is fairly small. Doesn't matter if hard disk is attached or not because this occurs before the drive is accessed.

What do you think this might mean? Seems like the processor is somewhat healthy, as it can blink the LED and output what it thinks is serial data. I haven't tried tracing down the path of serial output yet to see where it might go after it emerges from the CPU.

Obviously, the serial output is not a critical item to the function of the box, but perhaps there is a chip that is involved in this as well as other mission-critical functions.

Stay tuned...


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

SirKnowsALot said:


> Here's a little (very little) more info from a blinking LED THD.
> 
> I connected up the serial port and (with a known good serial setup) I get a short burst of gibberish from the sick Tivo. Nothing even close to ASCII...70's, 8C's, etc. Actually, the range of values from the serial bytes is fairly small. Doesn't matter if hard disk is attached or not because this occurs before the drive is accessed.
> 
> ...


You need to capture the serial port boot time output from a known good 652/658 as well as an ailing one to see if there are differences, don't you?


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

unitron said:


> You need to capture the serial port boot time output from a known good 652/658 as well as an ailing one to see if there are differences, don't you?


Quite true! I've got output from a good box, which is what you'd expect. The bad box outputs garbage, not ASCII. Actually, I'll drop it here:


```
0000000: 708c 708c 800c 7080 70fc 700c 700c 8c70  p.p...p.p.p.p..p
0000010: 8c7c 0c8c 8c8c 8c7c 7070 8c0c 0e8c 0c70  .|.....|pp.....p
0000020: 708c 7c80 7c70 8070 7070 f070 8070 708c  p.|.|p.ppp.p.pp.
0000030: 8070 0c8c 8c8c 8c70 8c70 0c70 fc80 0c70  .p.....p.p.p...p
0000040: 7070 708c 0c70 8c70 fc70 fc70 8c0c 8070  ppp..p.p.p.p...p
0000050: 0c70 700c 708c 8070 0c8c 708c 7c8c 708c  .pp.p..p..p.|.p.
0000060: 70fc 70fc 7070 8c7c 708c 7c70 8cf0 800c  p.p.pp.|p.|p....
0000070: 0c8c 0d0a                                ....
```
I was hoping for some pattern like a stuck bit or something.


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

I have not had much time to work on anything lately and with this hot REAL HOT weather is killing me. Keep up the good work W. I need to get access to the laser SMD rework station and pull the CPU off the blinker and put one on from a working unit. But trying to get times setup is been bad.

Keep in touch... Tim


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

timhbtr53 said:


> I have not had much time to work on anything lately and with this hot REAL HOT weather is killing me. Keep up the good work W. I need to get access to the laser SMD rework station and pull the CPU off the blinker and put one on from a working unit. But trying to get times setup is been bad.
> 
> Keep in touch... Tim


If it gets much hotter I'm going to try reflowing some boards by just setting them out on the driveway.


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

unitron said:


> If it gets much hotter I'm going to try reflowing some boards by just setting them out on the driveway.


_____________________________________________________________

?Last night but it will be in the upper 90's by noon. So I need to cut the lawn and then TRY to do some more testing on the HD. And yes you could put an SMD board with parts on it and it will seat all the parts....


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

Have you done anything lately on the "Blinker syndrome" ? I am to the point of doing a CPU swap. But beaning a lot of solder points I don't think I wont to try it with my SMD station. I have tried a few things but still no luck. I wish i could find someone that is sending in one to the "place" to have it repaired. I would love to spray some paint that only can been seen with black light. Just to find out what part of the board or they working on. I have to think it's the CPU.


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## AwardBlvr (Nov 21, 2004)

You guys are great.. Love your detective work.

Now... I have one with the blinky-green. It WAS in once before to WK. Now it died again after PG&E (local power co) did some power-event on me last week, killing things in my house. WK wants another two hundred bucks to fix it. Might have to pay the ransom. What kind of paint? (Though they might wash it all.)

Funny.... Last time I insisted they return the defective parts to comply with (what used to be) a law requiring repairers to return the replaced parts to the customer. They dropped a handful of never-touched SMD resistors and a couple transistors/FETS in a baggie and returned it to me... fixed.

Since they have a fairly high confidence rate in their ability to fix existing units, I kind of doubt whether they would be doing a CPU replacement.

I'm gonna go home tonight and have a good look-see and measure some voltages as well. It is pretty interesting that it is a well known weakness that a power event (probably a brown-out) causes these to fail... Power Supply seems highly plausible... But... One would think of a semiconductor before caps in response to a power-event- caused failure.


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

AwardBlvr said:


> You guys are great.. Love your detective work.
> 
> Now... I have one with the blinky-green. It WAS in once before to WK. Now it died again after PG&E (local power co) did some power-event on me last week, killing things in my house. WK wants another two hundred bucks to fix it. Might have to pay the ransom. What kind of paint? (Though they might wash it all.)
> 
> ...


____________________________________________________________

You can spray on your board it's a old trick but I need to find the name so we can find out just what's going on...


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## AwardBlvr (Nov 21, 2004)

BTW... Opened it... Looked at all voltages... 
3.3 Rock Solid, 
5 v Solid... 
12V == 11.76 Thats OK.

CPU gets warm. HDD spins up

No Cap bulges visible with obviousness.

Still blinkey-green

Maybe before I send it in for the ransom of $100, I'll try heating up the DRAM. Kind of counter-intuitive, from an engineer's perspective.

If ONLY i knew which paint to get.


Thanks


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

AwardBlvr said:


> BTW... Opened it... Looked at all voltages...
> 3.3 Rock Solid,
> 5 v Solid...
> 12V == 11.76 Thats OK.
> ...


_____________________________________________________________

http://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Bla...qid=1438957419&sr=8-8&keywords=uv+paint+spray


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## AwardBlvr (Nov 21, 2004)

Or.... http://r.ebay.com/t2omx5 $2.50 But, might take some patience. ???

Actually I can probably Aerosolize it with a little thinner and a sprayer.

(Ordered it.)


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

AwardBlvr said:


> Or.... http://r.ebay.com/t2omx5 $2.50 But, might take some patience. ???
> 
> Actually I can probably Aerosolize it with a little thinner and a sprayer.
> 
> (Ordered it.)


_____________________________________________________________

That would spray it if not like you said a little thinner and spray it. Just make sure you test it first.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

timhbtr53 said:


> Have you done anything lately on the "Blinker syndrome" ? I am to the point of doing a CPU swap. But beaning a lot of solder points I don't think I wont to try it with my SMD station. I have tried a few things but still no luck. I wish i could find someone that is sending in one to the "place" to have it repaired. I would love to spray some paint that only can been seen with black light. Just to find out what part of the board or they working on. I have to think it's the CPU.


I've been out of commission for the past few weeks--travel, working on house, etc. so I haven't had a chance to play again. My goal is to hot-air reflow some of the major chips and see if I can change the behavior. If I have enough time/patience I'll do one at a time so we'll know the one to focus on.

I'd be interested in the UV paint results. Clever. That may give a clue.
Wish I could spend more time on my "hobby".


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

AwardBlvr said:


> You guys are great.. Love your detective work.
> 
> Now... I have one with the blinky-green. It WAS in once before to WK.


How long did it work after they "fixed" it? Seems like they should warranty their work.


> Funny.... Last time I insisted they return the defective parts to comply with (what used to be) a law requiring repairers to return the replaced parts to the customer. They dropped a handful of never-touched SMD resistors and a couple transistors/FETS in a baggie and returned it to me... fixed.


Sounds like they may have been jerking you around in "complying" with your request. I would think that if they replaced resistor/transistors it would be obvious in the way the solder looks. Can you do a very close inspection of the (million) solder joints to see if any look different? We've been focusing on the large chips as culprits, but maybe it is something altogether different. 
Jeez...the more you get into this, the stranger it is.


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

SirKnowsALot said:


> How long did it work after they "fixed" it? Seems like they should warranty their work.
> 
> Sounds like they may have been jerking you around in "complying" with your request. I would think that if they replaced resistor/transistors it would be obvious in the way the solder looks. Can you do a very close inspection of the (million) solder joints to see if any look different? We've been focusing on the large chips as culprits, but maybe it is something altogether different.
> Jeez...the more you get into this, the stranger it is.


_____________________________________________________________

Floated one off a good board and put on a bad board still "Blinker" It's down to some bad caps or some other SMD devices. I was thinking that WK was doing it cheap to do that much work. It took us hours to do it on the laser unit. I would love to find out what triggers power good...... Let me know what you think. And I to am in the middle of painting our house WOW 104 F heat index 118 IT'S HOT...


----------



## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

timhbtr53 said:


> _____________________________________________________________
> 
> Floated one off a good board and put on a bad board still "Blinker" It's down to some bad caps or some other SMD devices. I was thinking that WK was doing it cheap to do that much work. It took us hours to do it on the laser unit. I would love to find out what triggers power good...... Let me know what you think.


Very good to know this! Nice work Tim. I sure was leaning toward the CPU being the culprit. Now it's time to rethink the situation.


> And I to am in the middle of painting our house WOW 104 F heat index 118 IT'S HOT...


Holy cow man...how long does paint take to dry--5 seconds?


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

SirKnowsALot said:


> Very good to know this! Nice work Tim. I sure was leaning toward the CPU being the culprit. Now it's time to rethink the situation.
> 
> Holy cow man...how long does paint take to dry--5 seconds?


_____________________________________________________________

Dude this heat is hard core this summer. The first person I hear say it's cold this winter I goanna smack them. 
I was very taking back when the CPU swap made no change at all. I would love to know what parts was sent back to the user that had his fixed. It stating to sound like it a few SMD caps. I was thinking about WK turn around time it took us a long time to remove the cpu and put it on the other board. So I guess after I get some more time I'm going to start pulling one cap at a time and checking then on the LCR to see if it's that simple. It still stuck in my mind how when this first starts you could warm up the memory and get them to wakeup. Kind of like a power good since on a pc mobo. I don't know at this point but I will never give up W......


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

timhbtr53 said:


> ... It still stuck in my mind how when this first starts you could warm up the memory and get them to wakeup. Kind of like a power good since on a pc mobo. I don't know at this point but I will never give up W......


I've been thinking about this too. I went back and re-read several accounts on the big Tivo message boards and there were several cases where heat seemed to help. One even fixed itself after it was left on for 4 days just blinking away with nothing but power applied. So....I was thinking maybe we could take advantage of your extreme heat and leave your blinker running in the (I'm assuming) hot workarea. Perhaps even unplug the fan--but that might be too risky. Anyway, if it's blowing 100 degree air it won't be cooling much  .

I've had my blinker going for 3 days in my basement, but it's not all that hot down there. Anyhoo...think about it.


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## gkottner (Jun 5, 2010)

I'm assuming Tim is still working on the HD I sent him. The first time the blinking started was when I upgraded the hard drive and plugged the unit back in. I was able to heat up the chips with a hair dryer and all worked well until another power outage. I was able to heat the chips up again and the HD worked well until the power went out again. Don't have exact figures, but I'm thinking the total uptime after the hard drive upgrade was at least 6 months. After the second outage, heating the chips did nothing. I kept it plugged in for at least another 2 weeks to see if it would come back to life on its own. No luck on that, so I sent it to Tim to experiment with.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

Continuing down the path of this being a temperature-dependent problem, I used a hair dryer to successively heat different sections of the board and then applying power to look for a change. 

On about the 5th section I got to, the Tivo booted when power was applied and I was actually able to watch an episode of Seinfeld that the previous owner had recorded.

Could've been a coincidence, but it worked for me. I've not yet been brave enough to remove power and see what happens.

The attached picture shows the area I was heating that made the difference. Maybe Tim can try to recreate my results...


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

SirKnowsALot said:


> Continuing down the path of this being a temperature-dependent problem, I used a hair dryer to successively heat different sections of the board and then applying power to look for a change.
> 
> On about the 5th section I got to, the Tivo booted when power was applied and I was actually able to watch an episode of Seinfeld that the previous owner had recorded.
> 
> ...


_____________________________________________________________

That gives me a starting point to pull them and test on my meter. I just got a new led display cap tester that is right on the money. W you did good my friend....... I love it man... You R The Man


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

Hey Tim & everyone - From some more playing around, I'm beginning to think the problem may NOT be capacitors for a change. I masked off the capacitor area to shield it from my hair dryer and focused on the area marked "2" in the attached photo. Blinkie when cold, workie when hot. Based on the two ICs in this area, it looks like this is circuitry for the modem.

I think I'd prefer it was caps...


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

I rigged up a 4W light bulb (the kind used in exit signs) and using aluminum tape I shielded everything except U3003. After applying the bulb's heat for 5-6 minutes I removed the tape and powered up successfully.

Now my thoughts are that there may be some marginal issues with that chip or the board design that heat can "fix". It may be some of the surrounding components instead, as I couldn't completely protect them from my heat source.

I've closely examined the board for any mechanical issues and found none. I think that some value of something changes with heat and it can make this work.

The chip is a Si2434-FT and is part of the Tivo's modem circuitry. Nice chip actually. Here's some info:
https://www.silabs.com/Support Documents/TechnicalDocs/Si2457-34-15-04D.pdf
http://www.silabs.com/Support Documents/TechnicalDocs/AN93.pdf

I'd like to see if applying heat to this chip helps anyone else just to corroborate my findings. We don't need a wild goose chase.

I've attached a close-up of the chip in question along with my original photo from a few days ago with the chip highlighted in blue to get your bearings. Enjoy!

*IMPORTANT NOTE: The Tivo needs to be close enough to its permanent location such that it can be plugged in as quickly as possible after being heated. In other words, the chip still needs to be hot when you plug it in. If the chip cools off it will not boot.*


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## CrashHD (Nov 10, 2006)

Does it have to stay hot to continue working, or just long enough for successful bootup?


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## CrashHD (Nov 10, 2006)

My blinking TivoHD just booted up to the sunrise screen after a few minutes heating that chip with a hair dryer.

This is a lifetime, broken unit I bought on ebay a year ago intending to repair, expecting a bad hard drive or PS caps. I've never gotten it to do anything. At this moment I have no recollection of where I was last in my diagnostic process, and don't even know if there's a good OS image on the hard drive that was last left in the system, but the fact the light isn't blinking and it boot to the sunrise screen, just by heating that area, is more progress than it's ever made for me.


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## CrashHD (Nov 10, 2006)

IT'S WORKING!. I'm at repeating guided setup. I only watched for a moment, but I could play back the previous owners recordings still present on the drive.

I removed the heat as soon as it showed signs of normal bootup. I don't know if it will be necessary to repeat this at next bootup, or if it's only a cold boot issue.


----------



## CrashHD (Nov 10, 2006)

I don't know if it's relevant or not, but guided setup is taking forever. It starts out wanting zip code. Then it makes a connection that goes like normal. Then it scans my antenna channels (like normal). Then it wants to make a new connection (getting program info). It's taking forever. It's downloading over 10 Megabit DSL, but according to the bandwidth monitor, I've got about 30 Kbit/sec of inbound and outbound traffic (with the wireless shut off to cut off everyone else in the house). 

This is a total shot in the dark, but could the malfunctioning chip believed to be part of the modem circuit somehow be causing the tivo to download at modem speeds, even over LAN?


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

CrashHD said:


> I don't know if it's relevant or not, but guided setup is taking forever.
> ...


I seem to remember someone else saying something similar. Maybe it is downloading new firmware. I'd say stick with it.



> This is a total shot in the dark, but could the malfunctioning chip believed to be part of the modem circuit somehow be causing the tivo to download at modem speeds, even over LAN?


I'm doubtful. After studying the spec sheet on U3003 and its partner, this looks entirely like telephone modem stuff.

Hey Crash, thanks for the progress report. We might be onto something here. To answer your previous question it seems to reboot okay as long as it is warm. Once it cools down you need to reheat it. I actually remove the heat, then plug it in. I've done numerous cycles that way trying to figure out what's going on.


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## CrashHD (Nov 10, 2006)

I don't know what it was, but it came and went. After taking forever to get through guided setup, it now seems to work normally. Subsequent connections seemed to move at normal speed. 

I just got it added to my tivo account. After the next connection, it should pickup that information, and be able to access the other tivos on my network, at which point I'll be able to check out network performance for video transfers.

It's beyond me to be any kind of useful diagnosing components at the board level, but if there are any simpler things I can do to be useful/helpful, let me know. Thus far all I've done is follow this thread since May, and take a hair dryer to this thing tonight. My technique was simple. I did not mask anything off, or funnel hair dryer output with anything. I just pointed it at the chip from about 3 inches away for about 2 minutes. I did place my hand partially over the intake of the hair dryer, increasing output temperature by decreasing throughput air volume. Then I plugged it in and got a normal boot response. That's about all I know so far.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

CrashHD said:


> I don't know what it was, but it came and went. After taking forever to get through guided setup, it now seems to work normally. Subsequent connections seemed to move at normal speed.


Some things we are not meant to know...


> I just got it added to my tivo account. After the next connection, it should pickup that information, and be able to access the other tivos on my network, at which point I'll be able to check out network performance for video transfers.


Did you have any issue transferring it to your account? What is the process you used?



> It's beyond me to be any kind of useful diagnosing components at the board level, but if there are any simpler things I can do to be useful/helpful, let me know. Thus far all I've done is follow this thread since May, and take a hair dryer to this thing tonight. My technique was simple. I did not mask anything off, or funnel hair dryer output with anything. I just pointed it at the chip from about 3 inches away for about 2 minutes. I did place my hand partially over the intake of the hair dryer, increasing output temperature by decreasing throughput air volume. Then I plugged it in and got a normal boot response. That's about all I know so far.


You being able to go further than ever before based on my hypothesis is worth a lot to me. It adds validity to my thinking.

For the record, I was masking in an attempt to narrow down the specific component that made the difference. As long as you focused in the general direction of U3003 and it started working, I call that a win. Not a fix--but a win. I won't stop until we know how to make a permanent fix.


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

SirKnowsALot said:


> Some things we are not meant to know...
> 
> Did you have any issue transferring it to your account? What is the process you used?
> 
> ...


_____________________________________________________________

Man you have done some great work, Love the way you have broke down the board in sections. I was heading down the path of multi layer traces burnt but I think now you or on a good path. YOU ARE THE MAN...


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## CrashHD (Nov 10, 2006)

SirKnowsALot said:


> Some things we are not meant to know...
> 
> Did you have any issue transferring it to your account? What is the process you used?
> 
> ...


I had no issues, except I could not do it online, it had to be by phone. (which I think is normal for adding used lifetime transfers to your account). The previous owner had given me a "case number" to give to tivo when I called, and he got that number previously when he called tivo on his end to remove the unit from his account.

I had figured your masking it was in the interest of narrowing focus to a single component. I didn't know if it was in the interest of protecting delicate components nearby or not, but eventually I just decided a hair dryer wasn't a not enough heat source to be substantial risk. If I have to do this several times as an interim solution until a more permanent fix is found, I think I like your lightbulb idea. What is a 4 watt bulb, something like a nightlight bulb?


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

SirKnowsALot said:


> I rigged up a 4W light bulb (the kind used in exit signs) and using aluminum tape I shielded everything except U3003. After applying the bulb's heat for 5-6 minutes I removed the tape and powered up successfully.
> 
> Now my thoughts are that there may be some marginal issues with that chip or the board design that heat can "fix". It may be some of the surrounding components instead, as I couldn't completely protect them from my heat source.
> 
> ...


_____________________________________________________________

The crystal on the board right next to the chip? It's right there on the power cont I wonder if it's [art of power good? It has always been in my head something about power good is not working. I guess I need to get the HP freq counter out and see what I get.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

CrashHD said:


> I had no issues, except I could not do it online, it had to be by phone. (which I think is normal for adding used lifetime transfers to your account). The previous owner had given me a "case number" to give to tivo when I called, and he got that number previously when he called tivo on his end to remove the unit from his account.


Uh oh. I hope there is a way to do it without a case number.



> ...
> What is a 4 watt bulb, something like a nightlight bulb?


It was a GE914, 4V, 4W bulb--just something I had lying around. I didn't want to be handling 110 volts and I also didn't want it to get _too_ hot. I made a tube out of aluminum tape and focused the beam of light directly on the components one-by-one until I found one that worked.


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## LI-SVT (Sep 28, 2006)

CrashHD said:


> I don't know if it's relevant or not, but guided setup is taking forever. It starts out wanting zip code. Then it makes a connection that goes like normal. Then it scans my antenna channels (like normal). Then it wants to make a new connection (getting program info). It's taking forever. It's downloading over 10 Megabit DSL, but according to the bandwidth monitor, I've got about 30 Kbit/sec of inbound and outbound traffic (with the wireless shut off to cut off everyone else in the house).
> 
> This is a total shot in the dark, but could the malfunctioning chip believed to be part of the modem circuit somehow be causing the tivo to download at modem speeds, even over LAN?


Re-running GS does take forever. If you had done a clear and delete GS would have been faster. I have done this on good working units and found the same issue.


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## LI-SVT (Sep 28, 2006)

SirKnowsALot said:


> Uh oh. I hope there is a way to do it without a case number.
> 
> It was a GE914, 4V, 4W bulb--just something I had lying around. I didn't want to be handling 110 volts and I also didn't want it to get _too_ hot. I made a tube out of aluminum tape and focused the beam of light directly on the components one-by-one until I found one that worked.


Have the Tivo up and working at your house. Make sure it has been making successful connections to the mother ship. After a month call in. It might take some doing but they will transfer it to your account. I had to do this for a TiVo I bought on EBAY. In my case the guy I bout it from was not the original owner and did not have a TiVo account himself.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

timhbtr53 said:


> _____________________________________________________________
> 
> The crystal on the board right next to the chip? It's right there on the power cont I wonder if it's [art of power good? It has always been in my head something about power good is not working. I guess I need to get the HP freq counter out and see what I get.


Yeah, I remember you were thinking of power-good, and along a similar line I've an idea which you'd be perfect to test I'm wondering if the RESET signal is too fast/slow and the chip doesn't reliably reset sometimes. On our chip it is pin 12. From the AN93 document it says,


> If a 4.9152 MHz crystal or an external 27 MHz clock is used, the reset must be asserted for 5 ms, and a wait of 300 ms duration must happen before an AT command is issued.
> _and later on..._
> The modem reset line is sensitive and must be kept very short and routed well away from any circuitry or components that could be subjected to an ESD event.


Later on in the same document (Section 4.4.2.2. Motherboard Design) it shows that the RESET line should be filtered with a 10K resistor to Vcc and a 2.2uF cap to ground. I measured around 14K to Vcc but couldn't find the pull-up resistor anywhere. Nor could I find the cap to ground for that signal. May be there, just couldn't locate them. Maybe you've got the ability to scope this out better.


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## CrashHD (Nov 10, 2006)

SirKnowsALot said:


> Uh oh. I hope there is a way to do it without a case number.


 I'm sure they can do it. I've done it before, I think there's just an extra verification step or two. Having a case number set up by the previous owner just streamlines the process. The times I had done it without, I had already rerun guided setup, using my zip code, and configuring it for the channels in my area. I think they may look to something like that in the logs as proof you are in possession of the unit. At any rate, I know it's possible, at least one of mine has been done that way.



> It was a GE914, 4V, 4W bulb--just something I had lying around. I didn't want to be handling 110 volts and I also didn't want it to get _too_ hot. I made a tube out of aluminum tape and focused the beam of light directly on the components one-by-one until I found one that worked.


I've got a UPS on some of my tv's, which should keep this one running through short outages, and the one in the basement is my "test bench". I've usually got a tivo on that one with an open cover, so for the time being that's just where this one goes. The previous owner had a few amazon downloads that interest me, after I watch those I'm wiping the hard drive, or rather starting with a fresh image on a new larger drive.


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## CrashHD (Nov 10, 2006)

LI-SVT said:


> Re-running GS does take forever. If you had done a clear and delete GS would have been faster. I have done this on good working units and found the same issue.


It is true, but I've rerun GS several times, and this was taking longer than the normal length of time. Online research suggests the drive could be near failure, which does not concern me. It's the original 160GB drive, and these days 160GB isn't enough to justify wasting any time on except maybe to have on the shelf as a ready to go emergency spare.


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

CrashHD said:


> It is true, but I've rerun GS several times, and this was taking longer than the normal length of time. Online research suggests the drive could be near failure, which does not concern me. It's the original 160GB drive, and these days 160GB isn't enough to justify wasting any time on except maybe to have on the shelf as a ready to go emergency spare.


_____________________________________________________________

Just as a backup drive here is a 1tb Seagate for 46.99 bucks. I am not a fan of Seagate but the last one I got from a RMA 4 times has been running great.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...EM4629&cm_lm=ae6a20767e6c630e4d72e8864b414b2d


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

A 2tb Enterprise Hard Drive 3.5" SATA 3 Gb/s, 7200 RPM, 64MB Cache (Refurbished) - RB-WD2003FYPS 
The best part 59.99 might have to order a few as backup drives....

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=9093191&csid=_61


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## CrashHD (Nov 10, 2006)

I like my backup drives to be drop-in ready, which means each one is specific to one unit (otherwise you have to C&DE if the drive was from another tivo). It would be cost prohibitive to buy a spare for each one. I just keep the original drive (no extra cost) set aside with a sticky note on each one telling me which unit it belongs to. If I rummage my computer bench, I can come up with several used but still working drives in the 500gb-750gb range.

I'm actually done with S3's and THD's. I only have the ones I have because I got them lifetimed and broken, for cheap. I sold some on ebay to raise funds for my roamio. I need to hurry up and sell the rest, the price on these is trending down too fast.

Thanks for the links. I had been out of touch. 2TB drives have come down since I last bought one, although I don't think I'll be buying anymore unless I think it raises the resale value of a used lifetimed S3/THD enough to be profitable.


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

CrashHD said:


> I like my backup drives to be drop-in ready, which means each one is specific to one unit (otherwise you have to C&DE if the drive was from another tivo). It would be cost prohibitive to buy a spare for each one. I just keep the original drive (no extra cost) set aside with a sticky note on each one telling me which unit it belongs to. If I rummage my computer bench, I can come up with several used but still working drives in the 500gb-750gb range.
> 
> I'm actually done with S3's and THD's. I only have the ones I have because I got them lifetimed and broken, for cheap. I sold some on ebay to raise funds for my roamio. I need to hurry up and sell the rest, the price on these is trending down too fast.
> 
> Thanks for the links. I had been out of touch. 2TB drives have come down since I last bought one, although I don't think I'll be buying anymore unless I think it raises the resale value of a used lifetimed S3/THD enough to be profitable.


_____________________________________________________________

I have 5 OLED TiVo's series 3 and everyone had bad hard drives bad power supply's. So about every 6 months I will pull the drives and make a image file. I have 5 3tb drives in my pc so I got the real estate.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

Doing some more probing, I finally found where the RESET line from U3003 comes from. Apparently it goes to the CPU (I expected that) and is pulled up with a 100K resistor to 3.3v. This sure sounds like a wimpy pull-up to me--I'd have expected 10K. Unfortunately I don't have the means to scope this signal right now.

Here's the photo.


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## CrashHD (Nov 10, 2006)

You might go back in the thread. Someone posted here who had their unit repaired by weaknees. They asked for return of faulty parts. Maybe this is the part they replaced. If the faulty part returned to them was a dead ringer for this resistor, that would be strongly suggestive you're in the right place, furthermore maybe that person can look and tell if they replaced it with the exact same spec part, or a lower resistance one.


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## CrashHD (Nov 10, 2006)

AwardBlvr said:


> You guys are great.. Love your detective work.
> 
> Now... I have one with the blinky-green. It WAS in once before to WK. Now it died again after PG&E (local power co) did some power-event on me last week, killing things in my house. WK wants another two hundred bucks to fix it. Might have to pay the ransom. What kind of paint? (Though they might wash it all.)
> 
> ...


Just bringing this to the front of the thread. Maybe knowing what these parts are, a good picture or two, might shed light on this...


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

SirKnowsALot said:


> Doing some more probing, I finally found where the RESET line from U3003 comes from. Apparently it goes to the CPU (I expected that) and is pulled up with a 100K resistor to 3.3v. This sure sounds like a wimpy pull-up to me--I'd have expected 10K. Unfortunately I don't have the means to scope this signal right now.
> 
> Here's the photo.


_____________________________________________________________

I still think it might take time but we will get it.....:up:


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## robomeister (Feb 4, 2005)

This is awesome work! I am very interested in this thread because I have a couple TiVoHDs with the green blinking light. Unfortunately, I just moved and can't remember where I put them, along with my hair dryer. Otherwise I would have been trying along with you for independent verification. I'll report back when I locate my TiVoHDs.

I think one of my green blinkers came back to life after I left it plugged in for a couple hours and rebooted. The other one never worked (it is an eBay purchase where I thought it was the hard drive). It sounds to me that they are at different levels of "broken".

robomeister


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

robomeister said:


> This is awesome work! I am very interested in this thread because I have a couple TiVoHDs with the green blinking light. Unfortunately, I just moved and can't remember where I put them, along with my hair dryer. Otherwise I would have been trying along with you for independent verification. I'll report back when I locate my TiVoHDs.
> 
> I think one of my green blinkers came back to life after I left it plugged in for a couple hours and rebooted. The other one never worked (it is an eBay purchase where I thought it was the hard drive). It sounds to me that they are at different levels of "broken".
> 
> robomeister


_____________________________________________________________

The more we have working on this problem the better.


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

SirKnowsALot said:


> Doing some more probing, I finally found where the RESET line from U3003 comes from. Apparently it goes to the CPU (I expected that) and is pulled up with a 100K resistor to 3.3v. This sure sounds like a wimpy pull-up to me--I'd have expected 10K. Unfortunately I don't have the means to scope this signal right now.
> 
> Here's the photo.


_____________________________________________________________

When I started the test of the supply I noticed the green light does a series of 2 quick blinks then a sold green. I am still stuck on it's a power good signal that's not there. I am going to try to scope the chip on the modem circuit tomorrow just to see what I get.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

timhbtr53 said:


> _____________________________________________________________
> 
> When I started the test of the supply I noticed the green light does a series of 2 quick blinks then a sold green. I am still stuck on it's a power good signal that's not there. I am going to try to scope the chip on the modem circuit tomorrow just to see what I get.


That would be great Tim. 
I summarized some info regarding the RESET line back in post #116 that I found in the documentation for the chip. 
I appreciate your help and expertise.:up:


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

SirKnowsALot said:


> That would be great Tim.
> I summarized some info regarding the RESET line back in post #116 that I found in the documentation for the chip.
> I appreciate your help and expertise.:up:


_____________________________________________________________

Area 51? I think it fits perfect, what you think? I have to order a new probe for my scope I dropped it and rolled over my with my chair. It suck to be me...


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

SirKnowsALot said:


> That would be great Tim.
> I summarized some info regarding the RESET line back in post #116 that I found in the documentation for the chip.
> I appreciate your help and expertise.:up:


_____________________________________________________________

I have a prime account and just found this looking for some new test probes.

http://www.amazon.com/Hantek-Digita...p/B009H4AYII/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top?ie=UTF8

The reviews or good but the software looks a little buggy but it sure bets toting around a 30lbs Oscope. Let me know what you think. I might order one.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

Hey Tim - I looked at this a few months back and the software issues really scared me away. If they could get that straightened out this would be a really nice basic scope.

Here's a couple of links that have an _extensive_ discussion of this scope:
http://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/hantek-6022be-20mhz-usb-dso/
http://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/hantek-6022be-will-it-work-for-me/
(maybe too much info!)

I've got an old Tek SC503 that I'm trying to resurrect for this project. If only I had a rich uncle...


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

SirKnowsALot said:


> Hey Tim - I looked at this a few months back and the software issues really scared me away. If they could get that straightened out this would be a really nice basic scope.
> 
> Here's a couple of links that have an _extensive_ discussion of this scope:
> http://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/hantek-6022be-20mhz-usb-dso/
> ...


_____________________________________________________________

It's weird on amazon some say that the software runs great with win 8 but not win 7... For the price and the little thing you need like a trigger or no trigger it might be a nice tool to have.


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

I probed area 51 with 4 ch oscope and on power up I got NOTHING???
On a good HD I got trigger latch release. I wonder if it could be a bad trace or the chip it self? I lost your number I need to call you and see if we can't figure this out.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

timhbtr53 said:


> I probed area 51 with 4 ch oscope and on power up I got NOTHING???
> On a good HD I got trigger latch release. I wonder if it could be a bad trace or the chip it self?


Tim, I think I am seeing the same thing, so I'm ruling out a bad trace on your board. I found that when it works the reset signal is driven low for about 750 uSec and when it just blinks the reset signal never goes low. Just by applying heat to the chip I can get it to power up properly.

I would assume the processor is what would drive the reset pin, so I don't know what to make of the observation that heating the _*modem*_ chip up makes a difference. In other words, the modem chip is the "consumer" of the reset signal, not the "producer". There's still something missing...


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

Well, at least they're maintaining that proud TiVo tradition of flaky onboard modems.


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

SirKnowsALot said:


> Tim, I think I am seeing the same thing, so I'm ruling out a bad trace on your board. I found that when it works the reset signal is driven low for about 750 uSec and when it just blinks the reset signal never goes low. Just by applying heat to the chip I can get it to power up properly.
> 
> I would assume the processor is what would drive the reset pin, so I don't know what to make of the observation that heating the _*modem*_ chip up makes a difference. In other words, the modem chip is the "consumer" of the reset signal, not the "producer". There's still something missing...


_____________________________________________________________

Day. It looking like it's the CPU and you can't find that at mouser are digikey. It has me stumped why you can apply just a little heat to area51 and get a power up.... One of those things that make you say HUMMMMM


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

unitron said:


> Well, at least they're maintaining that proud TiVo tradition of flaky onboard modems.


Unitron's comment inspired me to look at an old S2 board I had lying around and it had the same modem chips and apparent design as our HD's.

It might give me something to tinker with instead of the lifetime THD I have been using. If I blow something up on the S2 I won't be too upset.


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

It can't be the CPU if you're warming the modem chip and it powers up. That is a super idea to use a S2 board. What in the heck are we overlooking W? I have pulled just about all the SMD caps in area 51 and they check good. It all goes back to a power problem that started this whole thing off. Was it the power supply with bad caps let spiked voltage hit the board? With you hunting and having a lot more luck then I been having in the last few months. I need to back up and start over I just have a gut feeling I have overlooked something simple. It time to punt and take a small break work on some other projects I have put off them hit it with a fresh mind not toast......


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

timhbtr53 said:


> ...I need to back up and start over I just have a gut feeling I have overlooked something simple. It time to punt and take a small break work on some other projects I have put off them hit it with a fresh mind not toast......


Yeah, I will be (and have been) a little sporadic in looking at this. I just periodically post something to see if someone says something that might get me unstuck (like unitron's recent post). I'm a firm believer in group efforts, as I don't claim to be a wizard here.

Hopefully I'll check out the S2 a little and find something interesting. Stay tuned...


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## B1LL (Aug 10, 2008)

Wow! Reading this thread is like reading a great mystery story.

I found this thread today because my Tivo HD was stuck blinking green after a power failure. A hair dryer directed on U3003 fixed it, but when I power booted it a few times, it started blinking green again.

Hat's off for the great detective work, but I was hoping this mystery story would have a great ending revealing how to nail this problem permanently.

Anything new in the last 6 months?


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## TiVoFGLOD (Apr 4, 2016)

This blinking green light just happened to my HD unit after a large windstorm disrupted power two times in rapid succession for a couple minutes last night. I replaced a few bulging caps on the power supply board but it made no improvement. Applying heat to the magic modem region caused the TiVo to go solid green! What would a power loss event do to make something more flaky when starting up? Is an oscillator problem? What could have been damaged but is still recoverable with a little heat? The unit has been running fine since 2009. What is the permanent fix that weaknees knows but won't disclose?!


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## B1LL (Aug 10, 2008)

Hair dryer heat anywhere on the MB seems to enable my unit to fully boot after an AC power cycle with the MB still warm. After the MB cools, it won't boot. 

It's as if the failure is a bad connection that doesn't cause the unit to stop running, but instead only blocks the FW from proceeding because a POST diagnostic or status check fails. This would be why it only shows up after a power failure. During a hung boot, heating the MB doesn't seem to enable the FW to proceed. The FW needs to go back to the beginning with a power cycle. 

I also tried some freeze spray in various places and more localized heat with a soldering iron and neither worked. I'm suspecting the problem may be a CPU surface-mount solder joint that needs to be re-flowed as some folks have theorized up-thread. However, it seems strange these units would work for so many years before a bad solder joint caused a problem.


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## exraytheontom (May 11, 2011)

My Series 3 HD died yesterday after I unplugged it, took off the cover and blew out the dust. From what I have read, there isn't much hope for my DVR. Weakness said they could "probably" fix it with a motherboard and usual $99.99 dollar charge. I think my DVR is beyond economical repair. Unless someone else has come up with a fix. I checked the power supply and the voltages are: +3.3 OK, +5 OK and +12 at 11.78. I think I am done with it.
Don't know if I want to spend $600 on a Roamio, not sure about the Bolt. I am open to suggestions. Thank you if you reply to this.


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## AgbotHD (Jan 23, 2016)

I appear to be seeing similar behavior. Blinking green, power down, heat U3003 area, now get successful boot. Allow U3003 area to cool, power down, back to blinking green.

This is on my lifetime 652 that had the blinking green light issue fixed by WK a while back. A recent power failure killed it again (blinking green is back). Given the cost of another WK fix I begrudgingly took the plunge into a Bolt (which, overall I suppose I'm mostly happy with, but that's another thread).

Has anyone taken a closer look at a WK repaired board? Maybe I'm seeing things on my previously repaired board, but I swear the solder pads on U3003 aren't as clean/smooth/symmetrical as any other SMD parts on my motherboard. Im almost of the mind to replace the modem and see what happens. I'd attach the image but I'm not to 5 posts yet  I forgot my original account details from many years back and re-registered again recently.

Thoughts from anyone else? I think the Mouser/Digikey part is SI2434-D-FT.

Another thought (and bear with me here, Im a software guy that has muddled in hardware a little bit) but has anyone scoped the 3.3V supply into the modem at power up? There are two VD3.3 pins. On a work related product we were dealing with an older GPS IC that very rarely upon cold boot would be unresponsive. It turned out that only one particular rev of that IC happened to be very sensitive to the ramp up to 3.3V.

----

EDIT: I found some "before blinking green light repair" pictures I took before sending it to WK. Not as high res but the top markings on the modem itself appear to have the identical numbers (I'm not 100% given the lower res photos, but sure looks like it). Since this number includes the year and week of manufacture, it would be quite the luck of the draw if WK happened to replace my original part with one that was manufactured in the exact same year and week. So - maybe I got nothin' here. 

Maybe my next hair brained idea will be to use a different 3.3V supply for U3003. I've seen the opposite of what this "heat it up fix" is doing here on another project... where higher temps were causing a ripple in a 3.3V supply. Are higher temps around U3003 cleaning up the 3.3V supply? Is that even possible?


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

exraytheontom said:


> My Series 3 HD died yesterday after I unplugged it, took off the cover and blew out the dust. From what I have read, there isn't much hope for my DVR. Weakness said they could "probably" fix it with a motherboard and usual $99.99 dollar charge. I think my DVR is beyond economical repair. Unless someone else has come up with a fix. I checked the power supply and the voltages are: +3.3 OK, +5 OK and +12 at 11.78. I think I am done with it.
> Don't know if I want to spend $600 on a Roamio, not sure about the Bolt. I am open to suggestions. Thank you if you reply to this.


You're talking about a TCD652160, right?

Was it showing any symptoms of anything being wrong before you opened it up?

What are the symptoms now?

Totally dead, no lights, no fan?

Are you using the component or composite video output instead of HDMI to be sure that the problem isn't just the HDMI section?


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

Have you been doing any work lately on "blinker" ?


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

Hey everyone, I'm glad to see some life again in this thread! I've been periodically checking in, but until just now it was a ghost town.

Here's an update on my investigation. Don't get your hopes up, however.

A few months back I could very reliably start my THD by warming up U3003. Cold=blink, Warm=boot. 

During the months that I've been away I obtained a hot-air SMD rework station and had planned to replace U3003 just because. Since so much time had elapsed since I last worked on it, I attempted to reproduce the Cold=blink/Warm=boot behavior before I tried changing anything. Much to my dismay, no matter what I did I could not get the THD to successfully boot. Now I'm at a loss for where to go next.

Because there's new activity in this thread I will monitor more closely and be glad to listen and help where I can.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

AgbotHD said:


> ...
> 
> Has anyone taken a closer look at a WK repaired board? Maybe I'm seeing things on my previously repaired board, but I swear the solder pads on U3003 aren't as clean/smooth/symmetrical as any other SMD parts on my motherboard.


I'd love to see a WK reworked board up-close (or hi-rez photos).


AgbotHD said:


> Im almost of the mind to replace the modem and see what happens.
> ...
> Thoughts from anyone else? I think the Mouser/Digikey part is SI2434-D-FT.


I believe that is the correct part. For me $40 in a new chip is a fairly big gamble. I don't want to discourage you though.


AgbotHD said:


> Another thought (and bear with me here, Im a software guy that has muddled in hardware a little bit) but has anyone scoped the 3.3V supply into the modem at power up? There are two VD3.3 pins. On a work related product we were dealing with an older GPS IC that very rarely upon cold boot would be unresponsive. It turned out that only one particular rev of that IC happened to be very sensitive to the ramp up to 3.3V.


We won't hold your background against you (plus that is my background as well)...
Interesting comment on the 3.3v ramp-up. I did some scoping on the reset signal, but had some suspicions about power and never did anything about it.
EDIT: Here's a trace from U3003, pin 21 (3.3v) on a successful boot. I got an almost identical trace from a blinking LED boot, so this may be ruled out.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

exraytheontom said:


> My Series 3 HD died yesterday after I unplugged it
> ...
> I am open to suggestions. Thank you if you reply to this.


EDIT: I just saw unitron's reply to your post, and wanted to be clear that only if you are having the blinking green LED problem would my procedure below be worth a try.

Have you tried heating U3003 as described in my post here? It has allowed some folks to boot although it isn't a permanent fix. The only reason I used the light-bulb was to focus the heat in small areas so that I could pin down the chip that was causing the problem. Others have used the wife's hairdryer.

If you can perform this procedure and report back as to what you found it would be helpful and may contribute to an eventual _real_ fix for this.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

I was able to probe around and while this doesn't resolve anything I want to at least put this in the record in case it helps down the road.

I probed the RESET* signal on U3003 along with Vdd. I wanted to see what the reset looked like as power came up. Because the cursors on my trace blend in with the actual traces, I'll describe what is in the image below.

CH1 is the 3.3v Vdd line. CH2 is the RESET* line. Both right on U3003. About 420ms after Vdd is applied RESET* goes to 3.3v. It stays at that level for about 965ms and then is pulsed low for around 750us. It is this 750us pulse that I believe is the actual reset to U3003.

What I found was that when the boot was unsuccessful (i.e. blinking light), the RESET* pulse never comes. The question is why...and why does heating U3003 seem to make it work? That's what we need to work on.

Note: I added some colored lines to the photo to differentiate between the signal traces and my cursor lines. I hope that helps.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

One thing that I just could not get comfortable with is that why would warming up U3003 cause it to _receive_ a RESET pulse, while a cold U3003 would not. This caused me to start doubting that I was actually seeing what I _thought_ I saw. Maybe I wasn't warming up _just_ U3003, but also some neighboring components. B1LL mentioned he could heat _anywhere_ on the motherboard for a successful boot.

With this in mind (and with some new equipment I recently acquired) I starting heating other areas surrounding U3003 while keeping U3003 itself cold. Long story short (well, less long) is that I think the main crystal, Y2201 is now the sensitive component. I heated it very precisely--good boot. I instantly cooled it with an air duster--blink. Repeat 2-3 times exactly the same.

I wanted to probe the crystal with my scope, but the capacitance of the probe caused it to not oscillate at all and thus nothing happened. (At 54 MHz things get pretty touchy). So right now that's where we're at. I decided to post this unfinished work in case someone smarter than me can move us along faster. Any assistance is greatly appreciated! Also, if AgbotHD reads this before shelling out the money for a new U3003 that would make me happy as well.

The attached photo shows the crystal in relation to the processor heatsink and our old friend U3003.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

SirKnowsALot said:


> One thing that I just could not get comfortable with is that why would warming up U3003 cause it to _receive_ a RESET pulse, while a cold U3003 would not. This caused me to start doubting that I was actually seeing what I _thought_ I saw. Maybe I wasn't warming up _just_ U3003, but also some neighboring components. B1LL mentioned he could heat _anywhere_ on the motherboard for a successful boot.
> 
> With this in mind (and with some new equipment I recently acquired) I starting heating other areas surrounding U3003 while keeping U3003 itself cold. Long story short (well, less long) is that I think the main crystal, Y2201 is now the sensitive component. I heated it very precisely--good boot. I instantly cooled it with an air duster--blink. Repeat 2-3 times exactly the same.
> 
> ...


I'd be tempted to re-solder that xtal, just to see if it made a difference.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

I wanted to post a quick update on this investigation. Don't know if anyone (besides unitron) is still following the saga since it's been pretty quiet around here.

Resoldering the crystal did not help. However, I swapped the crystal out of another THD that has a _different_ problem and after making sure the crystal was cool, it powered right up and has been working fine. I've been too busy to try to unplug it for a few hours at a time and try a cold start, but when I get the time I will do that.

Additionally, when I have time I want to put the "bad" crystal on the other Tivo and see if it catches the "blinking green" disease.

One point of data doesn't prove much, but that's all we've got at this time.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

SirKnowsALot said:


> I wanted to post a quick update on this investigation. Don't know if anyone (besides unitron) is still following the saga since it's been pretty quiet around here.
> 
> Resoldering the crystal did not help. However, I swapped the crystal out of another THD that has a _different_ problem and after making sure the crystal was cool, it powered right up and has been working fine. I've been too busy to try to unplug it for a few hours at a time and try a cold start, but when I get the time I will do that.
> 
> ...


<artejohnsonvoice > "Verrrry Interesting". < /voice>


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## telecomjd (Nov 11, 2013)

SirKnowsALot said:


> I wanted to post a quick update on this investigation. Don't know if anyone (besides unitron) is still following the saga since it's been pretty quiet around here.
> 
> Resoldering the crystal did not help. However, I swapped the crystal out of another THD that has a _different_ problem and after making sure the crystal was cool, it powered right up and has been working fine. I've been too busy to try to unplug it for a few hours at a time and try a cold start, but when I get the time I will do that.
> 
> ...


I'm closely following your progress and I appreciate your efforts to date because I'm having the same blinking green light problem. However, unlike what some have observed, heating the board with a blow dryer does not eliminate the blinking. So, either my issue is due to a different cause or an additional one. I'm reluctant to abandon this Tivo because of the lifetime service I would be losing. If replacing the crystal would eliminate the problem, that would be a terrific discovery. Thanks again for your efforts.


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## Lancep50 (Jan 20, 2016)

telecomjd said:


> I'm closely following your progress and I appreciate your efforts to date because I'm having the same blinking green light problem. However, unlike what some have observed, heating the board with a blow dryer does not eliminate the blinking. So, either my issue is due to a different cause or an additional one. I'm reluctant to abandon this Tivo because of the lifetime service I would be losing. If replacing the crystal would eliminate the problem, that would be a terrific discovery. Thanks again for your efforts.


I 2nd that. So far, I have been able to start using a blow dryer, but the symptoms just started. Just not sure how long this methods will work. Thanks for your efforts!


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

unitron said:


> <artejohnsonvoice > "Verrrry Interesting". < /voice>


There may only be a few of us that get this reference...


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

I put the crystal from the blinking LED unit into the Tivo that donated the replacement crystal and that unit doesn't even get to the blinking stage. The LEDs all flash on when power is first applied, but then nothing at all.

Either I ruined the crystal during the removal process or something is wrong with that particular crystal (that was originally in the blinking LED unit).

I'll try to get some new crystals and see if that tells us anything. May be a while though...


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## AgbotHD (Jan 23, 2016)

SirKnowsALot said:


> I put the crystal from the blinking LED unit into the Tivo that donated the replacement crystal and that unit doesn't even get to the blinking stage. The LEDs all flash on when power is first applied, but then nothing at all.
> 
> Either I ruined the crystal during the removal process or something is wrong with that particular crystal (that was originally in the blinking LED unit).
> 
> I'll try to get some new crystals and see if that tells us anything. May be a while though...


Hi SirKnowsALot, thanks for the updates! Is the unit with the good donor crystal still working? Did you use a hot air rework station to swap it out or a soldering iron? Just wondering if the U3001 reset-pin resistor may have been reflowed during the process since it looks like it's pretty close to the crystal.

Either way, I may first try a reflow around there, then try to find a new crystal to swap in there (I don't have a donor TiVo to pull one from). I'll also take a closer look at the area before doing anything, although if that is where WK did their work it may be hard to tell.

I'll try to find a part number for that crystal. It's worth a shot.

Edit: I notice that my crystal has a slightly different part number (at least I assume it's a part number, no hits when I search Mouser or Digikey). Again this is my previously repaired WK board, blinking again after power failure. If there are any other areas you're curious to see up close let me know.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

AgbotHD said:


> Hi SirKnowsALot, thanks for the updates! Is the unit with the good donor crystal still working? Did you use a hot air rework station to swap it out or a soldering iron? Just wondering if the U3001 reset-pin resistor may have been reflowed during the process since it looks like it's pretty close to the crystal.
> 
> ...


The unit with the donor crystal is still working fine. I think the true test, however, is to power it off for a period of time to cool off and see if it comes back on or just blinks. I just haven't had a chance to try this yet.

When removing the crystal I masked off the area with aluminum tape and some insulation so as to focus on the crystal itself, so I don't think anything happened over by the U3003 chip area.

I used a hot-air rework station to remove/replace the crystal and that was a *BIG mistake*. The small capacitors in the vicinity are easily dislodged during this procedure  and if you think the crystal is small and hard to handle...

When I recently put the "bad" crystal into the donor Tivo, I simply wetted the pads on the board with solder and used my soldering iron on the small exposed leads of the crystal to reflow the solder. It went very smoothly. One thing to pay attention to is that there is a plastic spacer underneath the crystal and holding heat on it too long will melt it--so get on and get off as fast as you can.

Thanks for the hi-res shot of the crystal area. It's hard to tell if that was reworked or not, and I don't know where else they might have touched.


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## AgbotHD (Jan 23, 2016)

Thanks for the tip, I'll stick with the soldering iron to replace the crystal. Ordered a couple, should be able to try the swap in about a week.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

@AgbotHD: It bothers me somewhat that a repaired Tivo would re-exhibit this problem after a period of time. I would think anything besides a capacitor fix would basically be permanent.

You may have done this, but just to rule out the simplest of causes--have you looked at the capacitors in the power supply to see if any have the bulging problem? This would be ideal if this is all it was.


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## AgbotHD (Jan 23, 2016)

SirKnowsALot said:


> @AgbotHD: It bothers me somewhat that a repaired Tivo would re-exhibit this problem after a period of time. I would think anything besides a capacitor fix would basically be permanent.
> 
> You may have done this, but just to rule out the simplest of causes--have you looked at the capacitors in the power supply to see if any have the bulging problem? This would be ideal if this is all it was.


I initially hoped it was the power supply since I didn't want to give up this lifetime unit without a fight. I visually inspected the power board and it looked ok. To be certain I re-capped the power board but still no dice. I also tried a known-good board from another unit and tried another spare I had laying around. Still blinking green.

I also just reconfirmed that heating around U3003 allows it to boot.

I do agree that it's peculiar that a fixed WK motherboard would re-exhibit. The first repair from WK also included a new power board to be safe. In both cases a house-wide power loss preceded the blinking green. First failure was due to a storm so may have been some dirty power through my cheap surge protector. The second time was a clean flip of the main breaker and with a quality surge protector on the TiVo (still killed it). The Bolt that replaced this dead unit is now powered through a UPS since I'm tired of toasted TiVos on what is apparently my only bad-luck wall socket in the house. My other HD (and Lifetime Series 2 prior to that) has never had issues through power loss (in another room).

The resistance is the same across Y2201 on both my good unit and bad unit. I don't know if that is relevant at all (and I don't have a scope or frequency counter at home to actually test it).


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

AgbotHD said:


> ...
> To be certain I re-capped the power board but still no dice. I also tried a known-good board from another unit and tried another spare I had laying around. Still blinking green.
> 
> I also just reconfirmed that heating around U3003 allows it to boot.
> ...


Good to know you're on top of it! I just wanted to cover the bases.

If you get the chance, could you try heating just the crystal and see if that allows a successful boot. My experience has been that you need very little heat on the crystal to make it happy. Like 10 seconds with the hair dryer. It would be nice to know if the "heated crystal fix" works on more than just my unit.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

SirKnowsALot said:


> Good to know you're on top of it! I just wanted to cover the bases.
> 
> If you get the chance, could you try heating just the crystal and see if that allows a successful boot. My experience has been that you need very little heat on the crystal to make it happy. Like 10 seconds with the hair dryer. It would be nice to know if the "heated crystal fix" works on more than just my unit.


If that crystal isn't too close to the open, exposed power supply for safety concerns, could you hold a soldering iron just above it for a little while instead of using a hair dryer, just to be sure it's the xtal and not something near it that needs warming up?


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## AgbotHD (Jan 23, 2016)

I heated only around Y2201 and that didn't give me a clean boot. I then moved over to the general area around U3003 and that fixed it again.

I'll still swap the crystal when the part arrives since it'll be nice to know one way or the other.

Heating around the vicinity of U3003 does fix it, but to my non-hardware-expert self, the fact that a power failure preceded my two blinking green states and since heat fixes the problem, it feels a bit like a capacitor issue.

I let the board cool back to a flashing green state, then blocked off the area around the "field of capacitors" sort of in between U3003 and Y2201. Area marked in red in the attached photo. I wanted to try to heat just those caps and leave the modem and crystal out of the equation. That worked. Clean boot.

If the crystal swap doesn't help maybe I'll try to get a parts list together for those caps. They seem large enough to tackle.

Since I keep getting an error when attempting to attach my image, here is a direct link: http://i.imgur.com/g8z2CLj.jpg


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## MrPaulAR (Jan 2, 2002)

My Tivo is having the same blinking green light issue. I haven't heated up 3003 yet and I know that isn't a permanent fix but generically speaking, once it's powered will it continue to work until powered off long enough to cool down?

I've been using HTPC/WMC for years and just stumbled across this because the WAF for WMC isn't very high.


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## CrashHD (Nov 10, 2006)

MrPaulAR said:


> My Tivo is having the same blinking green light issue. I haven't heated up 3003 yet and I know that isn't a permanent fix but generically speaking, once it's powered will it continue to work until powered off long enough to cool down?


When mine was unplugged for about 15 seconds while I routed it's power wire from a normal outlet to a UPS, that was enough off time that it would not restart. I had to open the cover and "jumpstart" it with the hair dryer again.

I did then use it for many straight months after that. Until a blackout that lasted longer than the UPS. I've still got it, and will go back to using it some day, but for now I have another unit in it's place.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

AgbotHD said:


> I heated only around Y2201 and that didn't give me a clean boot. I then moved over to the general area around U3003 and that fixed it again.


That sure makes me suspicious about the xtal NOT being involved. Or that there are multiple problems that cause this issue.


> I'll still swap the crystal when the part arrives since it'll be nice to know one way or the other.


There are several of us very interested in this test.


> Heating around the vicinity of U3003 does fix it, but to my non-hardware-expert self, the fact that a power failure preceded my two blinking green states and since heat fixes the problem, it feels a bit like a capacitor issue.
> 
> I let the board cool back to a flashing green state, then blocked off the area around the "field of capacitors" sort of in between U3003 and Y2201. Area marked in red in the attached photo. I wanted to try to heat just those caps and leave the modem and crystal out of the equation. That worked. Clean boot.


Great experiment...but not the result I wanted to hear!


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## AgbotHD (Jan 23, 2016)

SirKnowsALot said:


> That sure makes me suspicious about the xtal NOT being involved. Or that there are multiple problems that cause this issue.
> There are several of us very interested in this test.
> 
> Great experiment...but not the result I wanted to hear!


Indeed!



SirKnowsALot said:


> There are several of us very interested in this test.


I have a new rework station on the way and should have it sometime next week. I'll be sure to follow up.


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## AgbotHD (Jan 23, 2016)

I replaced the Y2201 crystal and unfortunately it still booted to the green flashing light. Heating around the usual corner again gave me a clean boot.

There's nothing in that area that looks like it was ever reworked on my WK repaired board, but of course those guys are pros and I may not be able to determine where they performed the repair in the first place.


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## pL86 (Oct 11, 2009)

My Tivo HD was blinking green after a power outage last night. Thanks to those who contributed to this thread, I was able to successfully get the unit to boot after heating the U3003 area of the motherboard with a hair dryer. This is the first time I've ever experienced the blinking green indicator light but my Tivo has long been hit-or-miss in terms of rebooting seamlessly after a power loss. It typically takes multiple reboots before the Tivo successfully sets up and it's been getting worse. My last previous reboot was about a month ago and it took 6 or 7 reboots for it to succeed. I think it's likely related to whatever causes the blinking green light. In any case, thanks again for the hair dryer workaround.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

Hey guys, thanks for all the feedback on what is working and not. The more info we have, the better chance we'll have to find out what the root cause is and how to fix it permanently.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

So is this only happening to TiVos subjected to power outages?

(which suggests possible "spike" damage to something, the way S1 modems used to bite the dust)


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## CrashHD (Nov 10, 2006)

I can't say. I got mine buying used lifetime tivos on ebay so I could fix them up. All but this one worked out well.

I'm no electronic engineer, but I think it's tough to say if this issue is caused by a power outage, or simply revealed by a power outage, since it only presents on a cold boot.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

I can confirm that after an unexpected 15 minute power outage my Tivo with the replaced crystal booted fine. That might not be enough time to completely cool off, so when I get the time I will do a planned longer power down to see if it still boots.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

AgbotHD said:


> I heated only around Y2201 and that didn't give me a clean boot.
> ...
> I let the board cool back to a flashing green state, then blocked off the area around the "field of capacitors" sort of in between U3003 and Y2201. Area marked in red in the attached photo. I wanted to try to heat just those caps and leave the modem and crystal out of the equation. That worked. Clean boot.
> ...


Is there a chance you could narrow down where in the "field of capacitors" the heat needs to be applied? I would start at the corner nearest U3003 and Y2201 since maybe we are getting some heat-bleedover when heating those components that is faking us out. It still smacks of a capacitor problem but it sure is aggravating.


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## AgbotHD (Jan 23, 2016)

SirKnowsALot said:


> Is there a chance you could narrow down where in the "field of capacitors" the heat needs to be applied? I would start at the corner nearest U3003 and Y2201 since maybe we are getting some heat-bleedover when heating those components that is faking us out. It still smacks of a capacitor problem but it sure is aggravating.


I should be able to target somewhat well by both blocking and reducing the temperature, airflow, and tip of my rework station.

I'd love to have several blinking units to experiment with. Occasionally I'll check eBay for cheap "broken" units but never see any.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

I finally had a chance to do a longer, planned poweroff of the Tivo with replaced crystal. It was off for 5-6 hours and when power was restored it came up just fine.


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## AgbotHD (Jan 23, 2016)

SirKnowsALot said:


> I finally had a chance to do a longer, planned poweroff of the Tivo with replaced crystal. It was off for 5-6 hours and when power was restored it came up just fine.


That's good news!

In less than good news, I went to swap in my original crystal... and lifted one of the pads. Sigh.

That trace is hopefully the only element in the board layers at that location. Time for some careful scraping to expose the contact and we'll see if I can get back to a working board.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

AgbotHD said:


> ...
> In less than good news, I went to swap in my original crystal... and lifted one of the pads. Sigh.
> 
> That trace is hopefully the only element in the board layers at that location. Time for some careful scraping to expose the contact and we'll see if I can get back to a working board.


That just happened to me when I was replacing the tuner in a different Tivo (Series 2). Luckily, the copper wasn't broken and I was able to get things working after a short period of panic.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

Back in post 160 I swapped the bad crystal (from the blinker Tivo) into a different Tivo which then did not boot at all. Today I put a new crystal in the second Tivo and it booted fine (it's got other problems though).

So either that crystal _was_ bad or I ruined it taking it out of the blinking Tivo.


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## rickydee (Nov 21, 2006)

My Series 3 HD was exhibiting the blinking light and after reading the suggestions decided to try the hair dryer to heat the area suggested. 

Low and behold the unit lights flashed and it booted. 

Are there any suggestions or discoveries about how to prevent the green flashing from returning. I'm assuming that will resume once the unit cools down sufficiently. 

I'm not inclined to spend the $$$ (almost $200) for a weaknees repair given I'd probably get better use out of a Roamio with a lifetime sub around $349. I miss those old days where you used to be able to transfer you lifetime sub...but that's just showing how long I've been using Tivo!


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

Glad the hair dryer trick worked! As of now we don't exactly know what the root problem is (or if there are more than one). We're still trying to get to the bottom of it and will continue to post discoveries as they happen. Any feedback is also helpful--Tivos are complex and wonderful devices--and the more eyes we have the better.


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## AgbotHD (Jan 23, 2016)

SirKnowsALot - the new crystal you placed in your second TiVo... do you have a part number?


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

AgbotHD said:


> SirKnowsALot - the new crystal you placed in your second TiVo... do you have a part number?


Sure! I ordered from digikey.com, part number 887-1077-1-ND. This is a 54 MHz, 18pf crystal. I also ordered a 20pf crystal, 887-1951-1-ND but haven't used it. I just made a guess as to which one to try first and it worked. I must've _just_ missed your post yesterday.


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## CrashHD (Nov 10, 2006)

rickydee said:


> I'm assuming that will resume once the unit cools down sufficiently.


I think it's about more than just temperature. With my unit, a split second current interruption would still successfully reboot, but a 10 second or so interruption meant getting out the hair dryer. It's got to be more than just a temperature issue, as there's no way it can cool that much in that time frame.


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## AgbotHD (Jan 23, 2016)

SirKnowsALot said:


> Sure! I ordered from digikey.com, part number 887-1077-1-ND. This is a 54 MHz, 18pf crystal. I also ordered a 20pf crystal, 887-1951-1-ND but haven't used it. I just made a guess as to which one to try first and it worked. I must've _just_ missed your post yesterday.


Thanks! I just wanted to make sure we were playing with the same parts. Those are the exact same ones I ordered and I started with the 18pf as well. Unfortunately when then trying to replace the old one I lifted a pad. We'll see if I can scrape away to the contact. Nothing to lose at this point in trying.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

When I did that (on a different project) I put a tiny drop of super-glue under the pad to tack it down. Then soldered with as little heat as possible. Best of luck.


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## SVTarHeel (Sep 22, 2014)

AgbotHD said:


> I'd love to have several blinking units to experiment with. Occasionally I'll check eBay for cheap "broken" units but never see any.


Just an update to anyone checking this thread... I was able to snag one today that I'm hoping to get to AgbotHD as a test case. Keep your virtual fingers crossed and watch this space...


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

SVTarHeel said:


> Just an update to anyone checking this thread... I was able to snag one today that I'm hoping to get to AgbotHD as a test case. Keep your virtual fingers crossed and watch this space...


652 or 658?

How much did you pay?

Power supply and hard drive good?


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## SVTarHeel (Sep 22, 2014)

unitron said:


> 652 or 658? How much did you pay? Power supply and hard drive good?


Lifetimed TCD652160. With shipping to AgbotHD, it looks like about $35. Supposedly working fine before the green blinking light started.


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## timhbtr53 (Apr 25, 2014)

SirKnowsALot said:


> I finally had a chance to do a longer, planned poweroff of the Tivo with replaced crystal. It was off for 5-6 hours and when power was restored it came up just fine.


_____________________________________________________________

You did good young man.. I need to call you but with the flood aftermath just isn't enough hours in the day. You really did good W. Pat yourself on the back.


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## SVTarHeel (Sep 22, 2014)

timhbtr53 said:


> You did good young man... Pat yourself on the back.


But my arm gets sooo tired  I do like the young part though

The unit is shipping to AgbotHD today, so one of us will keep you all updated.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

I was beginning to think this thread had died...glad to see some new life!

Looking forward to what AgbotHD finds. I hope he has more time than I do right now!


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## SVTarHeel (Sep 22, 2014)

I got the following from AgbotHD on Wednesday evening as I was getting ready for an all day road trip yesterday.

_Progress report #1:
TiVo delivered. A quick test confirms blinking green. There are a couple leaky caps on the power board, so next up Ill swap in a known-good just to make sure, then try the hot air jump start to verify if its a motherboard issue in the same corner as the others discussed in this thread._


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## AgbotHD (Jan 23, 2016)

Working with SVTarHeel's flashing-green TiVo, re-capped and tested the power board and replaced crystal Y2201 - no dice. Still blinking green. This was behaving a bit differently than others though, since a hot-air jumpstart in the Y2201 area wasn't bringing it to life.

I'll try jump starting via hot air in other locations to see if any other areas look promising (and turns out there are a couple SMD capacitors on the bottom of the motherboard right underneath Y2201.... I'll try heating those specifically.


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## kaiser1111 (Mar 29, 2013)

One of my TiVo's Model TCD663320 Australia just started with a blinking green and no fan. Swapped Power supply....no change. Tried heating various areas fan and started when heating. Seemed to be in the area of the 4 IC's the one closest to the front of the TiVo. Only the slightest heating and cooling made the fan stop and start. The green blinking continued. The volts on the fan would change from 12v running to .5v stopped. There is no effect heating around the caps or U3003 (which on my unit has no IC installed). Dead MB?


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## Andrew Heggie (Jan 30, 2017)

Same problem with mine. I found a guy in Melbourne who is sure he can fix it. Faulty motherboard.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

Andrew Heggie said:


> Same problem with mine. I found a guy in Melbourne who is sure he can fix it. Faulty motherboard.


When he does you need to get him to write down for you (to share with us) what the problem is and what he did to fix it.

Is it just bad capacitors on the motherboard or actual integrated circuits (chips) on there gone bad, and which ones?


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## Andrew Heggie (Jan 30, 2017)

Very happy to share whatever I can learn. Frankly I'll pay to make it work again and I don't really care what the solution is. In the mean time I am buying a spare unit or two when I can.

LOVE MY TIVO. NOTHING COMES CLOSE!


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## kaiser1111 (Mar 29, 2013)

Hope you didn't pay too much to get it fixed Andrew! Now that it's all about to finish in Australia & NZ. Anyone out there know how to get service EPG from somewhere else? It shouldn't be too hard, all TV's and PVR's get a EPG just a matter of getting the TiVo to show it.


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## cardigans1 (May 11, 2004)

I've been doing a lot of searching trying to figure out how to fix this issue. For mine, my mom has had her S3 with lifetime for 8 years and out of the blue, it's blinking continuous green on the far left light.

I called Tivo customer support, they basically told me to unplug and plug back in and then shrugged their shoulders. 

As I've read this thread about caps and hair dryers - what would you recommend my first steps to be to try to fix? I'm located in the States and am a novice with "power stuff". Thanks in advance


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

While not definitive, first would be to open the case and check for capacitors in the power supply that are bulging outward slightly on the top. It is possibly to have power supply/capacitor issues without exhibiting this physical issue though.

Tivo Series 3 - Bad capacitors in power supply

Has the drive been replaced during this time? You could also run the drive manufacturer's tests on it to see if it passes in case you have a hard drive issue as well.

Is this the HD model?

Scott


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

cardigans1 said:


> I've been doing a lot of searching trying to figure out how to fix this issue. For mine, my mom has had her S3 with lifetime for 8 years and out of the blue, it's blinking continuous green on the far left light.
> 
> I called Tivo customer support, they basically told me to unplug and plug back in and then shrugged their shoulders.
> 
> As I've read this thread about caps and hair dryers - what would you recommend my first steps to be to try to fix? I'm located in the States and am a novice with "power stuff". Thanks in advance


Unfortunately, the blinking green light is basically the Tivo's way of saying, "something went wrong". Any number of things could be the cause--only a couple of which we can do anything about.

Did this happen after a power outage (or Tivo unplugged)? The hair dryer trick might allow you to get it to start back up, and once it is running it seems to be fine until power is removed. So, not a fix. A workaround.

If you're lucky, it would be the caps (as Scott mentioned above) because that is a tangible problem you can remedy with some electronics work. Either way, you have to open the unit up and inspect. If you don't see the bulging capacitors, I'd try the hair dryer treatment. You don't need to hook it all back up to test...just plug in power and see if the green light blinks continuously or only a couple of times and then remains solid.

If it goes solid, you know the heat helped. Now you need to keep power on it as you screw the cover back on and plan your path back to the Tivo's normal spot. Unplug it and hustle to that spot and plug back in ASAP. If you still have the solid green, hook all your cables, etc. back up and hope the power doesn't go out again.

As of now, we don't know why the hair dryer trick works, but it has worked for several people. Any feedback on your experience is welcomed, as it may be the key we needed to figure this out.

Good luck!


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## cardigans1 (May 11, 2004)

SirKnowsALot said:


> Unfortunately, the blinking green light is basically the Tivo's way of saying, "something went wrong". Any number of things could be the cause--only a couple of which we can do anything about.
> 
> Did this happen after a power outage (or Tivo unplugged)? The hair dryer trick might allow you to get it to start back up, and once it is running it seems to be fine until power is removed. So, not a fix. A workaround.
> 
> ...


Here are some pictures - what am I looking for?


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## cardigans1 (May 11, 2004)

HerronScott said:


> While not definitive, first would be to open the case and check for capacitors in the power supply that are bulging outward slightly on the top. It is possibly to have power supply/capacitor issues without exhibiting this physical issue though.
> 
> Tivo Series 3 - Bad capacitors in power supply
> 
> ...


I have never replaced the drive.

DOWNSTAIRS TIVO3
652-0111-XXXX-XXXX
HD 20hr


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

cardigans1 said:


> Here are some pictures - what am I looking for?


Nice photos! Obviously a visual inspection is not nearly as good as an electrical test, but in my experience your caps look okay. What you're looking for is any kind of deformation or leaking on the tops of the larger electrolytic caps. That + on top is actually an intentionally weak spot so that if pressure inside the cap builds up too high, the top will open and relieve the pressure (versus just blowing up).

I've included a photo I got off the web that shows some caps that are most likely bad--or at least due to be replaced even if still working. Note that the tops are not perfectly flat, but slightly domed. In worse cases, there could be crud oozing out the top. If that were your situation I'm sure you wouldn't even be asking...










If you've come this far, I'd try a hairdryer on the U3003 chip shown in the first photo of post 102. You probably only need it heated for a minute max. Plug it in and see if the green LED blinks or if it stays on after a second or two.

Good luck, and thanks for keeping us informed.


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## cardigans1 (May 11, 2004)

SirKnowsALot said:


> Nice photos! Obviously a visual inspection is not nearly as good as an electrical test, but in my experience your caps look okay. What you're looking for is any kind of deformation or leaking on the tops of the larger electrolytic caps. That + on top is actually an intentionally weak spot so that if pressure inside the cap builds up too high, the top will open and relieve the pressure (versus just blowing up).
> 
> I've included a photo I got off the web that shows some caps that are most likely bad--or at least due to be replaced even if still working. Note that the tops are not perfectly flat, but slightly domed. In worse cases, there could be crud oozing out the top. If that were your situation I'm sure you wouldn't even be asking...
> 
> ...


Thank you so much and thank for the detailed description. I was going to totally do what you said, but then I got an email from TiVo offering a $99 lifetime transfer to a Tivo Bolt so I took it!

Was able to upgrade a Series 2 with lifetime and this Series 3 with lifetime to Two 1 TB Bolts for $399.

877-289-8486 option 4 was the number I called.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

cardigans1 said:


> ...
> Was able to upgrade a Series 2 with lifetime and this Series 3 with lifetime to Two 1 TB Bolts for $399.
> ...


Well done! Sometimes it's not worth the hassle of trying to fix it.


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## cardigans1 (May 11, 2004)

SirKnowsALot said:


> Nice photos! Obviously a visual inspection is not nearly as good as an electrical test, but in my experience your caps look okay. What you're looking for is any kind of deformation or leaking on the tops of the larger electrolytic caps. That + on top is actually an intentionally weak spot so that if pressure inside the cap builds up too high, the top will open and relieve the pressure (versus just blowing up).
> 
> I've included a photo I got off the web that shows some caps that are most likely bad--or at least due to be replaced even if still working. Note that the tops are not perfectly flat, but slightly domed. In worse cases, there could be crud oozing out the top. If that were your situation I'm sure you wouldn't even be asking...
> 
> ...


so my Tivo Bolt hasn't shipped so I decided to follow your instructions above and heated up the chip for 1 minute and it powered on just fine! Amazing!


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

cardigans1 said:


> so my Tivo Bolt hasn't shipped so I decided to follow your instructions above and heated up the chip for 1 minute and it powered on just fine! Amazing!


Great! Thanks for that feedback. Every bit of information brings us a little closer to a real solution.
Good luck with your Bolts.


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## CrashHD (Nov 10, 2006)

I never got around to attempting repair of my unit. I was able to get it booted thanks to the information in this thread, and used it a while, which conveniently enough kept it eligible for the lifetime transfer offer on the bolt. When the transfer is complete and the box is deactivated, I'll be happy to donate it to "science" if anyone so desires.


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## B1LL (Aug 10, 2008)

My blinking green '652 TiVo HD was fixed 2 years ago by weaknees. It appears they replaced two ram chips (U800 and U801).

It's blinking green again. A hair dryer blast in the general area of those ram chips before connecting AC makes it start every time. Voltages measure OK and swapping power supplies with my other working TiVo HD doesn't help, so it's not the power supply. (neither TiVo has a cable card).

Reviewing this thread again, I really doubt it's a solder joint problem. I suspect it's a hairy-edge timing issue on the motherboard *only during power-up* and that slight changes in component characteristics (motherboard caps?) slightly shift the timing enough to create the problem. I suspect changing one of several components may slightly shift the timing back enough to make it work, but while still have its timing on the hairy-edge. My hunch is that a strategically placed cap somewhere may be a permanent fix.

I hate to pay weaknees again only to have this problem return, so my "work-around" is to leave my TiVo installed with no screws so I can lift the cover and slip in a hair dryer after power failures. This also lets me tread water in case TiVo again offers their lifetime transfer deal to a Bolt.

Hat's off to SirKnowsALot for his progress narrowing in on this problem and I strongly feel he was on the brink of nailing it. Although this thread has been quiet for a year, I'm wondering if anyone has made further progress understanding this "power-up" problem.


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

Even a small UPS can keep it running for several hours, and power outages longer than that are pretty rare.


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## B1LL (Aug 10, 2008)

Yes, my fallback is to put it on a UPS, but my hunch is that a permanent fix will be discovered.


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## aweksny (Apr 10, 2018)

You are correct, it is the ram chips, i replaced one of mine after determining which one was bad using a small pencil torch, ordered a new one from china and replaced and all is good


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## B1LL (Aug 10, 2008)

aweksny said:


> You are correct, it is the ram chips, i replaced one of mine after determining which one was bad using a small pencil torch, ordered a new one from china and replaced and all is good


I assume you used the torch to selectively heat each ram chip to find out which one was bad.

Considering my re-occurrence of this problem with 2 ram chips replaced, maybe replacing all 4 would be a lasting solution if they are not too expensive. Where did you order the replacement ram chip?


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## aweksny (Apr 10, 2018)

i got it on e bay item 152943568258, tried to match my current chips best as possible, yes i heated with torch to isolate bad one, i used same torch to desolder as well, i bought 2 because i wanted to change the one its paired with on board, u can change em all but these machines are going for cheap and may not be worth the time,


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## B1LL (Aug 10, 2008)

Thanks for that info. Replacing surface mount chips with a pencil torch looks challenging, but fun to try.
Even though these TiVos are cheap, the Lifetime subscription makes it worth the effort to keep them going.


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## aweksny (Apr 10, 2018)

the pencil torch was used for removal, i used a solder iron to attach new chip, that was still a challenge, magnifing glass and used a solder wick to correct bridged pins, good luck if u attempt and let us know how it goes, mine is still going and im probably not gonna change that second chip as it seems to be working fine.


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## B1LL (Aug 10, 2008)

aweksny said:


> the pencil torch was used for removal, i used a solder iron to attach new chip, that was still a challenge, magnifing glass and used a solder wick to correct bridged pins, good luck if u attempt and let us know how it goes, mine is still going and im probably not gonna change that second chip as it seems to be working fine.


You've inspired me to give it a try when I get some time. Meanwhile, since we have very few power outages here, my "MacGyver" solution isn't that bad (TiVo installed with no screws so I can lift the cover and slip in a hair dryer).


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

B1LL said:


> Thanks for that info. Replacing surface mount chips with a pencil torch looks challenging, but fun to try.
> Even though these TiVos are cheap, the Lifetime subscription makes it worth the effort to keep them going.


I saw a lifetime Series 3 652 sell for $132 on ebay a couple days ago. They don't seem to be worth very much anymore.


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## B1LL (Aug 10, 2008)

shwru980r said:


> I saw a lifetime Series 3 652 sell for $132 on ebay a couple days ago. They don't seem to be worth very much anymore.


I agree, but like Harry Tuttle (underground repairman in the movie Brazil), "I'm in it for the action, the excitement..."


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## AntiPC (Jul 22, 2005)

My Tivo HD has been sitting for 4 years. Before tossing it, I tried the hair dryer trick, and it worked!

Thank you all for the helpful posts.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

Hey everybody, glad to see some life back in this thread.
I've been caught up with life for a while and had to quit hanging out here. I don't have anything useful to add right now, but I would encourage everyone to post any results (good or bad) to advance our knowledge and perhaps discover a reliable fix.


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## cardigans1 (May 11, 2004)

I was just going to say I had s different S3 TiVo with the blinking light recently and the hair dryer heating for one minute references here worked perfectly to get it working again.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

cardigans1 said:


> I was just going to say I had s different S3 TiVo with the blinking light recently and the hair dryer heating for one minute references here worked perfectly to get it working again.


Glad to hear you had success.
Just to be clear, did you heat up U3003?


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## AntiPC (Jul 22, 2005)

SirKnowsALot said:


> Glad to hear you had success.
> Just to be clear, did you heat up U3003?


That's what I did back in April. Since I had it plugged into a UPS at the time, it's been on ever since. The thought was to connect to the Tivo service and keep it running until the summer sales event. I love it when a plan comes together.


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## Marconi (Sep 8, 2001)

Read this entire thread after getting the blinking green light problem on a 
TCD652160. It had been on a UPS and survived an outage because of it but then I unplugged it to move to a different room, replacing it with a new Bolt which has a lifetime ("All in") subscription transferred from a Series 2.

Anyway, I moved it to another room and plugged it in and got the blinking green light. It was working fine until I powered it down. Not even a surge involved. Grrr...

Unfortunately, I tried heating U3003, the crystal, the RAM chips, everything that others had found to work for them. No help.

Is TiVo still allowing folks to transfer lifetime THDs to their accounts? It may be cheaper to buy a working THD on eBay than to pay to have my own THD fixed by WeakKnees or such.

Many of the channels from my CableCo are analog only and I need a functional THD.

I'd hoped that this thread would wind up with a definitive solution to the blinking green light problem, but apparently it has yet to be nailed down.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

Marconi said:


> Anyway, I moved it to another room and plugged it in and got the blinking green light. It was working fine until I powered it down. Not even a surge involved. Grrr...
> 
> Unfortunately, I tried heating U3003, the crystal, the RAM chips, everything that others had found to work for them. No help.
> 
> ...


Sorry thought this might be your issue since you indicated that you had tried replacing the power supply from another working HD.

Yes you should be able to transfer another HD with lifetime to your account. You might also look at a 2 tuner Premiere to get something a little newer (I think that still supports what you need?).

Scott


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

Marconi said:


> Read this entire thread after getting the blinking green light problem on a
> TCD652160.
> ...
> Unfortunately, I tried heating U3003, the crystal, the RAM chips, everything that others had found to work for them. No help.
> ...


Unfortunately for us, the blinking green light basically says, "something is wrong". It doesn't point in any specific area.
If you have to get this THD working in order to make the transfer, I'd try the heating procedure again and hope it works.
Good luck!


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## ebcinmv (Mar 21, 2010)

Greetings tivophiles! I am firing up this thread again to report on yet another faithful TCD652160 that went blinking green. I don’t think we had a power failure, but a new housekeeper seemed to have unplugged the entire tivo-TV complex. I found and read the first 150 or so posts in this thread, then tried the hair dryer trick, but still had a blinking green. Pondered what to do for a month while my husband groused about no access to cable or OTA TV. Checked out ebay and thought I’d buy a new TCD652160 with lifetime (which we didn’t have) or possibly a slightly newer model. Then thought I ought to read through ALL of the posts.

When I read the rest of the posts, I realized that I had missed something the first time around about the hair dryer fix...the tivo must be plugged back in hot! Tried heating again with the hair dryer plugged in so that the tivo was positioned right near its plug & home. I heated areas 1 & 2 from the first photo in post 102 for one minute, plugged her back in quick, and ... drumroll please ... solid green and back in action!

So thanks to you who discovered and shared the tricks, photos, and discussions of where to heat.

But now that I have seen TCD652160s with lifetime service selling on ebay for around $130 (including shipping), why shouldn’t I sell my old TCD652160 and buy a series 3 or 4 with lifetime for the cost of 1 or 2 years of service (now at $129 per year)?


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

ebcinmv said:


> But now that I have seen TCD652160s with lifetime service selling on ebay for around $130 (including shipping), why shouldn't I sell my old TCD652160 and buy a series 3 or 4 with lifetime for the cost of 1 or 2 years of service (now at $129 per year)?


Pesonally, I would look at a newer TiVo with lifetime but nothing older than a Premiere. If you can get a Roamio versus a Premiere, I think that is the sweet spot in term of cost and performance benefits.

Scott


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## ebcinmv (Mar 21, 2010)

HerronScott said:


> Pesonally, I would look at a newer TiVo with lifetime but nothing older than a Premiere. If you can get a Roamio versus a Premiere, I think that is the sweet spot in term of cost and performance benefits.
> 
> Scott


Thanks, Scott. What benefits do you think the Roamio has over the Premiere or Series 3? I can see having more tuners is a plus. And simply less aged. Are they better built? Other pluses?


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## pL86 (Oct 11, 2009)

ebcinmv said:


> When I read the rest of the posts, I realized that I had missed something the first time around about the hair dryer fix...the tivo must be plugged back in hot! Tried heating again with the hair dryer plugged in so that the tivo was positioned right near its plug & home. I heated areas 1 & 2 from the first photo in post 102 for one minute, plugged her back in quick, and ... drumroll please ... solid green and back in action!


Glad to hear you got your Tivo working again. One thing I would add for those who might read this thread in the future is that there seems to be some uncertainty which chips should be heated. Post #102 that you relied on advises owners to heat chip U3003 but other posts like #216 and #219 states that it is the bank of four RAM chips next to the hard drive that should be targeted. Two years after it was repaired by Weaknees, my Tivo started flashing this past Monday night after a power outage but I was able to get it working again by heating the RAM chips. There may be multiple causes of the flashing green light error so folks who are unsuccessful getting their Tivo back online after heating one area of the motherboard might try the other.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

ebcinmv said:


> Thanks, Scott. What benefits do you think the Roamio has over the Premiere or Series 3? I can see having more tuners is a plus. And simply less aged. Are they better built? Other pluses?


The biggest benefit is the faster processor so if you take advantage of the built-in streaming apps like Netflix, Amazon Prime or Hulu it's a better experience over the Premiere (and of course the S3 only had Netflix left which didn't work when I just checked on our old S3 OLED). We have the Roamio Pro which has 6 tuners and a built-in Stream so you can stream or download shows to your mobile device. The Premiere or higher also have other benefits over the S3/HD such as SkipMode for commercials and online management through TiVo Online (or your mobile device).

Really though it's a personal decision depending on what you think is important to you. 

Scott


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

pL86 said:


> Glad to hear you got your Tivo working again. One thing I would add for those who might read this thread in the future is that there seems to be some uncertainty which chips should be heated. Post #102 that you relied on advises owners to heat chip U3003 but other posts like #216 and #219 states that it is the bank of four RAM chips next to the hard drive that should be targeted. Two years after it was repaired by Weaknees, my Tivo started flashing this past Monday night after a power outage but I was able to get it working again by heating the RAM chips. There may be multiple causes of the flashing green light error so folks who are unsuccessful getting their Tivo back online after heating one area of the motherboard might try the other.


It is definitely the case that there are numerous faults that can result in the 'blinking green', so I completely concur with trying multiple areas before declaring defeat. And I really appreciate the reports of what did and did not work so we can see what is the most likely area to fail.


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## tivobw (Oct 26, 2002)

Hi Everyone, I just wanted to chime in and advise the "heat with a dryer" trick works to get my Tivo HD up and running after it loses power (I heat the 4 RAM chips next to the hard drive). I first heard about this trick in August of 2017 on another thread; check out my post here if you are interested. I've used this technique about 4 times to power the Tivo back up if it loses power.

We have the Tivo HD hooked up to a UPS, but it only provides about 30min max backup power. So when we recently had a power outage of several hours, the TivoHD went 100% off power for all that time. This last time I had to heat the RAM chips for about 4 minutes using a hair dryer on high heat, moving back and forth across the 4 RAM chips in a slow back-and-forth pattern, with the hair dryer about 4 inches from the RAM chips. First I tried 30 seconds, then a minute, then 90 seconds and then another full minute. After each attempt I turned off the dryer and plugged in the Tivo (the case is off while I'm doing this). After the 4th attempt (when it had been heated about 4 minutes) the Tivo finally booted.

If you look at my other post I linked above, that time I only had to head the chips about 90 seconds and the Tivo booted up. This time it took nearly 4 minutes; not sure why, perhaps it's because the Tivo was offline for about a week, as it's a secondary Tivo (upstairs bedroom) and other things occupied my attention. So perhaps when I finally got to it, the Tivo was "really cold" and it needed more heat from the dryer. Or, another thing I just considered, perhaps I really should have been heating the other areas of the motherboard (such as U3003, or the power capacitors) and when I was heating the RAM chip area, some heat was slowly drifting over to the other areas that actually needed the hair dryer, and by heating the RAM chip area for a long period of time, perhaps enough heat eventually made it to U3003/power capacitor regions and that finally caused the Tivo to boot? I wonder.

The next time this happens, I'll try heating the U3003/power capacitor regions first to see if that causes the Tivo to boot up faster.

BTW, in case you are wondering why I'm using this old Tivo: I tried for a while to copy content off the Tivo, but I couldn't get kmttg to work. The Tivo HD looks like it has other issues (it can't be "seen" on the network by kmttg, so I can't copy files from it). So, we are keeping the Tivo HD for now. If I get enough spare time I might dig into it again and see if I can get the content off it.

Anyway, just thought I'd share my story in case it may interest or help others. Thanks for all your work on trying to investigate the root cause!


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

Thanks for the account of your "hair dryer experience". I would be really interested if your theory of the heat bleeding to other parts of the board pans out (should you need to resuscitate your Tivo again).

I've had good luck using pyTivo (pytivo) to transfer shows to/from a Tivo. I'm pretty sure it is restricted to standard definition shows (Tivo enforced limitation). It takes some doing to get set up, but then it's pretty straightforward after that.

Any feedback is welcome.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

SirKnowsALot said:


> I've had good luck using pyTivo (pytivo) to transfer shows to/from a Tivo. I'm pretty sure it is restricted to standard definition shows (Tivo enforced limitation). It takes some doing to get set up, but then it's pretty straightforward after that.


No it's definitely not limited to SD. I've been using it here for years with our original S3 OLED to transfer HD shows.

Scott


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## LtKernelPanic (Sep 22, 2003)

Well mine did it again. After probably 40 minutes of heat tonight it's a goner. Now to try and remember what season passes I had after I decide how to replace it.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

Cross reference about the THD above that might be helpful to someone.
Trusty THD finally gave up the ghost. Replacement options?


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## dmarch (Dec 7, 2003)

This thread reads like a thriller novel. Thanks to all for the postings. My 652160 purchased new with Lifetime in 2007 finally started showing this symptom after a power outage last week. I prommed this unit in 2008 and had my fun over the years then put original prom back in after pyTivo became available. I mention this because the prom slot area is close to the memory and I don't want to complicate the research here with yet another twist. Anyway, I patiently read through all the posts before attempting anything. I started with lightly heating (200 °C air, narrow bead) the memory with my rework station air gun, no joy. No luck with the cap area and the U3003 either. To be clear, I am unplugged during the heating but I plug it in before I remove the heat. I have spare units without lifetime for parts (free from CL), made sure the spare would boot fine, swapped out the PS and HD of the blinking unit. Quick check without heat showed continued blinking green on my lifetime unit. This time I widened the heat gun scope to mimic a hair dryer and increased the air flow, same temperature. Worked backwards from the U30003 area, capacitor area and finally the memory. I spent more time on each area this time as I figured all was lost anyway. No success with either the U3003 or the capacitor areas however, I did notice that all the panel lights would flash on and off before the blinking green. This was different than the original symptom which went right to green blinking....I spent about 2-4 minutes on each of these two areas without success. The same effort at the memory area finally yielded success. Green light stayed on solid, the video out showed "powering up", then "almost there" as usual. Gonna leave it for awhile on the bench during supper then race it back to the bedroom. Again, thanks to everyone for the guidance!

Edit: Before unplugging, felt the memory chips...they are quite warm. Unplugging and quickly replugging in bedroom area yielded blinking green. Rework station hot air revived it in place. While replacing other cables, power plug slipped out and I immediately replaced but alas, back to blinking. Fanning 200°C heat about 2" over memory for 10-15 seconds revived it yet again. Seems to be very consistent. Now to start researching UPS and memory removal techniques. I used to be quite proficient at prom removal and socket placement. I have a 20x stereo microscope that should be useful. I'll report back.


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## russ49 (Feb 13, 2019)

Reporting a successful reboot on a Series 3 HDTV TCD652160 using info on this thread. Had the green blinking light after a power outage lasting 4 hours. I unplugged all the connections let the unit set overnight, next day I removed the cover, blew out dust with an aerosol cleaning duster, reattached cables, UBS, HDMI and left the unit unplugged. Directed hairdryer at previously mentioned target area on low power from 4 inches. Concentrated on the U3003 area with only a few passes over the 4 RAM chips keeping strictly to a 4 minute time period. Quickly plugged in the power cord and happily got a solid green light and powering up on a previous black TV screen. I'd think it would be difficult to warm just certain areas as a blowdryer heats up the entire board rather quickly. Thanks to this thread got a smile today. At least so far anyway.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

dmarch said:


> This thread reads like a thriller novel. Thanks to all for the postings.
> ....
> I spent about 2-4 minutes on each of these two areas without success. The same effort at the memory area finally yielded success. Green light stayed on solid, the video out showed "powering up", then "almost there" as usual.
> ...
> I'll report back.


Wow! Thanks for adding another chapter to the novel. What might have happened is that you reflowed the solder on the RAM, correcting a bad connection somewhere. Obviously not everyone will have the equipment to perform such a task, but this is good info!

Please do report back. We're all interested or we wouldn't be here.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

russ49 said:


> Reporting a successful reboot on a Series 3 HDTV TCD652160 using info on this thread.
> ...
> Thanks to this thread got a smile today. At least so far anyway.


Glad we got a smile out of you! 
And welcome to the party.


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## dmarch (Dec 7, 2003)

SirKnowsALot said:


> ....... What might have happened is that you reflowed the solder on the RAM, correcting a bad connection somewhere. .....


I'm completely positive that I reflowed "NO" solder with my hot air station. I have used hot air to remelt solder and this was nowhere close to achieving that kind of localized heat. I was thinking there's a slim possibility that the thermal expansion of the solder during the heating process allowed a temporary connection. But more likely, the memory has simply failed and the heat magically, albeit temporarily, "fixes" the problem. My lifetime TiVo has been running like a champ for several days so I think I have time to develop a strategy. Comments are welcome.

Practice on non-lifetime TiVo:
1. Verify successful boot
2. Reflow each pin on each memory chip using solder iron with fine tip
3. Verify successful boot after #2

If this goes well (no harm), I will attempt the same on my Lifetime TiVo. This should justify my rash statement above about "NO" solder has reflowed.

Again on a non-lifetime TiVo:
4. remove a memory chip using "Quick Chip" (look it up). 
5. Clean pads with solder wick
6. Clean pins with solder iron and maybe solder wick
7. Tin the pads and resolder the memory back on.
8. Verify a successful boot after #4-7

If this goes well (no harm) I will attempt to move memory from a non-lifetime TiVo to my lifetime TiVo.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

dmarch said:


> I'm completely positive that I reflowed "NO" solder with my hot air station. I have used hot air to remelt solder and this was nowhere close to achieving that kind of localized heat.


I re-read your original post and saw that after the unplug, the RAM was only hit for 10-15 seconds. I agree that this would not be enough to reflow solder. However, prior to that I think I understood that you heated the RAM for 3-4 minutes, and I think that might be long enough to melt the solder. However, since it failed after unplugging, there was obviously no solder reflow.


dmarch said:


> I was thinking there's a slim possibility that the thermal expansion of the solder during the heating process allowed a temporary connection.


I feel the same way. Especially when they were heated for only for a dozen seconds.


dmarch said:


> Practice on non-lifetime TiVo:
> 1. Verify successful boot
> 2. Reflow each pin on each memory chip using solder iron with fine tip
> 3. Verify successful boot after #2
> ...


If the problem is just a bad solder joint, you could stop after step 3 on your lifetime TiVo. That would sure be less risky than continuing on with a (multiple) chip replacement procedure.

This is getting good! Thanks for keeping us posted.


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## aweksny (Apr 10, 2018)

the problem is defenatly a bad ram chip, as i posted many months ago swapping the faulty chip out with a new one fixed the problem and mine is still working, you need to be able to individually heat each of the 4 chips to find the bad one, then replace


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## mototex (Dec 13, 2018)

Had the blinking green light. Tried the Blow Dryer stuff, still had same issue. Checked Power Supply, 3.3V - good, 12.0V -good, 5.0V was 4.75 to 4.8V which technically maybe is in spec. Yes, there were bulging caps on the power supply, just went ahead and ordered a power supply off of ebay. Installed it today and everything is back to working. Was to lazy to order/find caps and replace, getting old.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

mototex said:


> ...
> Yes, there were bulging caps on the power supply, just went ahead and ordered a power supply off of ebay. Installed it today and everything is back to working. Was to lazy to order/find caps and replace, getting old.


That brings up a good point. If there are bulging caps, I would resolve that issue before moving on to the heating procedures. For those with the skills (and patience) it is an inexpensive fix that you can feel confident in....if it works. If not, move on to the heating procedures.


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## dmarch (Dec 7, 2003)

I know that I said I was going to do several things to fix my green blinking problem. However, since heating the memory chips brought it back to life I kinda forgot about it. I've had no power cycles for several months so no problems until recently when I unplugged the unit for cleaning. I said to myself "oh crap, what did I just do?". Well, I pulled out the hair drier and it worked like a charm. So I guess I won't be doing anything else unless I have to.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

dmarch said:


> ...
> So I guess I won't be doing anything else unless I have to.


This is my life philosophy as well.


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## jacktechie (Feb 6, 2013)

Fixed. My 11 year old HD series 3 had the randomly blinking green light. I just swapped the power supply from the other HD3 (ewasted since rolled service to Bolt, but saved power supply) and in 15 minutes, it is up and working. New 750GB hard drive died in 4.5 years. Put in 1TB drive and still working after 6.5 years. Thanks everyone.


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## Teeps (Aug 16, 2001)

jacktechie said:


> Fixed. My 11 year old HD series 3 had the randomly blinking green light. I just swapped the power supply from the other HD3 (ewasted since rolled service to Bolt, but saved power supply) and in 15 minutes, it is up and working. New 750GB hard drive died in 4.5 years. Put in 1TB drive and still working after 6.5 years. Thanks everyone.


Now would be a good time to replace the capacitors in the failed power supply.
Because when (not if) the capacitors fail in the salvaged working power supply; you will be back in the same place.


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## Scott9mm (Apr 5, 2015)

This is a great thread. Many Thanks.
Me too. I have a series 3 (652) lifetime plugged in (just power and LAN) to keep the account alive but not really in use. A few months back I unplugged power to move some equipment and got the blinking green light when I plugged power back in. In my case the fan ran and LAN port lights lit but the TiVo wold not boot (just blinking green). I think I bought this unit about 2005 but really haven't used it since 2014, I think. 
Before finding this thread I read about using a hair dryer on the ram chips and that worked every time (so far) to allow the TiVo to boot. 
I'm fairly convinced that this is a boot-only problem because the TiVo works fine once booted, including going into standby (for many hours) and back to run. But if I unplug the box, even for e few seconds it's blinking green until I use the hair dryer on the ram chips. I have not experimented with heating different areas or specific chips, yet.
I also have two working Roamios and a Premiere so the S3 is really just a backup or a possible swap for some TiVo upgrade in the future. 
For now, I plan to leave the cover lose and keep a hair dryer handy. I'm not curious enough to risk permanent damage with my ham-fisted soldering (from pre-SMD days).
One thing I can add is all four RAM chips were running at about 125 F when the box was in standby and the PC board was about 100F.
Great thread.


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## AntiPC (Jul 22, 2005)

I swapped my blinking green HD's lifetime to a new Bolt during the summer sale last year. It was going on a UPS for over a year at that point. I never really got it fixed, but the workaround was good enough in the end.


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## jana phillips (Sep 27, 2008)

The hairdryer fix worked the first few times for me but after another power outage, it didn't....no matter where I concentrated the heat (U3003 chip, Ram Chips, all areas in images posted by SirKnowsALot on 8/24/2015) or for how many minutes (and I was sure to plug in power cord immediately while chips were still hot). So, I've given up and after 10 good years of service as my second unit, I've replaced it with a mini Vox to go with my Tivo Bolt. Is there any interest from anyone to have this Tivo Series 3 (Model TCD652160 with lifetime service) to play around with or just "raid" for parts?


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## jana phillips (Sep 27, 2008)

P.S. If anyone on the forum lives in Dallas and would like this Tivo Series 3 to "tinker" with, I'd be happy to drop it off personally.


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## SirKnowsALot (Jun 3, 2015)

Jana,
Thanks for your offer! I'd love to get it but I'm in the middle of a big home renovation project and just can't take on another project (no matter how much fun it is) right now. Hopefully someone from the forum has already claimed it anyhow.


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## lordbah (Apr 19, 2003)

I'm facing a flashing green light / stuck on powering up issue with an old TivoHD. Something I didn't see in this thread - from a cold start it takes 60 seconds before the green light comes on at all (and then begins the everlasting series of blinking twice). From a warm start the green light comes on right away. Firing up the hair dryer...

Well, the green light is solid, and it proceeds to "Almost there. Just a few minutes more...", but it's been there 50 minutes so I'm losing faith.


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## lordbah (Apr 19, 2003)

I can no longer get a green light or any TV output. Looks like this one is beyond my abilities.


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## ClearToLand (Jul 10, 2001)

lordbah said:


> *I'm facing a flashing green light / stuck on powering up issue with an old TivoHD*. Something I didn't see in this thread - from a cold start it takes 60 seconds before the green light comes on at all (and then begins the everlasting series of blinking twice). *From a warm start the green light comes on right away*. *Firing up the hair dryer...*
> 
> Well, *the green light is solid*, and it proceeds to "*Almost there. Just a few minutes more...*", but it's been there 50 minutes so I'm losing faith.





lordbah said:


> *I can no longer get a green light or any TV output. Looks like this one is beyond my abilities.*


It is my observation here on TCF that most "Non-Technical" folks over-estimate their abilities and under-estimate the complexity of the task of repairing a TiVo Unit. @fcfc2 was kind enough (Thanks! :thumbsup: ) a few years ago to share a LINK to:

*Dunning-Kruger effect - Wikipedia*​
and I've been referring back to it quite often.


Spoiler



Just in case you decide to take this the wrong way, this LINK is not a personal attack - it's just sharing information which I enjoy doing. My interests have always been technical - Math and Science in school, not too interested in Art or Literature or Psychology . Read a history of my posts here on TCF - I'm fairly prolific in my verbiage  and not a 'sniper'  who only presents either '_some of the information_' or '_incorrect information_' (i.e. what worked for him '_might_' work for you, but it might not...  ), which can mislead a Non-Technical person down the wrong path  .


Anyhow,

*DISCLAIMER:* I've never owned a TiVo HD, and I don't see any TiVo HD expert jumping in since Monday at 9:32 PM offering to help you out, so I thought that I'd give it a shot. 

*Early TiVo Units / RAM / Hair Driers:* AFAICT, it's like an old car with a broken starter. Once you get it rolling and 'pop the clutch' you're good to go UNTIL you shut it off. Since you got to the "*Almost there.Just a few minutes more...*", it sounds like it was trying to load the info from the HDD. So, before I delve deeply into what to do next (you can just as easily SEARCH my recent posts on TCF on "How to Build a TiVo HDD"), let me know first if you're interested and up to it...


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## gkottner (Jun 5, 2010)

lordbah said:


> I can no longer get a green light or any TV output. Looks like this one is beyond my abilities.


I had the exact same issue that you have. The hair dryer fix eventually stopped working for me as well. Read the first couple pages on this thread. I ended up sending mine to @timhbtr53 as he was trying to find a fix to this issue. To the best of my knowledge, no one has ever cracked this.


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