# HD Tivo (HR10-250) Issue



## WaldorfSalad (Nov 28, 2008)

I'm having a strange problem with Tivo service on my HR10-250 that I got about 5 years ago and thats been running just fine since then. I've had the phone cable unplugged for 900 days now so as to stay with firmware version 3.1.5f.

About a month ago I tried to Tivo something and got a message onscreen that my DVR service needed to be activated (its been working fine for years) so I called DirecTV. After trying to get the techie to understand that I have an HD *Tivo* and that DirecTV are still supporting HD Tivo (he kept arguing that they don't) he "hit" the receiver a few times but that didn't work. So, I did a power cycle on the receiver and when it came back up I had Tivo service back again.

Then, a couple of days ago, 2-3 weeks after the previous occurrence, the same thing happened again. So, I again did a power cycle on the receiver and when it came back up I had Tivo service back again.

Anyone have any thoughts about what might be wrong? Is it the receiver or is it possible that DirecTV are f**king with HD Tivo service and doing something to try and discontinue HD Tivo support in an attempt to try and make us think our HD Tivo receivers are failing in order to try and get us to upgrade to the newer DVRs. After all, the person I spoke to at DirecTV tried very hard to convince my I should upgrade to their newer HD DVR. I realize this conspiracy theory is a stretch but it seems odd that this happening at about the same time as the demise of DirecTV's MPEG2 HD programming.


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## stevel (Aug 23, 2000)

Your experience is unusual. If DirecTV was doing this deliberately, many more people would be affected. My own HR10 continues to operate properly.


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## WaldorfSalad (Nov 28, 2008)

Is it possible the Tivo service is deactivating itself because the phone line has been unplugged for 900 days so no ability to call back to the mother ship?


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## litzdog911 (Oct 18, 2002)

WaldorfSalad said:


> Is it possible the Tivo service is deactivating itself because the phone line has been unplugged for 900 days so no ability to call back to the mother ship?


It's not a plot by DirecTV or Tivo. And phoning home shouldn't matter either.

But I have seen reports of activiation issues like this caused by hard drive problems. Very rare, though.


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## georgemoe (Nov 7, 2001)

Sorry to hear about your situation. Something similar happened to me a month ago. It started with a power supply problem causing an issue with the card reader that I repaired. Everything was fine again. Then the receiver went into a deactive state. All levels of DirecTV support could not help. They tried to hit it several times and nothing.

It's possible it was a hard drive issue messing things up but I was on borrowed time anyway as far as DirecTV was concerned. Cancelled DirecTV, picked up a TivoHD, and I'm now totally OTA until FiOS gets on my street later this year. I'm actually enjoying this little break from sat/cable to see how a do without cable channels. So far I'm pleasantly surprised. 

For now the HR10-250 is an OTA tuner. I'd like to find a cheap 1080i monitor for it. But thats another post.


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## WaldorfSalad (Nov 28, 2008)

Today there is a message saying to insert a valid access card. I can display the guide but can't watch live TV. If I try to go to my saved programs I get the message about needing to activate my DVR service. Something very wrong here. 

Anyone have any ideas about what might be wrong and how to fix it?

It just seems odd that there problems starting occuring at about the same time as D* started with the pending shutoff notices and the obnoxious crawls on Sho-HD, UHD and HDNet Movies.


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## WaldorfSalad (Nov 28, 2008)

The plot thickens! I did a restart (--> standby, power off, wait a minute, power on). While the power was off I removed and replaced the card a few times and made sure it was fully inserted. Lo and behold, everything is OK now. So, something not quite right with this HR10-250 after 5 years of trouble-free operation. The wife was worried because its the season premier of her favorite TV show tonight: Amazing Race.


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## dhcpa (Jan 25, 2009)

Had this exact same thing happen with a unit I recently purchased. Turned out to be a bad access card reader most likely caused by a faulty power supply. The power supply was loose in the unit and from a little research apparently the first symptom of a bad power supply is access card reader issues. Mine too would work intermittently after a power down but would revert to old ways soon thereafter.


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## WaldorfSalad (Nov 28, 2008)

If its a failing power supply, what is the best way to fix or replace it? Any DIYs posted anywhere? I'm comfortable delving into electronic devices.


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## Budget_HT (Jan 2, 2001)

WaldorfSalad said:


> The plot thickens! I did a restart (--> standby, power off, wait a minute, power on). While the power was off I removed and replaced the card a few times and made sure it was fully inserted. Lo and behold, everything is OK now. So, something not quite right with this HR10-250 after 5 years of trouble-free operation. The wife was worried because its the season premier of her favorite TV show tonight: Amazing Race.


I have had one of my two HR10-250 units since they first went on the market. The other is 2 years newer.

The older one was having intermittent digital audio issues and some reboots, until it finally hung in an unfinished startup mode. It had also complained about overheating, although that was not likely the case given the ambient temperatures being about 60 degrees in that room.

Long story short, it had a power supply problem, found others who had reparied theirs by replacing two electrolytic capacitors. I repaired mine at a cost of $3 and one hour of time. Been perfect operation ever since, all symptoms completely gone.

Good luck with yours.


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## litzdog911 (Oct 18, 2002)

WaldorfSalad said:


> If its a failing power supply, what is the best way to fix or replace it? Any DIYs posted anywhere? I'm comfortable delving into electronic devices.


You can buy replacement power supplies from Weaknees and other advertisers here. Or look for your brand/model DVR on eBay and use its power supply. Instructions are also available at Weaknees' site, or via Google Search.


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## WaldorfSalad (Nov 28, 2008)

dhcpa said:


> Had this exact same thing happen with a unit I recently purchased. Turned out to be a bad access card reader most likely caused by a faulty power supply. The power supply was loose in the unit and from a little research apparently the first symptom of a bad power supply is access card reader issues. Mine too would work intermittently after a power down but would revert to old ways soon thereafter.


Did you replace the power supply?


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## toms111la (Oct 2, 2006)

I have been having identical problems. I ordered a new access card and it has made the problem occur less frequently but it is still happening. I had not heard that the power supply could be the cause of the problem. On this particular unit, I was having some different problems a few years ago so I changed out the power supply but the problem I was having at that time was not fixed. It turned out to be a drive problem. Anyway, I still have the power supply that I changed replaced so I may swap it back and see if this fixes the problem.


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## Matt L (Aug 13, 2000)

I had the insert card issue about a year ago and it too was a bad power supply. I just bought an old HD TiVo on ebay and pulled the power supply problem solved cheaply. Plus, I ended up with an extra 250G hd.


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## Budget_HT (Jan 2, 2001)

Here is a good place to start with experiences on power supply repair:

http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=410885


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## WaldorfSalad (Nov 28, 2008)

Budget_HT said:


> Here is a good place to start with experiences on power supply repair:
> 
> http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=410885


Thats great, thanks! Its been a while since I've worked on soldering electronic components but I still have the retained knowledge and the soldering iron, solder sucker, etc. in a drawer in my workshop. No Frys here in CO, anyone know if Radio Shack carries the capacitors? I'll crack the HR10-250 open at the weekend and take a peek inside to see if the caps look like they've gone bad.


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## georgemoe (Nov 7, 2001)

WaldorfSalad said:


> Today there is a message saying to insert a valid access card. I can display the guide but can't watch live TV. If I try to go to my saved programs I get the message about needing to activate my DVR service. Something very wrong here.
> 
> Anyone have any ideas about what might be wrong and how to fix it?
> 
> It just seems odd that there problems starting occuring at about the same time as D* started with the pending shutoff notices and the obnoxious crawls on Sho-HD, UHD and HDNet Movies.


This is "exactly" how my issue progressed. I was getting the valid access card problem and then the status was flashing back and forth quickly. The power supply was not driving the card reader properly. I fixed the power supply myself but after a few days the DVR just deactivated itself. Bad drive or corrupt software is anyones guess. I hope you have better luck.



WaldorfSalad said:


> Thats great, thanks! Its been a while since I've worked on soldering electronic components but I still have the retained knowledge and the soldering iron, solder sucker, etc. in a drawer in my workshop. No Frys here in CO, anyone know if Radio Shack carries the capacitors? I'll crack the HR10-250 open at the weekend and take a peek inside to see if the caps look like they've gone bad.


I hadn't soldered anything in years and I handled it fine. Keep in mind if you do attempt the repair yourself, the Radio Shack caps are about twice the size as the ones replaced. they worked fine it's just they are a little harder to work with. Good luck.


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## Budget_HT (Jan 2, 2001)

WaldorfSalad said:


> Thats great, thanks! Its been a while since I've worked on soldering electronic components but I still have the retained knowledge and the soldering iron, solder sucker, etc. in a drawer in my workshop. No Frys here in CO, anyone know if Radio Shack carries the capacitors? I'll crack the HR10-250 open at the weekend and take a peek inside to see if the caps look like they've gone bad.


I figured I had little to lose and plenty to gain, considering the $3 investment.

If the repair had not worked, I would have ordered a new power supply.


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## WaldorfSalad (Nov 28, 2008)

Sane thing happened again yesterday, got message that DVR service needed to be activated. So I restarted (from in the Tivo Setup menu), WITHOUT doing a power cycle, and its OK again. Today I opened the receiver up but can see no obvious problems with the caps in the power supply.

Edit: Upon further examination I was probably looking at the wrong caps. I see a couple under the heat sink where the tops are no longer quite flat and seem to be bulging a little, One is marked C42. Both it and the other are covered in lots of white ****. Looks like its going to be very tight working under that heatsink.


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## Budget_HT (Jan 2, 2001)

WaldorfSalad said:


> Sane thing happened again yesterday, got message that DVR service needed to be activated. So I restarted (from in the Tivo Setup menu), WITHOUT doing a power cycle, and its OK again. Today I opened the receiver up but can see no obvious problems with the caps in the power supply.
> 
> Edit: Upon further examination I was probably looking at the wrong caps. I see a couple under the heat sink where the tops are no longer quite flat and seem to be bulging a little, One is marked C42. Both it and the other are covered in lots of white ****. Looks like its going to be very tight working under that heatsink.


Those are the culprits, and yes it is tight in there. I had to peel off the white goop before I could remove that capacitor.

Patience and some little tricks will help. I cut the axial leads to different lengths so I could be sure about polarity and so I could insert one lead first and then guide the other one in.

DO pay attention to the polarity of the leads for each electrolytic capacitor, it is important to get that right.

Even though things are tight on top of the board, the traces and spaces are very tiny in spots on the bottom of the board. It would be easy to have a solder splash or run cause a short between two trace paths.

Actually I had more difficulty with my aging eyesight than anything else. It seemed like the trifocals just did not have a good spot and viewing range for this work. If I needed to do it more often, I would get some custom glasses to help.

Good luck, the results are worth the effort. Mine is just like new with the repaired power supply.


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## WaldorfSalad (Nov 28, 2008)

Budget_HT said:


> Those are the culprits, and yes it is tight in there. I had to peel off the white goop before I could remove that capacitor.
> 
> Patience and some little tricks will help. I cut the axial leads to different lengths so I could be sure about polarity and so I could insert one lead first and then guide the other one in.
> 
> ...


Although I was expert with electronics and used to build lots of electronic things when I was in my twenties my eyesight is just not what it used to be now that I'm in my fifties and I'm having a hard time getting clearly focused on the components and circuit board traces, even with reading glasses, so I'm thinking of just getting a new power supply from Weaknees. There are some on eBay for half the price but they are used pulls and could have the capacitor problem.


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## Budget_HT (Jan 2, 2001)

WaldorfSalad said:


> Although I was expert with electronics and used to build lots of electronic things when I was in my twenties my eyesight is just not what it used to be now that I'm in my fifties and I'm having a hard time getting clearly focused on the components and circuit board traces, even with reading glasses, so I'm thinking of just getting a new power supply from Weaknees. There are some on eBay for half the price but they are used pulls and could have the capacitor problem.


You just described my backup plan. I decided it was worth a try to save $60+ and if my $3 solution failed, I would have bought a new power supply.


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## WaldorfSalad (Nov 28, 2008)

Budget_HT said:


> You just described my backup plan. I decided it was worth a try to save $60+ and if my $3 solution failed, I would have bought a new power supply.


I decided to order a replacement power supply from Weaknees. I just don't feel comfortable trying to replace the caps and am worried that I could f**k up the power supply and end up buying a replacement power supply anyways and be without D*HDTivo for a few days and get grief from the wife if she can't watch Survivor, The Amazing Race, American Idol, etc! Plus, after not being suitably impressed with the TivoHD we've decided to stay with DirecTV and the HR10-250 for a while longer and see if they come out with the new Tivo in 6-12 months.


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## georgemoe (Nov 7, 2001)

WaldorfSalad said:


> I decided to order a replacement power supply from Weaknees. I just don't feel comfortable trying to replace the caps and am worried that I could f**k up the power supply and end up buying a replacement power supply anyways and be without D*HDTivo for a few days and get grief from the wife if she can't watch Survivor, The Amazing Race, American Idol, etc! Plus, *after not being suitably impressed with the TivoHD* we've decided to stay with DirecTV and the HR10-250 for a while longer and see if they come out with the new Tivo in 6-12 months.


Good luck with the p/s fix Waldorf. I'm about 30 days into a TivoHD which replaced my HR10-250. I canned DirecTV and I'm going totally OTA for now. Wife still gets all you mentioned above plus more. HD capacity is the issue but nothing a plugin eSata drive cannot fix. Plus I really like some of the streaming content. At some point I could go FiOS and cable cards (FiOS not on my street yet) but I'm enjoying the Tivo with just OTA period.


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## Budget_HT (Jan 2, 2001)

WaldorfSalad said:


> I decided to order a replacement power supply from Weaknees. I just don't feel comfortable trying to replace the caps and am worried that I could f**k up the power supply and end up buying a replacement power supply anyways and be without D*HDTivo for a few days and get grief from the wife if she can't watch Survivor, The Amazing Race, American Idol, etc! Plus, after not being suitably impressed with the TivoHD we've decided to stay with DirecTV and the HR10-250 for a while longer and see if they come out with the new Tivo in 6-12 months.


Sounds like a good plan to me. In my case the HR10-250 would no longer boot up, so my downtime issue was already there. During the downtime I simply shared with my wife on her HR10-250, plus filled in some programs on an SD DirecTiVo.

My secondary backup plan was to obtain a replacement hard drive if needed, but all signs and reported experiences of other folks pointed to the power supply.

Good luck!


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## zamzickles (May 21, 2002)

WaldorfSalad said:


> Although I was expert with electronics and used to build lots of electronic things when I was in my twenties my eyesight is just not what it used to be now that I'm in my fifties and I'm having a hard time getting clearly focused on the components and circuit board traces, even with reading glasses, so I'm thinking of just getting a new power supply from Weaknees. There are some on eBay for half the price but they are used pulls and could have the capacitor problem.


 I have the same problems (with my eyes, my former electronic board repair skills, and with the HR10 DVR service inactive messages). It has thus far always fixed itself with a system restart(power cycling the unit just adds to disk problems). The problem seems to come and go. I'm on my second hard drive and did a complete system clear(the closest thing Tivo has to a disk reformat). That lasted about three months without problems. While I don't doubt that the problem may be PS related, I think it is new hard drive time.


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## l_bgriffin (Apr 18, 2002)

I had the "your Tivo is overheating message" just after a SW load. I have rebooted several times and I have 2 fans in my custom cabinet, so I doubt it is truly heat related. I wonder if the P/S is just crapped out and causing some sort of heat related issues.

Thoughts?


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## stevel (Aug 23, 2000)

Could be. On the HR10, the temperature sensor is part of the power supply. Or maybe the internal fan is not working.


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## l_bgriffin (Apr 18, 2002)

Thanks Steve. I'll check the fan. Of course, DTV told me to upgrade, but I have the whole season of 24 on it, yet to be watched, and I'd rather wait until the Directivo HD comes out when ever that is.


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## WaldorfSalad (Nov 28, 2008)

l_bgriffin said:


> Thanks Steve. I'll check the fan. Of course, DTV told me to upgrade, but I have the whole season of 24 on it, yet to be watched, and I'd rather wait until the Directivo HD comes out when ever that is.


When I went inside my HR10-250 to check the power supply I noticed there was a lot of dust in the fan so you might want to check yours and clean it if necessary. I've also seen PCs and Laptops overheat due to excessive dust in the fans and on the heatsinks.


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## WaldorfSalad (Nov 28, 2008)

Damn! Lost Tivo service again today, only a few days since the last time. As before, doing a restart brought it back again. Hopefully I'll soon have the replacement power supply I just ordered from Weaknees and it will fix the problem.


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## l_bgriffin (Apr 18, 2002)

Good suggestion on cleaning the fan. I had the same issue with my work laptop, once the fan was clean, LOTS of gremlins went away. I think heat and microelectronics don't like each other! Another interesting comment is that the heat sensor is on or near the power supply sub-assembly. So, it the P/S is not functioning properly, and it is getting hot, it'd overheat the sensor, which would report back the SW I presume.


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## Budget_HT (Jan 2, 2001)

zamzickles said:


> I have the same problems (with my eyes, my former electronic board repair skills, and with the HR10 DVR service inactive messages). It has thus far always fixed itself with a system restart(power cycling the unit just adds to disk problems). The problem seems to come and go. I'm on my second hard drive and did a complete system clear(the closest thing Tivo has to a disk reformat). That lasted about three months without problems. While I don't doubt that the problem may be PS related, I think it is new hard drive time.


I suggest you fix or replace the power supply before you resort to another hard drive. Before I did some web research, I was fairly certain that I would need a new hard drive.

After I repaired the power supply by replacing the two offending electrolytic capacitors, everything works like new. No hard drive problems, no false overheat warnings, no audio dropouts, no sporadic reboots, and finally no failed startup attempts.


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## WaldorfSalad (Nov 28, 2008)

Lost Tivo service again this afternoon and a restart brought it back again. I got the new power supply from Weaknees a couple of days ago and will replace it tomorrow. Even if I don't keep the HR10-250 much longer (am trying out the TivoHD) I figure it will have more resale value with a new power supply than an old one that causes loss of Tivo service every few days.


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## WaldorfSalad (Nov 28, 2008)

I replaced the power supply last weekend and so far so good.


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## Joe01880 (Feb 8, 2009)

WaldorfSalad said:


> The plot thickens! I did a restart (--> standby, power off, wait a minute, power on). While the power was off I removed and replaced the card a few times and made sure it was fully inserted. Lo and behold, everything is OK now. So, something not quite right with this HR10-250 after 5 years of trouble-free operation. The wife was worried because its the season premier of her favorite TV show tonight: Amazing Race.


Was the card dusty? Maybe it was shorting due to static electricity and pulling it out knocked the dust off it so now its fine?


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## WaldorfSalad (Nov 28, 2008)

Joe01880 said:


> Was the card dusty? Maybe it was shorting due to static electricity and pulling it out knocked the dust off it so now its fine?


Even after I removed and replaced the card I still experienced the problem a couple more times (that a restart fixed for a few days) until I finally replaced the power supply.


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## WaldorfSalad (Nov 28, 2008)

UPDATE: Its been about six weeks now since I replaced the power supply in my HR10-250 and I'm pleased to report that I've not experienced any problems since whereas before replacing it I would lose Tivo service once a week and had to restart the thing to get it back. $70 well spent IMHO. Many thanks to the various people on this forum that provided input to enable me to determine it was the PSU that was bad and to Weakness for the quick service.


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## sk33t3r (Jul 9, 2003)

MYy HR10-250 is giving me the phone home message, never in my life has this thing phoned home. I guess I will look at the power supply and see, a few years back Nicicon and Rubicon had capicitor issues, as I recall from my Compaq/HP days


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## TyroneShoes (Sep 6, 2004)

sk33t3r said:


> MYy HR10-250 is giving me the phone home message, never in my life has this thing phoned home. I guess I will look at the power supply and see, a few years back Nicicon and Rubicon had capicitor issues, as I recall from my Compaq/HP days


It tries every night. You will only get this message if the phone cord becomes unplugged or the call out configuration somehow changes, and it is unsuccessful, which means it probably was phoning home regularly until the circuit or process became interrupted. But that is OK, it only thinks it needs to phone home. There are folks who have nag screens claiming over 1000 days without phoning home. One of mine is over 750. Unless I am misreading your issue, I don't think phoning home is a power supply issue.


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## sk33t3r (Jul 9, 2003)

No the issue is that it says it needs to call home to activate dvr server but it says the dvr service is active. And its a zippered unit with 63e.


Was the ap you guys were seeing swolle under the heat sink near the power regulation (the big trasistors)??? I think one of mine is swollen,


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## sk33t3r (Jul 9, 2003)

Well I seemd to have correct my HR10-250 activate dvr service by installing 63c back on last night, and zippered it today. All is fine thus far.


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## 01sporty (Feb 3, 2005)

Hello, I'm hoping to resurrect this thread to get a bit of advice.

My HR10-250 started with the exact same access card symptoms. Fortunately, I had a parts machine squirreled away so I swapped the power supplies and all is well.

Now I would like to repair the original so I again have a spare. The C15 cap that you refer to is definitely toasted on mine. I intend to replace the C42 cap that sets in front of it as well simply because removing it makes the C15 easier.

Around the other side of the heat sink there are two more caps that are bulging a bit on mine so I would like to change them as well. They are Teapo brand and are 2200uF, 16v and are 10mm x 30.5mm. C17 sits in back and can't be larger than 10mm dia. C31 sits in front and can be 12mm dia. 

C17 is the problem. I can't find anything better than 10 volts in that value and diameter. So, does anyone have a source for a 2200uF, 16v, 10mm x 30.5mm. OR, can I get away with using a 10v cap?

TIA
Walt


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