# Series 3 repair options



## buscuitboy (Aug 8, 2005)

I have an original Series 3 (w/ lifetime) that is having some issues. It will randomly freeze up & requires unplugging the unit in order to get it going again. At this point, I can't really seem to go that long before it freezes up on me. 

I thought it might have been the hard drive & even got a hold of a Series 3 image. Haven't had time to pull the drive out yet though. At some point, I guess I will and run a test on it to see if its bad. 

I read here about this model having power supply issues as well so I opened it up and looked at the capacitors on the power supply. One of them looked slightly buldged so I'm thinking this could possibly be the issue as well. 

Finally, I actually also wound up talking to a TiVO rep about this issue. They had me go through some DVR diagnostics & test the cable signal strength. The person I talked to felt that the cable signal strength was too high and this was causing the unit to freeze up. They suggested I put a splitter on the line to reduce it some. 

Which one of these 3 sounds like the culprit? I personally think the signal strength diagnosis is not accurate. This Series 3 was working fine for years on this line. I also recently got a Series 4/Premiere & it works flawlessly on the same connection the Series 3 was on. 

I tend to wonder if its the power supply. I see Weaknees is selling power supplies for this unit for about $99, but I'm also looking on Ebay and Craigslist for some units that could be just as cheap. Could simply use it for parts & strip it for the power supply. 

I guess I ultimately need to run a test on the hard drive to see what comes back on that, but since I saw a slightly buldging cap on the power supply, I wonder if this is more of the problem. Just wondering what are some issues related to a failing power supply?


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## lillevig (Dec 7, 2010)

buscuitboy said:


> I have an original Series 3 (w/ lifetime) that is having some issues. It will randomly freeze up & requires unplugging the unit in order to get it going again. At this point, I can't really seem to go that long before it freezes up on me.
> 
> I thought it might have been the hard drive & even got a hold of a Series 3 image. Haven't had time to pull the drive out yet though. At some point, I guess I will and run a test on it to see if its bad.
> 
> ...


Sounds like you have the options pretty well enumerated. I agree that the signal level thing is the least likely but it is also something that can be easily checked. If you don't have a spare splitter, maybe you can borrow one or pick one up cheaply. If you feel comfortable with a soldering iron (or know someone who does) replacing power supply capacitors is not difficult and a lot cheaper than a new supply. Even if you test the hard drive and it tests bad, fixing the power supply should be part of the repair process.


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## buscuitboy (Aug 8, 2005)

I'm not real efficient with a soldering iron, but maybe it isn't too hard & something I can attempt. I guess if my Series 3's power supply is going bad, it's worth a shot. I figure I have nothing to lose & if I somehow mess up the soldering during the capacitor repair process, I'll just get a new power supply somewhere anyway. 

If I am successful at doing it myself and putting a new/better capacitor on it, will this likely be better than getting a used power supply from somewhere else from another unit? How do I know exactly which capacitor to get? Where is a good place to get them too? 

Although, if I do get another power supply from a used Series 3, I wonder if I'll just eventually have the same issue down the road. The original Series 3 is known across the board for bad power supplies, correct? 

I realize they are much more expensive than a do-it-yourself project, but are the Weaknees power supplies rebuilt ones with better capacitors? Or are they simply ones pulled from working units (and therefore might eventually fail as well)? Or could it be both and a shot in the dark on what you are getting?


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## lillevig (Dec 7, 2010)

buscuitboy said:


> I'm not real efficient with a soldering iron, but maybe it isn't too hard & something I can attempt. I guess if my Series 3's power supply is going bad, it's worth a shot. I figure I have nothing to lose & if I somehow mess up the soldering during the capacitor repair process, I'll just get a new power supply somewhere anyway.
> 
> If I am successful at doing it myself and putting a new/better capacitor on it, will this likely be better than getting a used power supply from somewhere else from another unit? How do I know exactly which capacitor to get? Where is a good place to get them too?
> 
> ...


I kind of get the feeling from your questions that doing the capacitor replacement yourself might not be a good idea. The capacitors are marked with their value and they are polarized. That means that they have to go into the board in the correct direction (they have a plus and minus side like batteries). If you live near an urban area then you might be able to find an unsub S3 on Craigslist for less than the cost of a new supply, or check eBay (but that would include a shipping charge). Yes, a used supply may end up having the same issues. You need to ask Weaknees if they sell new or refurbished supplies.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

buscuitboy said:


> I have an original Series 3 (w/ lifetime) that is having some issues. It will randomly freeze up & requires unplugging the unit in order to get it going again. At this point, I can't really seem to go that long before it freezes up on me.
> 
> I thought it might have been the hard drive & even got a hold of a Series 3 image. Haven't had time to pull the drive out yet though. At some point, I guess I will and run a test on it to see if its bad.
> 
> ...


Any bulge at all indicates you need to replace that capacitor before doing any other troubleshooting.

You'll need a replacement specifically specified as having low ESR (equivalent series resistance) and rated for 105 degrees Celsius.

After that, it's a matter of getting the same uFarad rating (I'm going to bet 2200, but it might be 3300) and the voltage rating needs to be the same as the bad one or a little higher, like if it's a 16V and you can't find that, a 25V will do.

What part of the country are you in?


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## pmiranda (Feb 12, 2003)

Personally, I'd swap the hard drive before busting out the soldering iron. It's completely reversible and easier.
You don't necessarily need a new image. If you have a computer with two spare SATA ports you can copy your image to another drive and see how it goes... which is nice because then you don't have to lose any shows, season passes, or other settings. Also I think with a new image you'd have to re-pair cablecards but that might vary with cableco.

By the way, do you have any trouble tuning from an antenna? My S3 is getting lots of problems on cable but tunes OTA just fine. The hard drive is new but I have one cap that might have a slight bulge but it's not obvious enough to tell. I think I'll check the output voltages...


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

pmiranda said:


> Personally, I'd swap the hard drive before busting out the soldering iron. It's completely reversible and easier.
> You don't necessarily need a new image. If you have a computer with two spare SATA ports you can copy your image to another drive and see how it goes... which is nice because then you don't have to lose any shows, season passes, or other settings. Also I think with a new image you'd have to re-pair cablecards but that might vary with cableco.
> 
> By the way, do you have any trouble tuning from an antenna? My S3 is getting lots of problems on cable but tunes OTA just fine. The hard drive is new but I have one cap that might have a slight bulge but it's not obvious enough to tell. I think I'll check the output voltages...


If someone has been stabbed, you should probably deal with that first, before running an exhaustive battery of tests for some other medical malady, just in case the fact that they are bleeding to death interferes with getting accurate results from those other tests.

Power supply problems can cause all sorts of strange symptoms, and make any deductions about other problems a pointless waste of time and energy.

If the stabbing victim has low blood pressure you really need to deal with the wound first before wondering if the BP problem is due to them possibly having influenza or a failing heart valve.


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## bikegeek (Dec 28, 2006)

unitron said:


> Any bulge at all indicates you need to replace that capacitor before doing any other troubleshooting.
> 
> You'll need a replacement specifically specified as having low ESR (equivalent series resistance) and rated for 105 degrees Celsius.
> 
> ...


Look for an electronics repair shop and have them do it. I did it with bulging caps on a pc system board and they replaced 4 caps for about $25. They are much better with the soldering iron than I am.


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## buscuitboy (Aug 8, 2005)

OK, I guess fixing the power supply issue should be high on the priority list no matter what. Like I mentioned, I would be willing to give the soldering a try & worst comes worst, I get a new one somewhere. 

I found someone selling the same Series 3 on Craigslist in my area for about $90. This is about the same price as what Weaknees is charging for their S3 power supplies alone. Actually, Weaknees is charging $99 for a replacement, but they initially charge $149 for the part and then refund you $50 when you send your bad power supply back to them. Not sure I want to mess with all that & would just assume get a whole unit (for parts) off CL or ebay instead (although, I would have to worry about it failing again too). This move by Weaknees also tells me that they are probably "refurbishing" the ones they make available by fixing customer returns. Which I guess could be good too in that they are replacing the bad capacitors so less chance of a problem down the road. 

However, I do also like the option of taking it to a electronic repair shop. I live in the Atlanta area so I'm sure there is someone here who can do it. Seems cheaper than a whole new power supply and also definitely assures that its a better one (instead of just getting one that might also fail in the future).

Now, I did happen to talk to a TiVo rep again about this issue. In addition to suggesting (like before) it could be a signal issue for the cause of rebooting, he mentioned that the cable card might be bad. I didn't think of this and it could be a 4th option. I'll have to take out the one M-card I have in it for now and see how it works under the analog channel tuner (Comcast ch2-28). 

I also asked him about the power supply issue for this model and it going bad in time. He said he never heard of that. I now wonder how much stock I should put into what the TiVo techs say if they have never heard of failing power supplies in these S3s. Or maybe its something they just don't want to admit. 

Which finally leaves me to something else he said. He mentioned that TiVo has an exchange program on out of warranty boxes like this, but it would essentially be $199 to transfer the lifetime sub and $149 for a new Series 3 box ($349). I'm pretty sure I would not go this route as it seems like a much more expensive option (& doesn't guarantee I will have the same issue down the road too).

Of course, this exchange option is apparently if I do NOT open the box. I didn't tell him I opened the box to look at the power supply (only asked about it from what "I heard"), but is there really any way they can tell I simply removed the cover to inspect it inside? I didn't remove or alter anything in there (although, I did use a can of air to blow out some dust while it was open). Instead, I basically just looked at the power supply and saw the one slightly buldging cap. Then closed it back up.

I guess at this point, I'll try to remove the cable card and see how it performs. I'll cross my finger that helps, but I'm not holding my breathe that it will fix it or be the solution.


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## pmiranda (Feb 12, 2003)

unitron said:


> If someone has been stabbed, you should probably deal with that first, before running an exhaustive battery of tests for some other medical malady, just in case the fact that they are bleeding to death interferes with getting accurate results from those other tests.


Hahaha... nice. Depends on how "slightly" the caps are bulging. On mine, it's very subtle so I can't really tell if they were always like that. I don't rush to the ER when I cut myself, but if it keeps bleeding after I put pressure on it for a little while, something's up. Backing off the analogy, it seems perfectly normal to me to have a few spare 1TB drives lying around, so that's where I'm coming from


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

pmiranda said:


> Hahaha... nice. Depends on how "slightly" the caps are bulging. On mine, it's very subtle so I can't really tell if they were always like that. I don't rush to the ER when I cut myself, but if it keeps bleeding after I put pressure on it for a little while, something's up. Backing off the analogy, it seems perfectly normal to me to have a few spare 1TB drives lying around, so that's where I'm coming from


Doesn't matter how many spare brand new spark plugs you have lying around if you've got a leaky head gasket or a slipped timing chain.

Go look at this picture

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=8824333#post8824333

to see how subtle the visual difference can be between a good cap and one that's started to go bad.

When they start to go bad, it's a one-way trip. They don't get better, they just keep getting worse.


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## pmiranda (Feb 12, 2003)

That's a very helpful picture. I'm going to pop the lid on mine tonight and have another look.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

buscuitboy said:


> OK, I guess fixing the power supply issue should be high on the priority list no matter what. Like I mentioned, I would be willing to give the soldering a try & worst comes worst, I get a new one somewhere.
> 
> I found someone selling the same Series 3 on Craigslist in my area for about $90. This is about the same price as what Weaknees is charging for their S3 power supplies alone. Actually, Weaknees is charging $99 for a replacement, but they initially charge $149 for the part and then refund you $50 when you send your bad power supply back to them. Not sure I want to mess with all that & would just assume get a whole unit (for parts) off CL or ebay instead (although, I would have to worry about it failing again too). This move by Weaknees also tells me that they are probably "refurbishing" the ones they make available by fixing customer returns. Which I guess could be good too in that they are replacing the bad capacitors so less chance of a problem down the road.
> 
> ...


You didn't talk to a TiVo "tech", you talked to a Customer Service Representative who probably couldn't tell the power supply from the motherboard and hasn't the faintest idea what a capacitor is (It's a glorified version of a piece of wax paper between 2 pieces of aluminum foil, and it can store a charge. It's the "glorified version" part where all of the industrial secrets and differences in performance are).

You can unsolder the old one(s) and solder in (a) new one(s) for under $10 in parts.

If the TiVo still has problems after that, you know what's not causing them.

And that can be half the battle.

One of the first examples of capacitor problems in TiVo power supplies was probably in the neighborhood of a decade ago in a particular model of DirecTiVo satellite receiver and recorder where the symptom was one tuner working and the other tuner not working. Both were powered by the same section of the power supply, but one was a little further away and the electricity had to travel through a little more copper to get to it and so it didn't get quite enough current to work properly, because the power supply wasn't performing up to design specifications. If you started troubleshooting with the notion firmly fixed in your head that the power supply itself didn't matter, you'd still be looking for the problem 10 years later.

Take it to a shop and ask them how much to replace the caps on the 5 Volt and 12 Volt output rails with good low ESR high temp ones. That'll probably be the 2 or 3 or 4 tallest ones on the side nearest the motherboard.

Figure $10 to give them a generous markup on the parts, and the rest is labor, otherwise known as knowing what to do and being set up to do it.

Decide if you consider that a fair price to pay to have it over and done with.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

pmiranda said:


> That's a very helpful picture. I'm going to pop the lid on mine tonight and have another look.


I usually try to remember to give credit to fellow TCF'er steve614 for that excellent example. Sometimes I get in a hurry.


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## buscuitboy (Aug 8, 2005)

Well, I removed the cable card and let it run on a analog signal only. However, same problem occurred; reboots at random times and then gets hung up on the "welcome" screen. Therefore, I think my issue is the power supply and a capacitor.

I opened the unit up. I'm thinking one of the capacitors is bad. I took some pictures & here they are:



















What do you think, is that one "buldged" enough to indicate failure?

I did actually find a local electronics repair place that will essentially replace the bad capacitor for about $10-15. I guess I'll have to be careful and disconnect this power supply to bring into them.

Someone on another thread also mentioned that I should probably just go ahead & have them both replaced. Since they will have it to repair the one, would that be a good thing to do as well since some of the others will most likely go bad at some point too?


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## pmiranda (Feb 12, 2003)

I think you found your problem 

Yeah... that's bulged enough. 

In bulk I think they're less than a buck and most of the time is in setting up so I'd go ahead and have them both done... maybe all 5 but I don't know if the smaller ones are a more reliable type.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

buscuitboy said:


> Well, I removed the cable card and let it run on a analog signal only. However, same problem occurred; reboots at random times and then gets hung up on the "welcome" screen. Therefore, I think my issue is the power supply and a capacitor.
> 
> I opened the unit up. I'm thinking one of the capacitors is bad. I took some pictures & here they are:
> 
> ...


Oh, yeah, Mr. Bulged-out has got to go.

There seem to be two variations on the S3 platform power supply and yours is the other one from the one I've worked on.

If there's one capacitor that's much bigger around than the rest, say as big around as a quarter, give or take, it's probably okay.

Find out how much to replace all of the other big ones, and if it's pretty much the first quote plus 2 or 3 bucks per extra cap, go ahead and be done with it.


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## buscuitboy (Aug 8, 2005)

Well, here is another picture of ALL the capacitors on the power supply. Should I get those 3 larger ones replaced and not worry about the 6 smaller ones?


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

Do the capacitors under the heat sink look okay?

I only see a bulge on the biggest one to the left. That one definitely needs to be replaced. Just to be safe, you should also replace any other capacitor that is tied to that branch of the circuit (follow the circuit board trace).


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

How many caps are there under the heatsink overhang?

Can you take a picture with the bundle of wires going to the motherboard and drive in the foreground?


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## buscuitboy (Aug 8, 2005)

Oh, I totally missed those (under the heat sink). Here are some pics of that area. From what I can tell, they all seem to be good. See what you think:


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

If it were my TiVo I'd replace the one bulged one, and see if that fixed things.

But I can do that myself and know how to find any others that were in parallel with it and probably overstressed when it quit working right, so I'd probably replace it/them as long as I had it open.

But in your case, probably better to get that shop to replace all of the ones in the pictures and be sure you don't have to do it again in a couple of months, provided they give you a reasonable price like a couple or three dollars per cap plus one non-extravagant labor charge.


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## buscuitboy (Aug 8, 2005)

So, essentially replace all 11 capacitors (if the price is reasonable)? Or should I maybe just worry & replace the 5 bigger ones? Would there be more of a risk of damaging the power supply permanently if eleven are messed with at one time or should it not matter?


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

buscuitboy said:


> So, essentially replace all 11 capacitors (if the price is reasonable)? Or should I maybe just worry & replace the 5 bigger ones? Would there be more of a risk of damaging the power supply permanently if eleven are messed with at one time or should it not matter?


If the shop knows what they're doing, replacing caps should pose no danger to the power supply.

Ask them if the bulgey one is part of the input or output side.

If it's part of the output side, it's likely the +12V rail (yellow wire) or the +5V one (red wire), so it and any in parallel with it should be replaced (the shop will know what I mean by in parallel).

A cap on the 3.3V rail (orange wire) or whatever the gray wire is (8V, 9V?, it's the power for the OLED) should probably still be okay, the major current draw is on the 5 and the 12.

If that cap with the bulge on top is part of the input side, everything on the input side (except perhaps a really big fat one about as big around as a quarter and rated at 200v or more--if this version of the power supply has one) should probably be replaced along with it since they've probably been stressed by their failing neighbor.


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## pmiranda (Feb 12, 2003)

They should have the gear to plug it in and see which caps are allowing ripple voltage through and only replace those. If I didn't think it was a switching power supply, I'd say you could do it with a cheap voltmeter on the AC setting, but an oscilloscope is the right tool for the job.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

pmiranda said:


> They should have the gear to plug it in and see which caps are allowing ripple voltage through and only replace those. If I didn't think it was a switching power supply, I'd say you could do it with a cheap voltmeter on the AC setting, but an oscilloscope is the right tool for the job.


To do that (or to test the power supply at all) they will the rest of the TiVo, since it is a switching supply and must have the load for which it's designed (the motherboard and hard drive) attached in order to operate properly.


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## MScottC (Sep 11, 2004)

I can offer up another solution for those not wanting to tackle the capacitor issue themselves. I went through having issues with tuners or cablecards failing and causing reboots. Replaced the cablecards and it would work for a while. This was an original S3 with the OLED display. After going through several sets of cablecards, I started questioning that perhaps it was either the HD or the Power supply just from readings online. I was about to pull the trigger on purchasing a replacement PS from Weakknees for $99. But before I finalized the order, I gave TiVo a call, explained to them that I've owned an original S1 that I bought when they company first started delivering the boxes, and this S3 that was purchased the day after they became available. They offered to swap my S3 for a refurbished unit for the great price of $50 to cover shipping and handling. They put a $100 additional charge on my credit card which was refunded as soon as they got the original box back. 

When I had purchased the original S3 I had almost immediately installed a 1TB HD. I figured it had been 5 or 6 years, so I figured, I might as well spring for a new 1TB HD as well, which I probably should have had to replace soon anyway. All in all, I'm a happy camper.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

Yeah, but you lost all of your programs, right?


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## buscuitboy (Aug 8, 2005)

Trust me, I have looked into ALL kinds of options. TiVo suggested to me that it was probably bad cable cards causing my random reboots/freezes. I was leery, but figured it was worth a shot and couldn't hurt or cost anything to try their suggestion. I unplugged my cable cards and tried to run the S3 on a pure analog cable signal, but that didn't work either. It still randomly rebooted and froze up. 

TiVo mentioned their trade in program to me as well, but they said it would cost me $149 for a new Series3 and then $199 to transfer its current lifetime. I am figuring its MUCH more cost effective to try and have the capacitors repaired at this point. Was quoted about $15 from a local shop to replace that one bad capacitor (seen in pics). Might even get some others replaced as well & as suggested in order to avoid possible problems down the road. 

Plus, I figured if I did get a replacement S3 from TiVO directly, I'm thinking there is no guarantee I wouldn't have this same issue down the road and be going through all of this again. I tend to think they aren't necessarily fixing or worrying about this issue in their own refurb units, but I could be wrong on that. 

Bottom line is I would rather try the $15 capacitor repair route first over the $350 replacement program offered by TiVo.


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## pmiranda (Feb 12, 2003)

I was worried that "your mileage may vary" on the refurb/replacement stuff. You could try calling back and see if another rep would give you a better offer, but to me a local repair is the best option at any price.


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## L David Matheny (Jan 29, 2011)

buscuitboy said:


> Trust me, I have looked into ALL kinds of options. TiVo suggested to me that it was probably bad cable cards causing my random reboots/freezes. I was leery, but figured it was worth a shot and couldn't hurt or cost anything to try their suggestion. I unplugged my cable cards and tried to run the S3 on a pure analog cable signal, but that didn't work either. It still randomly rebooted and froze up.


Has anybody ever tried to correlate rebooting problems with poor grounding of the cable feed? Does your cable go through a grounding block that's bonded to the same ground as your house wiring? It's just a thought.



buscuitboy said:


> TiVo mentioned their trade in program to me as well, but they said it would cost me $149 for a new Series3 and then $199 to transfer its current lifetime. I am figuring its MUCH more cost effective to try and have the capacitors repaired at this point. Was quoted about $15 from a local shop to replace that one bad capacitor (seen in pics). Might even get some others replaced as well & as suggested in order to avoid possible problems down the road.


That sounds somewhat outrageous. I thought that TiVo would replace an out-of-warranty lifetime unit with another _of the same model_ for $149 _with_ transfer of the PLS. And I thought that the $199 lifetime transfer deal was what they have offered occasionally to entice people to transfer PLS to a newly introduced model. Am I misremembering?


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## buscuitboy (Aug 8, 2005)

*UPDATE!!!!!*

OK, I FINALLY found some time for this project. My Series 3 TiVo HD had been sitting on a shelf, but I was able to fully pull the power supply out and take it to the local repair shop I mentioned and found earlier. Dropped it off last Friday and they called me this morning saying that they replaced that one obvious bad cap. Total cost will be $17.38.

I originally asked them to check out the others as well. They said they tested them and they all looked good therefore no need to replace others right now. I guess there is no telling how long the others will last or if they will go as well, but as of now, that one bad cap (in pictures) seemed to be the only issue & has been replaced. Yea, maybe I should have just had them replace some of the others, but I didn't so hopefully it will last for a bit here. I guess I will know what to look for & who to take it to if it does creep up again.

Theoretically it should work as normal & I'll cross my fingers. I plan to pick up the power supply later today and would like to fully put it back in my S3 tonight if possible. No promises, but after I get it back in there and let it run for a bit (& hopefully no reboot issues), I'll report back here with the results.

Since I have the unit open, I am also thinking of pulling the hard drive and throwing it in a spare PC I have in my basement. Then make a backup image of it. This way I can easily replace the drive myself if its original fails. Or even upgrade it to a larger one in the future if I want. From what I have gathered here, WinMFS is used to accomplish either of these so hopefully its not too hard & I will try to figure that out as well.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

Not a bad idea at all. Make sure to read through the WMFS instructions before plugging it into a windows machine...

It is super easy, and even easier if you are not copying over any shows.


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## greggt007 (Dec 9, 2005)

hey biscuitboy. i am having the same problem i pm'd you about. i tested my voltages today. my yellow 12v is only getting 7-8v. i replaced the other caps on that side of the black heatsink and another 470uF 16v right above the yellow wires, no help. 

i then thought, since i just bought this lifetimed on CL for 30, to play around with it some. i have some spare external hard drive cases. i hooked up the cables in the tivo and additionally hooked up my spare power supply to the second power supply connector of the tivo hd. this did not go well, the fan only turned on after like 20 seconds and it was slow and nothing lit up on the front of the tivo. so i'm not sure what that did. i figured it would be in parallel and even out the 12v onto the motherboard. i dont recommend this.

however, my next step will be to power up the hard drive with my spare external hard drive power supply and spare sata cable, and somehow pull off the yellow wire from the power supply and splice in another 12v wire from another external power supply, just to determine if it is the power supply and if this unit does have lifetime and works otherwise before i shell out 99-149 for a new supply from wk or find another s3 w/o lifetime on CL, as i've given up on replacing the caps, something else seems wrong with this power supply.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

greggt007 said:


> hey biscuitboy. i am having the same problem i pm'd you about. i tested my voltages today. my yellow 12v is only getting 7-8v. i replaced the other caps on that side of the black heatsink and another 470uF 16v right above the yellow wires, no help.
> 
> i then thought, since i just bought this lifetimed on CL for 30, to play around with it some. i have some spare external hard drive cases. i hooked up the cables in the tivo *and additionally hooked up my spare power supply to the second power supply connector of the tivo hd*. this did not go well, the fan only turned on after like 20 seconds and it was slow and nothing lit up on the front of the tivo. so i'm not sure what that did. i figured it would be in parallel and even out the 12v onto the motherboard. i dont recommend this.
> 
> however, my next step will be to power up the hard drive with my spare external hard drive power supply and spare sata cable, and somehow pull off the yellow wire from the power supply and splice in another 12v wire from another external power supply, just to determine if it is the power supply and if this unit does have lifetime and works otherwise before i shell out 99-149 for a new supply from wk or find another s3 w/o lifetime on CL, as i've given up on replacing the caps, something else seems wrong with this power supply.


Are you using one of those early SATA drives with both a SATA power connector and the older 4 pin IDE/PATA power connector?

(When you say TiVo hd, I assume you mean TiVo hard drive. If you mean a Series 3 HD TiVo, a TCD652160, or even an original S3, the TCD648250, then I have no idea what you mean by second power supply connector, but it doesn't have one)

If you connect one power supply to one of those connectors and another power supply to the other connector, then the two supplies wind up trying to drive each other. It's like connecting both speaker outputs of a stereo to the same speaker, which is never recommended.

Test all of the TiVo's power supply output voltages with the hard drive disconnected, and then test again with the drive connected.

Compare the results.

Also, turn the power supply board over and trace the +12 (yellow) and +5 (red) outputs and find the capacitors which are connected between those outputs and ground (black wires). (They'll probably be 2200uF caps, maybe a 3300uF)

It's almost guaranteed that those are the ones among which any faulty caps will be found.

Be sure you use quality, name brand, low ESR, 105 degree celsius rated replacements of the same uF rating and the same voltage rating or maybe one notch higher, like a 16V instead of a 10V, or a 25V instead of a 16V.

You can hook up a SATA data cable from the motherboard SATA data port to the hard drive's data port, and an outboard power supply to just the hard drive without any connection between the TiVo power supply and the hard drive for test purposes.


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## greggt007 (Dec 9, 2005)

yes unitron, i have a hard drive that has both power connectors, so i already tried hooking up an external power to the harddrive, but it doesnt matter as the motherboard is only getting 7-8v on the 12v rail. 
like i said, i replaced almost all the caps (the 2200 25v was bulged just as with biscuitboy's), except some on the red 5v lines which dont seem applicable. i'm pretty sure they are low esr, they are panasonic's from digikey with the same ratings, but digikey didnt list any as being low esr. 
now i havent soldered in 12 years, and when i looked, there were two loose solders i had, i repaired those and checked the rest and they all seem fine now.
the only other thing is, at first, i used a crappy radio shack 2200 36v cap that was likely high esr. i obviously replaced that but not sure if that could have damaged something in the interim.
how many amps do you think the mb uses on the 12v? like i said, i'm going to try cutting off and hooking up another 12v supply into that wire to ascertain the rest is working.


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## greggt007 (Dec 9, 2005)

i have a tivohd too, i dont want to open it up, but will that power supply not work with the s3?


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

greggt007 said:


> i have a tivohd too, i dont want to open it up, but will that power supply not work with the s3?


Power supplies are not interchangeable between models.
Each have a specific layout and design that only fits in the model that it was designed for.

Maybe for testing purposes, IF the connectors/wiring output is the same, one could take a power supply from one Tivo and use it on another.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

greggt007 said:


> yes unitron, i have a hard drive that has both power connectors, so i already tried hooking up an external power to the harddrive, but it doesnt matter as the motherboard is only getting 7-8v on the 12v rail.
> like i said, i replaced almost all the caps (the 2200 25v was bulged just as with biscuitboy's), except some on the red 5v lines which dont seem applicable. i'm pretty sure they are low esr, they are panasonic's from digikey with the same ratings, but digikey didnt list any as being low esr.
> now i havent soldered in 12 years, and when i looked, there were two loose solders i had, i repaired those and checked the rest and they all seem fine now.
> the only other thing is, at first, i used a crappy radio shack 2200 36v cap that was likely high esr. i obviously replaced that but not sure if that could have damaged something in the interim.
> how many amps do you think the mb uses on the 12v? like i said, i'm going to try cutting off and hooking up another 12v supply into that wire to ascertain the rest is working.


What comes after the TCD on the sticker on the back of your TiVo?

You can connect a data cable from the TiVo motherboard to the hard drive, and connect a separate power source to the hard drive as long as you don't have any connection between that source and the TiVo's power supply (other than the common ground they will share at the hard drive).

The higher ESR of the radio shack cap could have degraded its performance and caused it to heat up more than it should, but probably wouldn't have damaged anything but itself.

Since you had the 12V from the other power supply in parallel with the TiVo's 12V line which wasn't up to 12V, that would have meant that the other supply was trying to send current back the wrong direction into the 12V rail of the TiVo supply, due to the voltage difference.

How much, if any, damage that could do to the drive or the TiVo power supply depends on how much current the other supply was capable of delivering with a few Volts to push it, so it's a low probability but not an impossibility.

If you have any capacitors on the TiVo supply with any bulge whatsoever, they need to be replaced.

If the Digi-Key Panansonic caps are rated for 105 degrees C, then they should probably be good enough.

If I had a TCD648250 and a TCD652160 or TCD658000 open in front of me I could tell you whether they were temporarily interchangeable for test puposes, but that's not something I can advise in favor of at a distance.


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## buscuitboy (Aug 8, 2005)

OK, I took the hard drive out to try and make an image of it (in another PC) as mentioned, but then realized my extra SATA cable for this project was damaged so have another one on order & will have to attempt this at another time. 

I put the drive back in & fired up this TiVo Series3 HD unit with this newly repaired cap (from pics) and unfortunately it is still randomly rebooting. Dohhh!!! Since greggt007 mentioned that he had ALL the caps replaced and that still didn't work for his Series3, I'm hesitant to do this as well & since I don't feel comfortable replacing caps myself, I don't want to shell out more $$ to the repair shop only to not have it fix the issue. 

I am now thinking & wondering if its the hard drive instead. Once I get this new SATA cable, will put it in the extra desktop PC like I wanted and run test on it as well as create an image (if able). I have a spare WD 500GB SATA drive that I could wipe out and then put this image on to test this as well. If it works, I would then maybe get a bigger drive and image it myself again. 

Other than this, the only thing I can think of that will fix this reboot issue is to get a new power supply from Weaknees ($99) or a used Series3 off CL like greggt007 mentioned. I can't think of what else it could possibly be though and/or how to fix it.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

buscuitboy said:


> OK, I took the hard drive out to try and make an image of it (in another PC) as mentioned, but then realized my extra SATA cable for this project was damaged so have another one on order & will have to attempt this at another time.
> 
> I put the drive back in & fired up this TiVo Series3 HD unit with this newly repaired cap (from pics) and unfortunately it is still randomly rebooting. Dohhh!!! Since greggt007 mentioned that he had ALL the caps replaced and that still didn't work for his Series3, I'm hesitant to do this as well & since I don't feel comfortable replacing caps myself, I don't want to shell out more $$ to the repair shop only to not have it fix the issue.
> 
> ...


If the hard drive was in there while the power supply was faulty and causing problems, that could have screwed up some of the programs or data on the hard drive, so make sure Intellipark is disabled on that 500GB WD, if applicable, and move whatever's valuable on it to another drive and put a fresh image on it and see how that works.


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## buscuitboy (Aug 8, 2005)

Well, I feel that at least the one cap needed to be replaced at some point anyway so I'm not disappointed that I got it fixed.



unitron said:


> If the hard drive was in there while the power supply was faulty and causing problems, that could have screwed up some of the programs or data on the hard drive, so make sure Intellipark is disabled on that 500GB WD, if applicable, and move whatever's valuable on it to another drive and put a fresh image on it and see how that works.


The current stuff on the Series 3 isn't terribly important. Actually, I also have a networked Series 2 and a Series 4 (Premiere) and was able to transfer some stuff to both from the Series3. Its been various amounts as it reboots randomly so you never know how much you'll be able to transfer at a time. If I can get anything else important off this Series 3 and then get the basic image off of it so I can then put it cleanly on my spare WD 500GB, that would be fine for my needs.

You mentioned "intellipark". I am not familar with this (yet), but I'm assuming that is something used in WinMFS for the backup/imaging purposes. Or since I am gonna just wipe the drive out and start clean, should I even worry about this?

Also, I assumed I would be able to temporarily use my spare WD 500GB drive for this, correct? If it works out and I want to get a bigger drive (probably 1.5-2TB) to do it all again myself, should I use only certain drive models. I see WD and Seagate ones being sold on Ebay that basically have the Tivo image on them and are ready to be installed. Or does it not make that much of a difference?


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

buscuitboy said:


> Well, I feel that at least the one cap needed to be replaced at some point anyway so I'm not disappointed that I got it fixed.
> 
> The current stuff on the Series 3 isn't terribly important. Actually, I also have a networked Series 2 and a Series 4 (Premiere) and was able to transfer some stuff to both from the Series3. Its been various amounts as it reboots randomly so you never know how much you'll be able to transfer at a time. If I can get anything else important off this Series 3 and then get the basic image off of it so I can then put it cleanly on my spare WD 500GB, that would be fine for my needs.
> 
> ...


Okay, apparently you know less about all of this than I thought (although you seem to be learning rapidly, if painfully).

Intellipark has nothing to do with MFS Live or WinMFS.

It's strictly a Western Digital thing.

Some, and perhaps most, of Western Digital's Caviar Green line of drives have a feature called Intellipark that parks the heads and spins down the platters when the drive hasn't been called upon to do anything for awhile. This is an electricity saving scheme. It doesn't exist on the previous Caviar line, nor on the current Caviar Blue or Caviar Black lines, as far as I know.

Ordinarily there's never a time when a hard drive in a TiVo would go uncalled upon--it's always writing and reading back the 30 minute cache if nothing else--but when it does a soft reboot, also called a warm boot, it stops communicating with the drive for a little while and the drive goes to sleep. It resets the CPU and starts loading the stuff in its BIOS to memory and when that gets done it starts executing that code, part of which is a call to the drive to load the operating system into memory. Only the drive is asleep and doesn't respond right away even though power to it was never interrupted like it would have been with a cold boot. When it doesn't hear from the drive it assumes something is wrong and starts the warm boot over again, which means that when the drive is ready the TiVo isn't ready to respond to it, so it goes back to sleep again and isn't ready when the TiVo calls on it again, lather, rinse, repeat.

So you have to set the drive's inactivity detection period much longer or disable Intellipark altogether for the TiVo to be able to warm boot successfully.

But only if you have one of the drives with Intellipark.

You didn't specify which 500GB WD drive you have, so I don't know if it matters in your case or not.

My suggestion is to empty out that 500GB drive, and then restore a fresh, known good image to it (which model TiVo are we talking about?).

Not try to put an image on it from the current, possibly slightly scrambled TiVo drive. At least not yet.

Then put it in the TiVo for test purposes.

If it boots up you'll have to do Guided Setup, during which time it'll need to warm boot a time or two.

When it all settles down you can test it for a while.

If no problems, then you have a now good power supply and the motherboard is still okay and we can talk about what can be salvaged off of the original drive.

And by model number I mean TCD and what else. It's on the sticker on the back.


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## buscuitboy (Aug 8, 2005)

oh, sorry about the "intellipark" ignorance thing and it being something on the drives themselves. I have put in some hard drives in regular desktop PCs, but have never really known or worried about this feature as it seems like something you can or can not have for a desktop PC. 

I am learning about all this TiVo stuff so thanks for your patients. I will try to see what model my spare WD 500GB drive is and get back here with it. Maybe see if it also has the intellipark feature as well. 

I did get a Series 3 (OLED) image from someone (on these boards) a few months back, but never fully pursued that option since I found this buldged cap. I'll have to try and find the image again and move forward with putting it on this spare WD drive.


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## DocNo (Oct 10, 2001)

Wow buscuitboy - I'm impressed with your perseverance. It's just crazy that your saga probably was caused by industrial espionage gone bad...

http://badcaps.net/pages.php?vid=4

Who knows how long this is going to continue. I'm glad you backed up your system - good call! The hard drives are usually the only things that go wrong, the occasional power supply issues notwithstanding 

Good luck!


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

buscuitboy said:


> oh, sorry about the "intellipark" ignorance thing and it being something on the drives themselves. I have put in some hard drives in regular desktop PCs, but have never really known or worried about this feature as it seems like something you can or can not have for a desktop PC.
> 
> I am learning about all this TiVo stuff so thanks for your patients. I will try to see what model my spare WD 500GB drive is and get back here with it. Maybe see if it also has the intellipark feature as well.
> 
> I did get a Series 3 (OLED) image from someone (on these boards) a few months back, but never fully pursued that option since I found this buldged cap. I'll have to try and find the image again and move forward with putting it on this spare WD drive.


TCD648250 images here:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=8921060#post8921060


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## greggt007 (Dec 9, 2005)

update on my s3.

i had originally tested the hard drive in my s3 with windows wd diagnostics. came back as fine, kickstart didnt work, so that's why i thought it was P/S. replaced all the caps. didnt work. 12v still gave me iffy readings, replaced 12v with other 12v sources, still didnt work. bought a s3 off ebay. used that P/S, didnt work, used that hdd, works! so the hdd was bad. the s3 i bought off ebay also has a bulged cap, but i'm leaving it alone and will sell it off to another ebayer.

not sure what happened to the hdd. got the image off the working hdd and put that on the non working hdd and now it's working. should i assume that hdd to be going? i am thinking of using my old expander's 500gb drive to replace the stock drive. the expander stopped working but i've used it occasionally to make backups, as i think the issue is the enclosure being bad. recommendations? i dont want to buy another tb or 2 drive...


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

greggt007 said:


> update on my s3.
> 
> i had originally tested the hard drive in my s3 with windows wd diagnostics. came back as fine, kickstart didnt work, so that's why i thought it was P/S. replaced all the caps. didnt work. 12v still gave me iffy readings, replaced 12v with other 12v sources, still didnt work. bought a s3 off ebay. used that P/S, didnt work, used that hdd, works! so the hdd was bad. the s3 i bought off ebay also has a bulged cap, but i'm leaving it alone and will sell it off to another ebayer.
> 
> not sure what happened to the hdd. got the image off the working hdd and put that on the non working hdd and now it's working. should i assume that hdd to be going? i am thinking of using my old expander's 500gb drive to replace the stock drive. the expander stopped working but i've used it occasionally to make backups, as i think the issue is the enclosure being bad. recommendations? i dont want to buy another tb or 2 drive...


So the hard drive we started out talking about, the one with both a SATA and an old school power input, works after overwriting it with new TiVo software?

Carefully dismantle the expander's case (look on youtube for people dismantling other WD externals for clues and have stuff like old no longer good credit cards, courtesy cards, etc., on hand) and run the WD long test on the bare drive.


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## buscuitboy (Aug 8, 2005)

Well, I am now pretty sure the hard drive is my issue as well. I wound up putting this problematic S3 in a basement bedroom. However, I didn't hook up the coaxial cabling to it at all (as well as no cable cards). Naturally, it kept saying it couldn't find a signal, but the thing I found interesting is it never rebooted. Stayed functional and was able to see its recorded content from my Premiere and Series 2 DT within my network. 

I was able to transfer some material (about 4 titles) from this S3 to the Premiere without any problems. I didn't really care about the other 20 or so programs on there (lots of kiddy cartoons) so no biggie on what happens to them at the end of the day. 

Once I hooked up the straight coaxial cable to this S3 & had some basic channels, it eventually froze up. Not sure how long after hooking it up, but I'm guessing that since it had a video picture to record to the hard drive (30mins worth at a time), this is what made it flake out since it was constantly accessing the hard drive. 

Been busy lately, but will eventually try to take my spare SATA drive here and put an S3 image on it (via WinMFS) and then put it in this S3. Hopefully that will totally clear things up. 

Hell, since there really isn't anything terribly important on the current stock 250GB S3 drive, I might just want to put a fresh S3 image on it like greggt007 essentially did and that could bring things back to normal as well.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

buscuitboy said:


> Hell, since there really isn't anything terribly important on the current stock 250GB S3 drive, I might just want to put a fresh S3 image on it like greggt007 essentially did and that could bring things back to normal as well.


Doubtful. Since it boots and runs OK when not trying to record, there is probably no problem with either the s/w or that portion of the disk. In fact, you could probably use your stock drive to image a new drive.


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## buscuitboy (Aug 8, 2005)

OK, I just realized my spare WD 500GB SATA drive that I mentioned earlier in this thread is actually the main drive in a PC and has Win XP operating system on it. So, not sure I want to use it right now to put an S3 image on for my Series3 TiVo HD. However, I forgot about another WD SATA drive I have that is strictly a data drive & something I could possibly use instead (after moving all important data from it). 

This other SATA drive is a 1.5TB "WD CAVIAR GREEN" drive and model #WD15EADS-00P8B0. From what was mentioned on this thread, I'm thinking this "GREEN" drive has the "intelligent drive" feature on it. I would then have to disable this feature for it to work properly & efficiently with my S3, correct? If so, hopefully its not to hard to do it with my 'SATA to USB' adapter I have for it that then hooks straight up to a desktop PC (via USB port).


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

buscuitboy said:


> OK, I just realized my spare WD 500GB SATA drive that I mentioned earlier in this thread is actually the main drive in a PC and has Win XP operating system on it. So, not sure I want to use it right now to put an S3 image on for my Series3 TiVo HD. However, I forgot about another WD SATA drive I have that is strictly a data drive & something I could possibly use instead (after moving all important data from it).
> 
> This other SATA drive is a 1.5TB "WD CAVIAR GREEN" drive and model #WD15EADS-00P8B0. From what was mentioned on this thread, I'm thinking this "GREEN" drive has the "intelligent drive" feature on it. I would then have to disable this feature for it to work properly & efficiently with my S3, correct? If so, hopefully its not to hard to do it with my 'SATA to USB' adapter I have for it that then hooks straight up to a desktop PC (via USB port).


You are correct in thinking that the "intellipark" feature will probably have to be disabled on the drive using wdidle3. Unfortunately, it cannot be done via a usb connection.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

buscuitboy said:


> OK, I just realized my spare WD 500GB SATA drive that I mentioned earlier in this thread is actually the main drive in a PC and has Win XP operating system on it. So, not sure I want to use it right now to put an S3 image on for my Series3 TiVo HD. However, I forgot about another WD SATA drive I have that is strictly a data drive & something I could possibly use instead (after moving all important data from it).
> 
> This other SATA drive is a 1.5TB "WD CAVIAR GREEN" drive and model #WD15EADS-00P8B0. From what was mentioned on this thread, I'm thinking this "GREEN" drive has the "intelligent drive" feature on it. I would then have to disable this feature for it to work properly & efficiently with my S3, correct? If so, hopefully its not to hard to do it with my 'SATA to USB' adapter I have for it that then hooks straight up to a desktop PC (via USB port).


There's Intellipark, which is what you need to disable with the wdidle3 utility, but there's one or two other "Intelli-something" features/buzzwords associated with those Caviar Greens as well.

All you need to worry about is the one that PARKS the heads.

Are you currently using that 1.5TB in an external enclosure?

Are you allergic to taking the cover off of the computer?


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## buscuitboy (Aug 8, 2005)

No, this WD 1.5TB drive is not using a traditional external enclosure. Rather, it is using a simple SATA to USB adapter kit. I was thinking I could use this to disable the intellipark feature (as well as installing the S3 image), but lpwcomp stated it can't be done this way for adjusting its intellipark settings. 

Therefore, I will put it in a desktop PC I have room in. I do feel comfortable opening the computer so hopefully it won't be too difficult all around.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

buscuitboy said:


> No, this WD 1.5TB drive is not using a traditional external enclosure. Rather, it is using a simple SATA to USB adapter kit. I was thinking I could use this to disable the intellipark feature (as well as installing the S3 image), but lpwcomp stated it can't be done this way for adjusting its intellipark settings.
> 
> Therefore, I will put it in a desktop PC I have room in. I do feel comfortable opening the computer so hopefully it won't be too difficult all around.


If the drive is already out loose, you just need a SATA cable from the PC motherboard and some way to power the drive.


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## buscuitboy (Aug 8, 2005)

****UPDATE****

Well, I was FINALLY able to attend to this problem & with the help of people here, I was able to fully reimage a spare (non-intellipark) 500GB WD drive I had to use in this S3 TiVo. Had some initial minor issues, but they have been solved & this S3 has been purring along perfectly for about 3 days now with no reboot issues. Therefore, while I did have that budlging cap replaced, it wound up really being a hard drive issue all along.

Only other thing is that since Comcast has eliminated all analog channels in my area (& I don't plan to get a cable card for this unit right now), it is only receiving local HD channels through Comcast. 2-1, 5-1, 11-1, etc., but it doesn't seem to be giving me guide data & keeps telling "data available soon". However, I went back and read some posts here and it looks like I might not get this guide data at all.

Therefore, I might have to consider hooking up a OTA & essentially get the same channels. From what I read here, this S3 seems to be able to receive over the air channels better than other TiVos so will have to see.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

You avoided a second future problem by replacing that cap.

It will take a cablecard to get that guide data for cable, OTA only should work out fine.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

jrtroo said:


> You avoided a second future problem by replacing that cap.
> 
> It will take a cablecard to get that guide data for cable, OTA only should work out fine.


If that cap was bulging he already had a problem that needed fixing.

It's not impossible that it contributed to his hard drive trouble.


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## buscuitboy (Aug 8, 2005)

Yea, maybe the original drive got corrupted somehow with that one bad cap. At some point, I am probably gonna run some test on its original 250GB drive. If no errors come back, I'll probably then just reimage it like I did before and slip it back in to this S3. 

While having a 500GB drive in it is seems nice and apparently has fixed the issue, this TiVo is not really being used that much so I figure no sense in really using a larger hard drive for a unit that doesn't really record anything right now.


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## toy4x4 (Jun 23, 2008)

Not to hijack this thread, but I have three bulging caps. I ordered replacements for all the caps.

Question i have is besides HD/Pixelation issues, my Tivo box keeps dropping off the network. This this can be related also?

Just curious as I'll replace the caps and see what happens..


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

toy4x4 said:


> Not to hijack this thread, but I have three bulging caps. I ordered replacements for all the caps.
> 
> Question i have is besides HD/Pixelation issues, my Tivo box keeps dropping off the network. This this can be related also?
> 
> Just curious as I'll replace the caps and see what happens..


After you straighten out your power supply, give your TiVo a fixed IP address.


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## toy4x4 (Jun 23, 2008)

Actually I just found another DHCP server on my network... So far so good using 1


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

toy4x4 said:


> Actually I just found another DHCP server on my network... So far so good using 1


You have more than one device on your network handing out IP addresses?

Unless you've specifed non-overlapping address pools, that's bound to cause problems eventually, and unless you take your TiVo out of the house and down to the local Starbucks like it was a laptop, it doesn't need to do DHCP, and is better off with a fixed IP address.


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## pmiranda (Feb 12, 2003)

There's no reason not to use DHCP. A misconfigured network with a fixed IP TiVo is still a misconfigured network.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

pmiranda said:


> There's no reason not to use DHCP. A misconfigured network with a fixed IP TiVo is still a misconfigured network.


It's something else that can go wrong, and there's no reason not to give a TiVo a fixed IP address.


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## buscuitboy (Aug 8, 2005)

unitron said:


> It's something else that can go wrong, and there's no reason not to give a TiVo a fixed IP address.


I have given all my TiVos fixed IP addresses. This way I feel they can be managed & organized over my network better if needed & I know what range they are in. I grouped them in the 192.168.1.40-192.168.1.45 range.

Is this not recommended though?


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

buscuitboy said:


> I have given all my TiVos fixed IP addresses. This way I feel they can be managed & organized over my network better if needed & I know what range they are in. I grouped them in the 192.168.1.40-192.168.1.45 range.
> 
> Is this not recommended though?


No, the recommendation is to use a fixed IP address.

I don't know if it really matters, but I gave all my Tivos an address outside of the router's DHCP range.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

I've never seen an issue with using DHCP, which includes using pyTivo, streambaby, kmttg, and the remote control apps. There is no real need to use a fixed IP that I've found.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

slowbiscuit said:


> I've never seen an issue with using DHCP, which includes using pyTivo, streambaby, kmttg, and the remote control apps. There is no real need to use a fixed IP that I've found.


IOW, "I've never seen the problem, therefore it doesn't exist." Tell me sir, what is the downside of using a fixed IP address?


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

I said, 'that I've found', i.e. IMO. Pretty clear.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

slowbiscuit said:


> I've never seen an issue with using DHCP, which includes using pyTivo, streambaby, kmttg, and the remote control apps. There is no real need to use a fixed IP that I've found.


I'm also in the "only use a fixed IP address if you have a real need to" camp, the espousing of a preemptive fixed IP address being NEEDED for a Tivo has become almost cult-like here lately and there's just no need, the majority of users can run DHCP with no fuss and no muss very reliably.

I'm not saying a fixed IP address is a bad thing, I'm just saying there's zero need to put this added series of steps into the normal process, DHCP works just fine for the majority of users, computers, and networks out there.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

dianebrat said:


> I'm also in the "only use a fixed IP address if you have a real need to" camp, the espousing of a preemptive fixed IP address being NEEDED for a Tivo has become almost cult-like here lately and there's just no need, the majority of users can run DHCP with no fuss and no muss very reliably.
> 
> I'm not saying a fixed IP address is a bad thing, I'm just saying there's zero need to put this added series of steps into the normal process, DHCP works just fine for the majority of users, computers, and networks out there.


Or, looking at it from another point of view:

Only use DHCP if you need to, otherwise you're unneccessarily introducing a variable.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

unitron said:


> Or, looking at it from another point of view:
> Only use DHCP if you need to, otherwise you're unneccessarily introducing a variable.


*I don't and will never understand this logic,* DHCP is a time tested method of giving out IP addresses with no need for user intervention, it works on a daily basis for millions, possibly billions of devices, there's no NEED to fix it, it's not broken.

Mr/Ms Average has no need to ever do anything with IPs or networking to make their networks function, DHCP handles that for them.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

dianebrat said:


> *I don't and will never understand this logic,* DHCP is a time tested method of giving out IP addresses with no need for user intervention, it works on a daily basis for millions, possibly billions of devices, there's no NEED to fix it, it's not broken.
> 
> Mr/Ms Average has no need to ever do anything with IPs or networking to make their networks function, DHCP handles that for them.


And some people with TiVos have problems and write about them on this web site and somebody suggests fixed IP and they try it and the problem disappears.

It's kind of like how Intellipark is only supposed to affect warm boots, but sometimes running wdidle3 to disable it makes the difference in whether that big new replacement drive cold boots.

Eliminate varibles.


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

unitron said:


> And some people with TiVos have problems and write about them on this web site and somebody suggests fixed IP and they try it and the problem disappears.
> 
> It's kind of like how Intellipark is only supposed to affect warm boots, but sometimes running wdidle3 to disable it makes the difference in whether that big new replacement drive cold boots.
> 
> Eliminate varibles.


This.

It is only a matter of eliminating possible causes for a network issue.
I used DHCP on my Tivos for years without any problem. I switched to using a static IP and noticed no difference.
Most network issues may not have anything to do with DHCP. Suggesting the use of a static IP is mostly for troubleshooting purposes.

Personally, I think it is better to use a static IP. The only reason to use DHCP is if you are going to be connecting your Tivo to different networks on a regular basis.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

I use the best of both worlds by assigning a reserved IP address to the TiVo's through DHCP based on MAC address. I do this for a number of devices that I want to know what IP address they are using but don't want to bother setting up a fixed address on each.

Scott


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