# PSU replacement - Easy???



## PhilG (Jan 15, 2002)

Hi all,

I'll be replacing the PSU in my Tivo this weekend and I was wondering if there were any "gotchas" that I need to be aware of, or is it really as simple as just taking the old one out (I assume the fixings are obvious?) and putting the new one in

Do I need to worry about volatges on the new PSU or is it safe to assume it's set up right to begin with??

Thanks for any advice, pointers etc etc

Phil G


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## iankb (Oct 9, 2000)

I think that there may have been one screw but, otherwise, they are just twisted sheet-metal, stand-off posts. In my case, it need quite a bit of force to get it off the posts, because they still had a bit of twist left in them. It helped to remove the fan, since that gave me better access with a screwdriver underneath the old PSU to lever it up. It was still a relatively easy exercise.


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## PaulWilkinsUK (Mar 20, 2006)

PhilG said:


> Hi all,
> 
> I'll be replacing the PSU in my Tivo this weekend and I was wondering if there were any "gotchas" that I need to be aware of, or is it really as simple as just taking the old one out (I assume the fixings are obvious?) and putting the new one in
> 
> ...


There are some dirty great capacitors on the board, let the TiVo power down for about 30 mins, just incase you get a kick out of them.. other than that, its a piece of cake.


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## RichardJH (Oct 7, 2002)

just do not touch any of the exposed components on the PSU it can be shocking   .


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## terryeden (Nov 2, 2002)

Remove the Hard Disk - there's no point risking damage to it while you're struggling.

There's one screw to remove. I had to twist off the metal lugs. It still took a little coaxing to get it out. The new one slotted in and I recycled the old screw.

T


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## PhilG (Jan 15, 2002)

Good idea about the disk

Also, I did notice that capacitor family waiting to surprise the unwary screwdriver (or finger!)

No comments about checking voltages, that's good

If anyone is interested, I am doing this as my Tivo is one of those that suffers from "that" sound roblem (you know, after a restart there's no sound or UHF). It now takes me about 6 restarts to get sound back (and with cachecard drivers it takes AGES each time). I want to see if a new psu makes any difference (well, I had one lying around so I thought "why not")

Phil G


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## RichardJH (Oct 7, 2002)

Both my Tivos occasionaly suffer from the sound issue after a hard reboot but I always find that a soft reboot from the menus solves the problem. When you say it takes you about 6 reboots before it fixes are you hard rebooting each time.


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## PhilG (Jan 15, 2002)

Last time it took 6 SOFT RESTARTS (ie the one from the setup menu) to get the sound back

I almost gave up

HealeyDave will be getting this to take a look at (and try his sound mod) before too long, but I wanted to see if the PSU made any difference as I got one free with two remotes on eBay last year

Phil G


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## PhilG (Jan 15, 2002)

Some feedack folks - psu changed (it WAS easy) and it's made d**n all difference - I still get missing sound and UHF on a reboot/soft-restart more often than not

When I can find a week to be without Tivo (arrgh!!) it'll be off to HealeyDave for a "fiddle"

VERY irritating


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## jdwood37 (Dec 6, 2002)

I've found this problem seems to depend on my Tivo on the type of hard disk installed.

Maxtor various including original Quantum ok
Seagate 300GB no sound until restart
Maxtor Maxline 300GB ok
Maxtor Maxline 320GB ok
Maxtor Maxline 500GB no sound until restart

I also replaced PSU for test - no change - also powered the hard disk from a PC PSU - again no change. Luckily the Tivo is on a UPS


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## PaulWilkinsUK (Mar 20, 2006)

Does anyone have an explaination as to why this happens (from an electrical engineering point of view). I would have thought that if the PSU was on its way out i.e. unable to supply a +5 or +12 voltage of a certain strength then it would affect more than just the sound. Quite Interesting....


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

PhilG said:


> Some feedack folks - psu changed (it WAS easy) and it's made d**n all difference - I still get missing sound and UHF on a reboot/soft-restart more often than not


I think this business of replacing power supplies is a somewhat over-rated activity. Obviously if they have actually failed then your Tivo does not work and so they need to be replaced - end of story.

But the idea that a long time in use power supply causes unexpected reboots etc I find rather questionable. I think mostly the reboots happen due to crashes on the box caused by the operation of the TivoWeb software.

How many other household electronics devices do you ever find need to have their power supplies replaced after all. Take your 15 year old fridge or freezer for instance........................


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

TiVo PSUs are so cheap and nasty - I was recently quoted just $9 each to have a new batch manufactured in China by the OEM supplier! - that they do wear out over time. The capacitors dry out, leading to instability and odd glitches as the delicately balanced switch-mode circuitry gets confused by an out-of-tolerance component. 

I have personally seen a number of cases where a TiVo will repeatedly reboot during startup, or randomly during normal operation, that appear to have been immediately and completely cured by replacing the PSU - and many of my customers have reported similar successes. 

So don't rule out the PSU...


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> TiVo PSUs are so cheap and nasty - I was recently quoted just $9 each to have a new batch manufactured in China by the OEM supplier! - that they do wear out over time. The capacitors dry out, leading to instability and odd glitches as the delicately balanced switch-mode circuitry gets confused by an out-of-tolerance component.


Seems disappointing in a relatively expensive domestic appliance that was designed and expected to be in use on a 24/7 basis for several years.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

I think the key word there is 'several' - ie. around 3 years was the maximum lifetime envisaged by TiVo engineers, IIRC. 

Many UK TiVos have now been in constant use for over 5 years.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> I think the key word there is 'several' - ie. around 3 years was the maximum lifetime envisaged by TiVo engineers, IIRC.
> 
> Many UK TiVos have now been in constant use for over 5 years.


Why would they envisage such a short product lifetime? The average television is surely used for at least 10 years. And even a PC for probably 5 years.

Or did they envisage that Tivo owners would bin perfectly serviceable existing Tivos when a new model with significantly superior features appeared on the scene?


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## worm (Feb 10, 2005)

I think the key phrase is 'constant use'


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

worm said:


> I think the key phrase is 'constant use'


As per a domestic fridge or refrigerator then.


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## woody (Jan 26, 2002)

constant use it actually better. The swithing off and on is when power supplies cause trouble. Some sky digiboxes are known for this, fine if you leave them powered on, but not if you turn them off after about a year of use.


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## katman (Jun 4, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> Seems disappointing in a relatively expensive domestic appliance that was designed and expected to be in use on a 24/7 basis for several years.


Dont forget that many people put their AV equipment in a hostile environment, namely poorly designed AV cabinets with inadequate ventilation. This results in them running hotter than they should and this will seriously affect the life of electrolytic capacitors causing them to dry out much sooner than would normally be the case.

Pace analogue satellite receivers frequently used to suffer from power supply failure due to dried out capacitors. They would be OK whilst running but after a power failure would go BANG when the power was restored.

All my satellite receivers were PACE or rebadged variants and I didnt have a single failure but then they always had sufficient ventilation.


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## johala_reewi (Oct 30, 2002)

Also, Tivo PSUs are designed for standard Tivos. When you add network cards, RAM, large and faster HDDs, etc. The demands on the PSU go up. Perhaps there is a niche market for uprated Tivo PSUs if someone in China can make new ones?


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

johala_reewi said:


> Also, Tivo PSUs are designed for standard Tivos. When you add network cards, RAM, large and faster HDDs, etc. The demands on the PSU go up. Perhaps there is a niche market for uprated Tivo PSUs if someone in China can make new ones?


Yes I'm surprised Blindlemon wasn't having discussions with China about making an uprated unit with better quality components.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Maybe that's something to consider in future. At the time I was looking to source a load of replacement PSUs at a cheap price for a multibuy on behalf of this forum - of which around 100 members took advantage, IIRC. 

It would be nice to have a compatible PSU that would allow the TiVo to run with 2x 750gb Seagate CE drives...


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> Maybe that's something to consider in future. At the time I was looking to source a load of replacement PSUs at a cheap price for a multibuy on behalf of this forum - of which around 100 members took advantage, IIRC.
> 
> It would be nice to have a compatible PSU that would allow the TiVo to run with 2x 750gb Seagate CE drives...


I notice that you don't supply any replacement Infra Red sender leads whereas the other well known Tivo upgrade site does. Any particular reason for this?

As to 2 x 750Gb well that would be 530 hours at Best or thereabouts. This creates a level of menu slowness in navigation and moving between menus (even with a Cachecard and 512MB of RAM) that I know I could tolerate (with my current 613 hours maximum or 602 hours after I expanded the Live Buffer to 3 hours) but I doubt that most Tivo users could.

So barring a reworked Cachecard of some kind I really think that either 2 x 500Gb or 1 x 750GB represent the practical outer limits of Tivo hard drive upgrade capacity worth installing. Of course as and when 1000Gb drives become available that might be a better option than 2 x 500Gb but only when it ceases to be a leading edge sized hard drive model and so the premium pricing always associated with leading edge HD capacities ends.


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## SteveA (Oct 30, 2000)

Pete77 said:


> How many other household electronics devices do you ever find need to have their power supplies replaced after all. Take your 15 year old fridge or freezer for instance........................


I would call a 15 year old fridge or freezer an "electrical" device that would not have a power supply (everything would be mains voltage, or via a simple step-down transformer rather than a complex switchmode PSU)


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Well, even 2x 500gb Seagate drives of any kind would be a start... 

I have only had 3 emails asking about IR leads in 3 years... TiVo CS used to (maybe still do?) give them away for free, so I never saw the point really.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> Well, even 2x 500gb Seagate drives of any kind would be a start...


Those nice people at Hitachi already do them in 500Gb and apparently are within the capabilities of the Tivo's puny power supply for two of them.

Of course I know they aren't as reliable as Samsung and Seagate etc, etc but I honestly don't think the latest Hitachis are as bad as the old IBM Deathstars and almost certainly they are a lot bettter than any Maxtor drive. 

Most only be a matter of time before Samsung come up with a 500Gb and then 750Gb drive.


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## dvdfever (Jun 2, 2002)

Hi, this might sound like a stupid question but I've got my new PSU, opened it up, removed the screw and have straightened the metal lugs on the PSU (there's four of them with three on the side against the back of the unit and the fourth is at the corner opposite the screw - along the same edge close to the hard drive)

I straightened the lugs by turning them towards the back of the unit but it's barely budging at all and only slightly. Should I have moved them the other way? Thanks.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

dvdfever said:


> I straightened the lugs by turning them towards the back of the unit but it's barely budging at all and only slightly. Should I have moved them the other way? Thanks.


I haven't done it myself yet but the project is imminent and to be undertaken very soon.

From what others have said taking the Tivo fan out while you replace the PSU seems to help though.

This is what blindlemon said in the Tivocommunity thread about PSU replacement. I imagine this is similar to the instructions on his website:-

http://archive2.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=249279&highlight=lugs



> Replacing the PSU is a 5-10 minute job, with no soldering required.
> 
> Here are some online instructions:-
> 
> ...


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

I didn't need to remove the fan. Needed a sharp tug, but came out fine for me.


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## Blacque Jacque (Dec 26, 2006)

Pete77 said:


> I notice that you don't supply any replacement Infra Red sender leads whereas the other well known Tivo upgrade site does. Any particular reason for this?


Almost undoubtedly not worth it.
You can make one yourself  :

All you need is a 3.5mm plug, preferably mono but stereo will work too.
some wire (single core audio coax or the figure 8 speaker type like the originals)
An IR emitter led, almost any will work, TiVo does all the clever bits :up:

Solder the anode to the tip & the cathode to the sleeve.

I built mine from a dead TiVo remote ( 2 IR leds in each one!!)  & a mono patch lead I had laying around.
2 minutes work with a soldering iron


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Blacque Jacque said:


> Almost undoubtedly not worth it.
> You can make one yourself  :


No point in doing this when it turns out you can get one of the originals with two IR sender wands free of charge by calling Tivo UK's customer services unit at Sky. See www.tivo.co.uk for the phone number.

Call them now if you need one as its only 1.5p per minute to call an 0870 number at the weekend.


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## Blacque Jacque (Dec 26, 2006)

True enough, but I'm the sort of person who *does* build them


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Blacque Jacque said:


> True enough, but I'm the sort of person who *does* build them


I bet you can't build them as cheap as a 20 phone call to Sky though.


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## Blacque Jacque (Dec 26, 2006)

Probably not but at least I don't have to talk to Sky & that has to be virtually priceless


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## dvdfever (Jun 2, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> I haven't done it myself yet but the project is imminent and to be undertaken very soon.
> 
> From what others have said taking the Tivo fan out while you replace the PSU seems to help though.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the replies. It would've been a 5-10 minute job if those metal lugs hadn't been a complete PITA. Looking at another thread on this forum I see the TiVo units were envisaged to be used for around 3 years and that most are over 5 years old now.

It took more force than I expected to get the thing out and then when I came to putting the new one in that wasn't much fun either as the lugs weren't lined up as they should be so a lot of bending and putting the new PSU in trying to be as gentle as possible, and getting to the point where the power outlet was poking out the back, the screw is back in on the PSU and the top-right lug (so, diagonally opposite the screw) is twisted but I couldn't twist the others.

That said, when I've replaced hard drives before in a PC and you have four screws that are meant to go back in, they never all do so but I've managed with two of those before so I hoped it's be fine and it powers up fine.

I was concerned about the fan as I couldn't remember exactly which way the wire was pointing when I took it out, and the connector on the fan is facing the outside but I see at the top there's a small U-shape in the plastic that the fan wires can be guided through and it's set up the same way as I saw in a picture online for an upgraded TiVo and it's going round, and I don't fancy opening the flipping machine up again right now.

Whether it's solved my sound pop problem I'll need to check later when I record something new but I'll post in that thread later and even if it hasn't it seems a new PSU would be required after a few years anyway so it was a necessary evil


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

dvdfever said:


> It took more force than I expected to get the thing out and then when I came to putting the new one in that wasn't much fun either as the lugs weren't lined up as they should be so a lot of bending and putting the new PSU in trying to be as gentle as possible, and getting to the point where the power outlet was poking out the back, the screw is back in on the PSU and the top-right lug (so, diagonally opposite the screw) is twisted but I couldn't twist the others.
> 
> That said, when I've replaced hard drives before in a PC and you have four screws that are meant to go back in, they never all do so but I've managed with two of those before so I hoped it's be fine and it powers up fine.
> 
> ...


I had a feeling it was only a simple job for a blindlemon who has done it countless times. I'm not looking forward to carrying out the task now if its as hard as you say.

As to the expected lifetime of the Tivo PSU it seems that some become unserviceable after 3 or 4 years due to random chance in component quality, although there are plenty that will run for 10 years or more. My 29" 100hz tv had a dry joint on a circuit board when it was repaired 4 years ago when it was four and a half years old but now that I would really be quite happy for it to die (so I have an excuse to replace it with a nice 42" Plasma widescreen) I'm sure it will plug on for another 5 or 6 years. And I couldn't bring myself to scrap a perfectly working fairly high spec tv for the sake of it and its too big to go in one of my bedrooms and nobody wants a 4:3 100 hz Dolby digital tv now, even on Ebay.

I just bought one of these Energy consumption LCD meter things from Maplin (£14.99 at the moment) and am interested to see that while the Tivo consumes 37W, my Panasonic TU-DSB20 Digibox consumes 17W, my BT Negem IPlayer 7W and the RF modulator for the output from my IPlayer to the Tivo coax aerial in 3W, the Philips Tv consumes a whopping 152W, although only 10W in standby. Whereas the Sky Digibox consumes 17W turned on and 16W in Standby. My mum's 26" Sony 4:3 tv uses 90W switched on and 9W in standby. So the idea that standby tvs waste the most energy in the UK is rubbish - its all those standby Sky Digiboxes and Freeview boxes that are the biggest waste. And unlike ours connected to a Tivo most of those Sky and Freeview digiboxes in Standby aren't actually doing anything productive at all.


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## dvdfever (Jun 2, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> I had a feeling it was only a simple job for a blindlemon who has done it countless times. I'm not looking forward to carrying out the task now if its as hard as you say.


For me there's a definite difference between opening up something of my own and tinkering inside or doing it for someone else, which would include if it was part of my job.

When I replaced the PSU inside my PC almost three years ago - which was a necessity as the thing had died overnight and I woke up to find it like that on Friday 13th!, as I took out the old one to replace it with a new one I'd hurriedly bought from Maplin, holding the PSU in my hand with the 6 cables sticking out in all directions, it really felt like I was holding the heart of the machine in my hands (and I sort of was  ) and so when I'd bent the metal lugs in the TiVo while getting the old PSU out I exclaimed "Oh, crikey" (well, that's probably the only thing that'll get past the swear filter).

However, when I replaced the PSU in my Mum's PC not long after I did my PC, I could do it without fear of anything going wrong because it wasn't mine. One of my mates feels the opposite way - he doesn't mind opening up his PC and messing about inside but is loathe to touch anyone else's.

One strange thing that's happened after, and is still happening now - about 4 hours later (bear that length in mind), is that I went to set up a season pass for Al Murray's Happy Hour (a new chat show starting next Saturday at 9.50pm on ITV) and while it's fine if I set it up on a once-only recording, if I do season pass it says "The recorder is currently unable to set up a Season Pass for this programme. Some information about this programme is still being organised. Please try again in 1-3 hours.". It doesn't like it for other ITV regions either.

The last call was done at 10.43am today and although I put it into standby before unplugging it at about 11.45am, I'm wondering if it might still have been doing some stuff at that time which has now precluded me from booking that season pass? It could just be a coincidence though and if I try to set up season passes for the two programmes either side of that (Soapstar Superstar and ITV News) those are fine.



> As to the expected lifetime of the Tivo PSU it seems that some become unserviceable after 3 or 4 years due to random chance in component quality, although there are plenty that will run for 10 years or more. My 29" 100hz tv had a dry joint on a circuit board when it was repaired 4 years ago when it was four and a half years old but now that I would really be quite happy for it to die (so I have an excuse to replace it with a nice 42" Plasma widescreen) I'm sure it will plug on for another 5 or 6 years. And I couldn't bring myself to scrap a perfectly working fairly high spec tv for the sake of it and its too big to go in one of my bedrooms and nobody wants a 4:3 100 hz Dolby digital tv now, even on Ebay.


I was looking at one of these 32" CRT HD tellies from Samsung, this one being the second model released as the first had picture issues but it sounds like they still haven't been solved.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000J3ZG3O

A couple of months ago the picture started playing up on my 32" CRT Panny with a line occasionally 'sparking' across the screen as if it was heavy static but I cleaned the screen again and it wasn't that. Never did find out what it was (could be a dry joint, similarly) and then it went away. It doesn't affect any recordings of anything as it's just on the TV and not from a source. Twice it's gone into standby on its own and searches online point towards a dry joint but it's 5-6 years old and while I love the Panny if it did 'die' I'd probably just go for a replacement.



> I just bought one of these Energy consumption LCD meter things from Maplin (£14.99 at the moment) and am interested to see that while the Tivo consumes 37W, my Panasonic TU-DSB20 Digibox consumes 17W, my BT Negem IPlayer 7W and the RF modulator for the output from my IPlayer to the Tivo coax aerial in 3W, the Philips Tv consumes a whopping 152W, although only 10W in standby. Whereas the Sky Digibox consumes 17W turned on and 16W in Standby. My mum's 26" Sony 4:3 tv uses 90W switched on and 9W in standby. So the idea that standby tvs waste the most energy in the UK is rubbish - its all those standby Sky Digiboxes and Freeview boxes that are the biggest waste. And unlike ours connected to a Tivo most of those Sky and Freeview digiboxes in Standby aren't actually doing anything productive at all.


Treehuggers really do my head in. Without taking this off-topic for long, mankind only accounts for 3% of global warming so Mother Nature's got us by the short and curlies anyway. There's a cycle of around 150 years where the Earth gets warmer and then another 150 years later it gets cooler, and round it goes, so we're just catching it at a warm time, so when I see that ad that goes "Tomorrow's climate is today's challenge!!!" it makes me want to slap the creator of that ad across the face with a wet cod.

I'll switch lights off when not in use because it saves me money. I'll use energy saving bulbs as they save me money, and if treehuggers want to unplug their TV at night then fine, but I resent them telling me that I should switch off my TV at the switch in order to save a small country that I've never heard of. I'd rather leave it in standby so it doesn't break one day and I have to pay someone a £50 call out charge to replace a switch worth a few pence. (Rant over)


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## PhilG (Jan 15, 2002)

> The last call was done at 10.43am today and although I put it into standby before unplugging it at about 11.45am, I'm wondering if it might still have been doing some stuff at that time which has now precluded me from booking that season pass? It could just be a coincidence though and if I try to set up season passes for the two programmes either side of that (Soapstar Superstar and ITV News) those are fine.


Take a look at what the Phone information says. I forget exactly what you will see, but it will tell you if the last call completed OK - this means not just the call, but all the housekeeping that goes with it as well. If it says "failed due to an inknown reason" you probably unplugged it before it had really finished

Do another manual call (or wait for tonights scheduled one) and it will sort itself out


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

dvdfever said:


> However, when I replaced the PSU in my Mum's PC not long after I did my PC, I could do it without fear of anything going wrong because it wasn't mine. One of my mates feels the opposite way - he doesn't mind opening up his PC and messing about inside but is loathe to touch anyone else's.


I'm with your mate here. I wouldn't worry at all about messing up my own equipment but would never hear the end of it if I messed up my mum's or my sister's computer equipment. If I worked in a repair shop then I would feel the other way and wouldn't worry at all about messing up the equipment as I would have no direct personal relationship with the owner of it. Of course I wouldn't want to mess it up but I wouldn't worry about the inevitable casualties in carrying out such work



> The last call was done at 10.43am today and although I put it into standby before unplugging it at about 11.45am, I'm wondering if it might still have been doing some stuff at that time which has now precluded me from booking that season pass?


It sounds to me like it was still doing the daily Indexing when you turned it off. Unfortunately the indexing seems to take up to 90 minutes from the last call to complete.



> I'll use energy saving bulbs as they save me money, and if treehuggers want to unplug their TV at night then fine, but I resent them telling me that I should switch off my TV at the switch in order to save a small country that I've never heard of. I'd rather leave it in standby so it doesn't break one day and I have to pay someone a £50 call out charge to replace a switch worth a few pence. (Rant over)


I agree with you that the irresponsible way that some politicians like David Cameron are now jumping on the climate change bandwaggon is very worrying. If what you say on the cycles of heat/cold is right then 1900 was a very cold time and 2050 will be pretty hot before then starting to get cooler again. Its certainly alarming that political correctness might see the UK and the EU strangling its ability to use the car and travel by aircraft while India and China forge ahead regardless and so leave us behind economically.

On the telly question you don't have to disconnect it from the mains socket to avoid wasting power. You just have to turn it off on the front with the off button and not have the red standby light showing on the front (at which point power consumption is zero). Its the Freeview and Sky Digiboxes that you have to shut off at the mains plug to stop them wasting energy in Standby as many of them don't have a true off button on them. And many digiboxes use more power in their Standby mode than a big telly in its Standby mode, which the tree huggers seem to be completely unaware of.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

PhilG said:


> Take a look at what the Phone information says. I forget exactly what you will see, but it will tell you if the last call completed OK - this means not just the call, but all the housekeeping that goes with it as well. If it says "failed due to an inknown reason" you probably unplugged it before it had really finished


You also need to see if it completed today's Indexing too and not just if the call completed successfully.


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## dvdfever (Jun 2, 2002)

PhilG said:


> Take a look at what the Phone information says. I forget exactly what you will see, but it will tell you if the last call completed OK - this means not just the call, but all the housekeeping that goes with it as well. If it says "failed due to an inknown reason" you probably unplugged it before it had really finished
> 
> Do another manual call (or wait for tonights scheduled one) and it will sort itself out


'Housekeeping' - that was the word I couldn't think of before 

It said 'succeeded' but I'll check it again tomorrow after the next update.


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## iankb (Oct 9, 2000)

TCM2007 said:


> I didn't need to remove the fan. Needed a sharp tug, but came out fine for me.


The size of the slots on the PSU board must vary in size. Mine was extremely hard to get off, but the new one slipped on with no problem. After removing the fan, I was able to get a long screwdriver inserted underneath, and that helped to lever it off.


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## dvdfever (Jun 2, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> I'm with your mate here. I wouldn't worry at all about messing up my own equipment but would never hear the end of it if I messed up my mum's or my sister's computer equipment. If I worked in a repair shop then I would feel the other way and wouldn't worry at all about messing up the equipment as I would have no direct personal relationship with the owner of it. Of course I wouldn't want to mess it up but I wouldn't worry about the inevitable casualties in carrying out such work


You could just say to your relatives, "Well, I wasn't sure if it would work" 



> On the telly question you don't have to disconnect it from the mains socket to avoid wasting power. You just have to turn it off on the front with the off button and not have the red standby light showing on the front (at which point power consumption is zero).


I know, I was just embellishing on the way treehuggers try to tell us what to do 

That said, it's the switch I wouldn't want to keep pressing on/off a few times a day. Plus, if it annoys the treehuggers that I leave it on standby then all the better!


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

dvdfever said:


> That said, it's the switch I wouldn't want to keep pressing on/off a few times a day. Plus, if it annoys the treehuggers that I leave it on standby then all the better!


No I agree one mustn't make the tree huggers feel too happy  

However a Tv's standby mode is actually a highly efficient one as it saves over 90% of the power consumption and reduces the power used to the level of a Freeview or Sky Digibox. But what isn't efficient is the so called Standby mode of a Sky Digibox or a Freeview box which uses almost as much power in Standby as when turned on.

I think Tv standby mode must have been picked on by the Treehuggers because Tvs are seen as wicked and immoral devices in the first place given that, like the motor car, you might even actually enjoy yourself using one.


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