# Tivo HD Blinking Green Light/Flashing Green Light Issue - Seeking Advice



## tivobw (Oct 26, 2002)

Hi Everyone,

I have a Tivo HD (TCD652160) which is exhibiting the "flashing green light" issue. It's happened 2 other times (always after power outages) and I've been able to get it working, but this third time I can't get it to boot up. Would appreciate some advice.

What happens:
- Power outage causes power to go out (long enough that the UPS I've plugged the Tivo into runs out of battery and the Tivo then powers off)
- I try to power on Tivo and the front only shows a flashing green light
- Usually by unplugging everything and plugging in only the power cord, I can get the Tivo to fully power on after 2 or 3 attempts.

However, this time, I can't get the Tivo to boot. The green light on the front of the Tivo HD just keeps flashing. There is no output sent to the TV, through either HDMI or composite video outputs. I can hear the fan and hard drives running, but there's no other indication that the Tivo is working.

I have looked on the weaknees website and see they have a proposed fix for the flashing green light problem (information here: Miscellaneous Services from WeaKnees.com) but at $49.99 for a diagnosis fee and then a likely $129.99 on top of that to fix it, that's $179.99 to fix a Tivo which I was hoping to replace soon (plus shipping fee). Unfortunately, the Tivo got in this condition before I could transfer recordings off of it.

I'm wondering what my options are:

1 - I'm considering replacing the power supply, but I took off the case and when I looked at the power supply on the Tivo HD, none of the capacitors look like they are bulging or leaking, which is what I think could indicate a failed power supply. I've enclosed some pictures below. I suppose the power supply may be failing, even though from what I can see, there is no visible indication of failing capacitors. I could get a used power supply from eBay for about $40. It might be worth a try even if it doesn't work. I would at least know the power supply isn't the issue!

2 - I'm wondering if there is a way to copy my recordings off the hard drive onto my PC, without the Tivo being able to boot up. I seem to recall this not being possible, but thought I'd ask in case someone was aware of a way to get this done.

3 - The final option is to just pay $179.99 and send the Tivo HD into weakness and have them try to fix it. This is the least appealing option to me, not only because of cost, but because it will likely take the longest amount of time to fix.

4 - Perhaps there is another option I'm not aware of? Let me know!

Would appreciate your input and suggestions! This is my wife's Tivo in the spare bedroom; we have moved on to using Tivo Bolts everywhere else in the house, but as this was the least-used Tivo, it was last in line to be upgraded. I'd like to get this fixed so I could get the content off of it and replace it with another Bolt!

Thanks everyone!


----------



## ThAbtO (Apr 6, 2000)

Find an electronics repair shop in your area and they should be able to test/repair for maybe a lower cost, and not take as long to get it back up.

I am no expert, but looking at the pictures with the large capacitor, it looks like a few components got burnt out, next to the transformer. Noting the dark spots in that area.


----------



## tivobw (Oct 26, 2002)

ThAbtO said:


> Find an electronics repair shop in your area and they should be able to test/repair for maybe a lower cost, and not take as long to get it back up.
> 
> I am no expert, but looking at the pictures with the large capacitor, it looks like a few components got burnt out, next to the transformer. Noting the dark spots in that area.


Thanks for the suggestion, ThAbtO. I think the dark spots you may have seen before were dust bunnies; this Tivo is pretty old!

I tried unplugging everything (including fan and hard drive, and removing CableCard) and plugging the Tivo back in. Still get a blinking green light.

I blew away the dust and took some more pictures. Does anyone think they see burned out components?


----------



## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

Not seeing any bulging capacitors but that doesn't necessarily mean that you don't have an issue with them or the power supply. Do you have a voltmeter or have a friend that has one and can help you check the voltages on the power supply output connector?

You might also check this thread which covers a non-power supply cause that some users were trying to track down the cause (I think they were narrowing in on one of the crystals on the main board). They also found that if they heated around an area on the main board that the unit would boot.

Blinking green light, will not reset, black screen

Scott


----------



## tivobw (Oct 26, 2002)

HerronScott said:


> Not seeing any bulging capacitors but that doesn't necessarily mean that you don't have an issue with them or the power supply. Do you have a voltmeter or have a friend that has one and can help you check the voltages on the power supply output connector?
> 
> You might also check this thread which covers a non-power supply cause that some users were trying to track down the cause (I think they were narrowing in on one of the crystals on the main board). They also found that if they heated around an area on the main board that the unit would boot.
> 
> ...


Hi Scott, thanks for the reply. The link you provided got me thinking. I went to Google and searched for "heat up tivo hair dryer" and it provided this link: Tivo-HD TCD652160 Blinking Green Light

I reviewed that and followed this guidance from gkottner in that thread:

_*Good timing on this. We had a power outage last week and I got the continually flashing blinking light again. My plug it in and wait for a few hours didn't fix the issue this time. I unplugged the tivo from the wall,took off the cover, and took it to the bathroom since we don't have any standalone hair dryers. The 4 RAM chips are almost next to the hard drive. They're maybe 1/2 inch by an inch. I wish I would have taken a picture. I turned the hair dryer on high and kept it about 6 inches from the chips. I just went back and forth across all the chips for about 30 seconds. Took the tivo back to the living room, put the cover back on and plugged it back in. Came right back up and has been running for over 2 days now. Everything appears to be working as expected. Hope that helps.

Here's a link to a picture. They are almost centered on the motherboard near the bottom of the hard drive.
*_
I found a hair dryer and figured why not, this would be faster than ordering a power supply. Heated those 4 chips for 30 seconds, moving the hair dryer among the 4 chips about 5 inches from the chips with the end of the hair dryer on high, plugged it in.. and still same blinking green light. I grimaced and thought, OK, try it again. Did it for 60 seconds this time, plugged in the Tivo.. and it booted up! Solid green light, no more blinking green.

I had the Tivo in my office for testing when this happened, so I had to unplug it and move it back into the other room where it usually is, with the cable outlet and everything. It was probably about 5 minutes before it was in place, hooked it up, plugged it in.. and blinking green light. No worries, I know how to fix this now.  Get the hair dryer again, heat for 60 seconds, plug it in.. and it boots up, solid green light. Yesss!

I've attached success photos below. Now I need to find out the best way to get content off the Tivo. I think kmttg may be the best option, have heard a little about pytivo too. Glad to have the Tivo back up and running. Can't let it run out of power. 

I guess this means the power supply is still good! Thanks a lot for all the tips. If you guys have any suggestions regarding how to get content off the Tivo, that would be great. I will start looking into kmttg and pytivo.

Thanks!!


----------



## DrDonimal (Dec 19, 2017)

After a short power outage yesterday we came home to the flashing green light of death... I am going to try the hair dryer trick BUT why does heat in the ram chips seem to fix it when heat is usually the death monster to a computer?


----------



## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

DrDonimal said:


> I am going to try the hair dryer trick BUT why does heat in the ram chips seem to fix it when heat is usually the death monster to a computer?


Poor man's reflow of RAM chips is addressing an issue with solder joints.


----------



## DrDonimal (Dec 19, 2017)

Interesting so it is a soldering issue? Would inspecting and resoldering help? Odd this sits unmoved and it breaks...


----------



## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

DrDonimal said:


> Interesting so it is a soldering issue? Would inspecting and resoldering help? Odd this sits unmoved and it breaks...


I didn't look specifically at the chips in question, but usually if you are using a hair dryer, these are surface mount chips and the solder might be underneath the chip.

Reflow is essentially melting the solder and allowing it to form new joints, but it really needs to be performed at precise temperatures to create a lasting connection.

Sometimes there are defects in the solder joint due to improper heat profiles leading to weak joints or micro-fractures, that degrade over time.

This happened a lot more often when they switched to lead-free solder which is non-eutectic, which means it ideally is heated to multiple temperatures points to get the solder melted properly.


----------



## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

DrDonimal said:


> After a short power outage yesterday we came home to the flashing green light of death... I am going to try the hair dryer trick BUT why does heat in the ram chips seem to fix it when heat is usually the death monster to a computer?


If you check out the thread that I linked to in my post earlier in this thread, you'll find that in a least some cases they found the issue was actually with a crystal and not the RAM.

Scott


----------



## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

HerronScott said:


> If you check out the thread that I linked to in my post earlier in this thread


What a saga 

Seems like SirKnowsALot got 2 TiVo to work with a crystal change but had another TiVo that didn't work with a crystal change and the blinking light seems to be a catch-all for many problems.

If heating the U3003 or Y2201 area with a hair dryer for a little bit lets your TiVo boot, then it is probably worth a shot to change the crystal. If heating doesn't help the problem is probably somewhere else.


----------



## emuman100 (Jul 3, 2003)

If you have a scope, you could check the output of the crystal. It should be a clean sinewave at 54MHz.


----------



## turbobuick86 (May 3, 2002)

Wanted to chime in on heating the ram to get rid of flashing green light. As long as power doesn't go off again, the unit should be good for another decade.


----------



## MadPB (Oct 6, 2013)

I'll add my experience with heating up the RAM...

My old TivoHD mostly collects dust, but I do have it plugged in and attached to OTA and sometimes turn on the TV in my office to keep me distracted. Well, I tried doing that and happened to glance over and saw the flashing green. Well crumb.

I found my way here and fired up my heat gun. It took me a few attempts because I didn't want to overheat it (like I did on another project recently...whoops) but in the end I set the heat gun for 400 F (204 C if my math is right) and with the smallest nozzle I had, started out about 6 inches away and did a slow pass, maybe 5 seconds over each of the 4 RAM chips. Then moved in closer about 4 inches and did 2-3 seconds per chip, and finally went to around 2 inches and only lingered about 1-2 seconds per chip.

I went with that approach to try and gradually heat up the chips and avoid any kind of thermal shock, and I was eyeballing the solder to see if I could tell when it began to melt or anything, but honestly I really couldn't. I was kind of casting a shadow on the work so it was just hard to tell. If I did it again I'd probably put on my magnifying goggles and a task light. Oh well.

Now, to start out I was using lower temp settings on the heat gun. When I read people were using hair dryers, I thought if that worked, maybe I should try doing it around 210-240F, but I probably didn't do it long enough (only like 30 seconds per chip really), and even then it seems like that would take a long time to properly reflow anything, if it worked at all. The folks who got it working with just a hair dryer must have let it linger for a long time to build up a lot of heat, or it really only needed just a little extra "kick" somewhere on some connection.

Point being, I think the heat gun is awesome, but of course you do have the ability to overdo it if you're not careful. In my case I thought I may as well turn up the heat, literally... it's just my old HD and if I kill it for good, too bad. I'm just glad it worked.

Oh yeah, so... it worked. After my trial/error with heat settings and time per chip, I finally plugged it back in and was happy to see the solid green light.

Turns out it had been in the flashing green state for probably 3 months... when it came back up I think that's what it had for the last guide data. 

Anyway, I'm glad I found this thread, glad I tried, and glad it worked. Yes, it's an old TivoHD that doesn't get much love from me, but I did get the lifetime sub on it way back when and when I do use it, I still enjoy the whole Tivo experience even if it's just doing OTA work now.


----------



## DrDonimal (Dec 19, 2017)

*UPDATE:* Blinking Green Light of Death- So after reading the threads and checking a video on YouTube I gave the old hair dryer trick a try and WOW it worked... I also gave the inside a good cleaning by blowing air from the dryer on cold mode and oh what dust bunnies collected inside. Anyway after several months it did it again and we did the hair dryer trick and in a few minutes were back in business. My son tells me that since it is on 24/7 it heats up and maintains the heat and the low heat solder connections become brittle. Thanks to all who helped me.


----------



## LtKernelPanic (Sep 22, 2003)

Sorry to bump up an old thread but before declaring my old TivoHD dead and beginning the mourning period for all the season passes that I'd have to try and recreate from memory I did some more research and found this thread. The first attempt resulted in a solid green light but no boot up. A second, longer application of heat brought my Tivo back to life. At least now I can take screen shots of all my season passes and a couple well crafted wishlists to catch certain porting events in case it goes belly up forever. Gotta love the how lead free solder which was supposed to be the best thing ever ends up causing all sorts of issues with brittle solder joints. Wish I'd have tried that before I bought a replacement THD and forgetting I couldn't just move the drive to the replacement. Oh well since it has lifetime I'll probably put it in my bedroom and replace the ancient Series 2 I have in there that rarely sees use.


----------



## tientown (Nov 30, 2018)

A hat tip to all of you who gave me the confidence to give my old TiVoHD an attempt at resuscitation. I followed your "hairdryer" method repeatedly and for extended time periods (like ~1M) to no avail. My dryer could be too weak, or not focused enough, or the problem could be in the crystals or some other component. Ours is a TiVo HD, one of the good model 652, I think that supports MPEG4 here in California. (see: https://support.tivo.com/articles/Features_Use/Comcast-Transitioning-to-MPEG4-in-Select-Markets)

I went back to TiVo and after a bounce from Customer Service to Support and back again, they gave me a deal on a refurbished TiVo BOLT 500 GB at $99 and when the new unit arrives, they've allowed me to transfer my 2008-vintage $12.95 monthly service fee to the new unit.

So, I now have a troubled TiVoHD with 150 Hours available for free to anyone who'd like to pick it up (or pay for shipping) here in Berkeley, CA. Want one to play with? It's yours. Reach out at tientown (at) gmail (dot) com.


----------

