# Rapid flashing green light and no other activity -- what is that?



## busyba (Feb 5, 2003)

I got up in the middle of the night to go get some water and in the darkenss I noticed that there was a bright green light flashing rapidly over by the TV.

Upon investigating, the light was the green power light on my TivoHD that is normally steady on. There was no video or audio signal coming from the TiVo to the TV, no other lights on the TiVo panel were on and the TiVo was completely nonresponsive to signals from the remote (the yellow IR detection light wouldn't even come on).

So I freaked out and powercycled the box. During the reboot it said it was installing a service update. It's now in the middle of "Preparing the service update. This may take up to an hour, possibly longer".

I guess I'll find out in the morning if the box is working again.

In the meantime, does anybody know what the rapid flashing green light is supposed to mean?


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## busyba (Feb 5, 2003)

The box seems fine now. Anybody know what the blinking was about?


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## zylont (Sep 2, 2005)

I just had the same thing happen on my 2-day old Tivo HD. Is this normal during a service update?


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## cramer (Aug 14, 2000)

If memory serves, the led goes out whenever the crypto chip is accessed. At least that's how it worked on the S1's. (the panel and chip share the same serial line.) I don't have a TivoHD here to see. (just a S3, and it has no such "led")


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## gregpg (Apr 19, 2006)

Our TiVo HD restarted at 2:00am last night, presumably for a software upgrade. Instead of installing an upgrade, the unit froze with no video output and the green power light blinking several times per second. I unplugged the unit for one minute and then it booted up fine but with software version 9.3a-01-2-652, which we've had for quite awhile. Does this sound like a download data error or something more serious? No update has ever caused this before. Has anyone found out what the blinking light really indicates on an S3?


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## bacevedo (Oct 31, 2003)

Same exact thing happened to my Tivo HD several weeks ago when I forced the 9.3 update (forcing the daily "call" and manually restarting when it said pending restart).

After removing power and letting it restart it has been fine since.

My guess is there is some bug in the update script on the first reboot. Dropping power may cause that bug to go away (i.e. some memory register is cleared out with loss of power). But who knows.

Bryan


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## TexasGrillChef (Sep 15, 2006)

Green flashing Power light... means "Reboot pending"

TGC


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## jy3 (May 3, 2008)

This has been happening to me as well after random reboots.
HD Box running 9.3, suddenly reboots, but instead of powering up gets the flashing green lights. So I Pull the power, the box boots up, an eventually goes to the 'installing update' screen, but never upgrades from 9.3.
Does anyone have any info on this bug? It's getting worse.


-Jim


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## tlc (May 30, 2002)

I have a flashing green LED and no video output on an unmodified TivoHD that is infrequently used. The last use was transferring a file to our main TivoHD on Wednesday or Thursday. So it may have been flashing for two days. 

Our main Tivo got a SW update last night. Maybe this one did too.

Nothing to do but power-cycle it and hope for the best?
In case it just started flashing, how long should I wait first?


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## RoyK (Oct 22, 2004)

Others have reported this with the update. Reboot it.


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## TexasGrillChef (Sep 15, 2006)

The Rapid Flashing Green Power light is an indicator that you have a service update and a *RESTART/Reboot* of the TiVo is pending.

TGC


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## TomRaz (Mar 1, 2002)

I had restarted my Tivo HD and then pulled the power plug to switch video cables between component and hdmi. This is a new unit and I thought the software update had already been applied. 

When I plugged in the power cable the green power led flashed and no video on the screen. 

I uplugged the power cable, double checked my component connections and the plugged the power plug back in and it booted up fine. 

I was just concerned that I might have a hardware issue with the box but it appears to be working correctly.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

TexasGrillChef said:


> The Rapid Flashing Green Power light is an indicator that you have a service update and a *RESTART/Reboot* of the TiVo is pending.
> 
> TGC


You know this for a fact ?? as I have never seen it when my TiVos went from 9.4a to V11, but than again my TiVos never froze.


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## ciper (Nov 4, 2004)

The flashing green LED can also indicate a severe failure. 

Ask me how I know...


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## TomRaz (Mar 1, 2002)

Ciper please explain how you know the flashing green light is a severe failure ?

How did you recover from it ?


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## ciper (Nov 4, 2004)

Two similar severe failures - I had a bad solder joint on a PROM socket then I had a corrupted flash image. I recovered from it by using a multimeter to trace every pin until I found the loose one and resoldered it and flashed the correct image.


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## donnoh (Mar 7, 2008)

Has anyone else seen this lately? I woke up last night and saw this on my bedroom HD, there was no video or audio and the remote indicator LED wouldn't flash when I pressed any buttons on the remote.

I pulled the power plug and it booted up normally. It got the 11.0g update a few days ago and it didn't indicate it was installing an update when it booted up.


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## meflynn85 (Oct 14, 2009)

woke up this morning, tivo was stuck on 'powering up' screen. rebooted it, installed an update, then stuck again on powering up. don't get it.


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## Jeffla (Apr 12, 2008)

Woke up to my Tivo HD with the rapid flashing of the green light. Pulled the plug and it says its installing a service update. We'll see.


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## kennywolf (Dec 1, 2012)

Same event, tried Support FAQ suggestions, still green indicator flashing for hours. 

I contacted Support by email. CSR wrote:

"To begin, unplug the power and everything else from the back of the TiVo unit leaving only the connection to your television set. Once that is done, plug the power only back in, bypassing any power strip that may have been previously connected. If the box does not move onto the next screen in about 10 minutes, or is not back at TiVo Central after about 20, unplug the power for 20-30 seconds and try again.
If after 2-3 attempts like this your box is still not powering completely on, you should call our support team to discuss replacement options. They can be contacted at 1-877-367-8486."

By the second attempt I got a reboot


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## pstemari (Nov 20, 2004)

Same thing here.

Power outage, power came back on, everything works except the TiVo. Tech support guy had me go through the chicken waving ritual and nada.

Grrrr.....


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Talked to the guys at Weaknees about this one, they said there is no fix. They've tried replacing everything that can be replaced and nothing will bring back a TiVo in this state. Something on the mobo is fried.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

There's a guy in Australia, where they have a variation on the S3 HD,

http://kingey1971.wix.com/tivorepairs#!faq/c1yws

who has this to say



> MY TIVO HAS A FLASHING GREEN LIGHT BUT NO PICTURE
> 
> This is a motherboard failure and the CPU is detecting a fault. It requires further bench investigation with special test gear. If you want my help with repairs then please contact me for further information.


In a few days I'll be getting my hands on a 658 with that problem, and will see if I can learn anything further.

It would be convenient if the TiVo had flash codes the way PCs have beep codes, so you could get a more specific report on what's wrong.


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## robomeister (Feb 4, 2005)

Unitron,

Keep us posted. I have a couple TiVo HDs with the same symptoms and would like to know how to fix them.

robomeister


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## squint (Jun 15, 2008)

Maybe the CPU needs to be "re-balled"?


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

robomeister said:


> Unitron,
> 
> Keep us posted. I have a couple TiVo HDs with the same symptoms and would like to know how to fix them.
> 
> robomeister


"progress" report:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=9880514#post9880514

I'm fighting some other battles right now, so it'll be a few days before I mess with it again.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

robomeister said:


> Unitron,
> 
> Keep us posted. I have a couple TiVo HDs with the same symptoms and would like to know how to fix them.
> 
> robomeister


And of course his problems which are now my problems may be different from your problems, since apparently that light can mean more than one thing.

Like I said, I wish they'd have a flashing light equivalent of beep codes to give us more detailed clues.

But read that whole thread, he included pictures of the screen.


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## weaknees (May 11, 2001)

I'm happy to report that we're now able to fix this problem. We've got more info on our blog post:

http://www.wkblog.com/tivo/2013/11/tivo-hd-and-tivo-hd-xl-flashing-green-light-is-now-fixable/


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

weaknees said:


> I'm happy to report that we're now able to fix this problem. We've got more info on our blog post:
> 
> http://www.wkblog.com/tivo/2013/11/tivo-hd-and-tivo-hd-xl-flashing-green-light-is-now-fixable/


Do I get a discount for turning you on to the guy "down under"?


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## ebabinet (Dec 18, 2013)

weaknees said:


> I'm happy to report that we're now able to fix this problem.


Can you share what you've discovered about how to fix this issue?

I believe my TCD652160 has this problem and I'd like to give a shot at fixing it myself using parts from another unit.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

ebabinet said:


> Can you share what you've discovered about how to fix this issue?
> 
> I believe my TCD652160 has this problem and I'd like to give a shot at fixing it myself using parts from another unit.


Since they are a business, they aren't going to tell you how to do it yourself and avoid paying them to do it.

Which is perfectly understandable.

And I should mention that they are a sponsor here and help keep this site online.

And allow me to repeat, there is more than one possible cause of this problem.

But anybody with any Series 2 or Series 3 model having almost any problem whatsoever should verify that it is not a power supply problem before proceeding to consider other possibilities.

When you say parts from another unit, what other unit do you have in mind?


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## ebabinet (Dec 18, 2013)

I have narrowed my issue down to a bad RAM chip and am considering replacing it with a chip from an identical Series 3 HD that I bought on Ebay. I would consider paying someone to do the swap for me, but $180 seems a bit high to me, which is what I believe they charge for mother board fixes.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

ebabinet said:


> I have narrowed my issue down to a bad RAM chip and am considering replacing it with a chip from an identical Series 3 HD that I bought on Ebay. I would consider paying someone to do the swap for me, but $180 seems a bit high to me, which is what I believe they charge for mother board fixes.


I'm curious as to how you determined that it's a bad RAM chip (and which one) and not something else, since there seem to be a number of "things going wrong" which can cause the flashing light.

How large a community are you in?

What you need is someone who can so SMD work.

Anyone who doesn't know what that phrase means is not the repairperson for whom you are looking.

A lot of people who do know what that phrase means also are not actually qualified to do it. Like me.

(although I might try it on my own stuff)


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## ebabinet (Dec 18, 2013)

unitron said:


> I'm curious as to how you determined that it's a bad RAM chip (and which one) and not something else, since there seem to be a number of "things going wrong" which can cause the flashing light.


I ruled out that it wasn't a hard drive issue by disconnecting the hard drive.
I ruled out that it wasn't a power supply issue by testing all the voltage levels from the power supply.
Then, I found out from a knowledgeable source that the Flashing Green Light is often caused by faulty RAM and that if you heat the RAM chips it will temporarily cause the RAM chips to work. I used a hair dryer to heat all the RAM chips a little and then after turning on the Tivo, amazingly it worked. Then through a process of heating one RAM chip at a time, I was able to determine which chip is faulty.

If anyone knows somebody who offers SMD soldering services in the San Francisco Bay Area, please let me know. I'm sure they exist, but haven't found them yet.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

ebabinet said:


> I ruled out that it wasn't a hard drive issue by disconnecting the hard drive.
> I ruled out that it wasn't a power supply issue by testing all the voltage levels from the power supply.
> Then, I found out from a knowledgeable source that the Flashing Green Light is often caused by faulty RAM and that if you heat the RAM chips it will temporarily cause the RAM chips to work. I used a hair dryer to heat all the RAM chips a little and then after turning on the Tivo, amazingly it worked. Then through a process of heating one RAM chip at a time, I was able to determine which chip is faulty.
> 
> If anyone knows somebody who offers SMD soldering services in the San Francisco Bay Area, please let me know. I'm sure they exist, but haven't found them yet.


I'm clear on the other side of the country with no real contacts in the Bay area, but that close to Silicon Valley you should be tripping over them.

Start a thread here at TCF in the Help forum entitled "Any SF Bay area SMD wizards available for S3 mobo RAM swap?" and see if you don't get replies from TCF'ers who can do it or who know someone who can.

Does your knowledgeable source have any other helpful tips they'd like to pass along?

Will the heat trick help with dead tuners or scrambled video sync?


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## squint (Jun 15, 2008)

ebabinet said:


> If anyone knows somebody who offers SMD soldering services in the San Francisco Bay Area, please let me know. I'm sure they exist, but haven't found them yet.


Just go to your local Craigslist and look for xbox repair, rework, reballing. These people have the infrared rework stations and expertise to replace SMD components on motherboards.


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## new pioneer 2 (Mar 13, 2010)

I purchased an S3 HD XL TiVo on ebay that has the flashing green light problem. Tried the obvious "fixes" of the power supply and front panel change with no impact. I was working in my garage here in Nevada and the temperature hit over 98 degrees while I was working with the issue and after reassembly with the original parts and powering up the unit I decided to leave it on for awhile and come back to it later. Still had the flashing power light after 30 minutes but when I cycled the power it came on steady, the unit booted up, and I was able to go thru a guided setup. I powered it down, left it off for 10 minutes and powered it back up and had the flashing green light again. Left it on for 10 minutes cycled power and it booted up just fine. It has been running for about two hours now and I'm going to leave it on over night. These results seem consistent with the "RAM heating" fix that was reported earlier and I was wondering if anyone has successfully repaired a motherboard for this issue. There was mention of going to one of the PlayStation repair shops but I haven't seen any responses if that was successful. Paying $180 to fix this issue seems a bit much since I have bought a couple of Lifetime S3 HDs on ebay for $150 and they both are working fine after replacing the hard drive in one and the power supply in the other.


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## ebabinet (Dec 18, 2013)

new pioneer 2 said:


> These results seem consistent with the "RAM heating" fix that was reported earlier and I was wondering if anyone has successfully repaired a motherboard for this issue.


Yes, it does sound consistent, and yes I was successful in repairing my motherboard by replacing the broken RAM. I ended up doing it myself which was an interesting learning experience, but quite difficult.

You'll need to figure out which of the RAM chips is causing the problem - heat one chip with a hair dryer, turn it on, if it's still flashing let it cool and then heat another chip, etc.


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## squint (Jun 15, 2008)

new pioneer 2 said:


> There was mention of going to one of the PlayStation repair shops but I haven't seen any responses if that was successful.


I think they charge around $75 for reflows. Since I last posted in this thread, I acquired a TiVo locally that has the Flashing Green Light of Doom. I also recently ordered my own IR/hot air rework station typically used for laptop and console game repairs. I'll post again in this thread once I attempt the repair.



ebabinet said:


> Yes, it does sound consistent, and yes I was successful in repairing my motherboard by replacing the broken RAM. I ended up doing it myself which was an interesting learning experience, but quite difficult.
> 
> You'll need to figure out which of the RAM chips is causing the problem - heat one chip with a hair dryer, turn it on, if it's still flashing let it cool and then heat another chip, etc.


Did you reflow or replace the RAM chip? Do you remember which chip it was? I want to see if a pattern emerges.

There's another TiVo with the FGLOD on eBay if either of you want another one :

http://www.ebay.com/itm/321426846753?_trksid=p2055120.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

I asked the seller what was wrong with it and he revealed that it has the FLOD. I'm not bidding on it.


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## ebabinet (Dec 18, 2013)

squint said:


> Did you reflow or replace the RAM chip? Do you remember which chip it was? I want to see if a pattern emerges.


It was the 2nd chip from the back of the unit and I replaced it.



squint said:


> There's another TiVo with the FGLOD on eBay if either of you want another one :


No thanks  I've had enough SMD for quite a while.


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## squint (Jun 15, 2008)

There's another one that was just posted on eBay:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/141356002689?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

Already one bidder. People just never learn. I think they're just going to be passed around from one eBay bargain hunter to another until all of them discover there's no easy fix for this issue.


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## xinu2k (Oct 4, 2013)

We had a power outage for about 2 hours and when the power came back on I got the FGLOD. Just enough to cool those ram chips. After seeing this post, I heated the 4 rams chips with a heat gun, plugged it back in and it booted right up. I think I will stick with the current fix until it gets worse or I find a service that can reflow it a for a reasonable price. 

Thanks for the tip.


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## squint (Jun 15, 2008)

I ordered a reflow/reball station 5 weeks ago. It still hasn't arrived but it supposedly shipped this Monday.

I have at least two TiVos that need motherboard repairs. One with the FGLOD and another with what I suspect are failing solder balls beneath the processor. What's interesting is that the latter has problems when running warm, the opposite of the FGLOD TiVos.

I have a big pile of broken electronics that I need to fix with the reflow/reball station including some vintage HP calculators and one of my car's smart key fobs. I'll be doing the repairs in ascending order of difficulty so the TiVos will be serviced somewhat near the end.


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## gkottner (Jun 5, 2010)

Interesting that this thread showed activity again, right when I needed it. I decided to upgrade my 7 year old lifetimed TivoHD with a WD20eurx drive over the weekend. A side note ... thanks to all who post their experiences upgrading, you were all quite helpful. Specially, the "run as administrator" under Windows 7. After I reinstalled the drive, I got the flashing green light and nothing else. Based on what I read, I just kept the Tivo plugged in and tried restarting after 3 or 4 hours. Came up perfectly. The next day, I lost the ability to see live TV (could change channels, but just got gray screens). I restarted again and all has been fine since. This Tivo is mainly a backup unit, so my game plan is simply to see if it stays working without doing anything else. My "old" eyes didn't see any bulging with the power supply capacitors and my chat with Weaknees (as well as the previous posts here) make me believe it's a motherboard issue. I'll post back later if I see any changes in my Tivo's behavior.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

gkottner said:


> Interesting that this thread showed activity again, right when I needed it. I decided to upgrade my 7 year old lifetimed TivoHD with a WD20eurx drive over the weekend. A side note ... thanks to all who post their experiences upgrading, you were all quite helpful. Specially, the "run as administrator" under Windows 7. After I reinstalled the drive, I got the flashing green light and nothing else. Based on what I read, I just kept the Tivo plugged in and tried restarting after 3 or 4 hours. Came up perfectly. The next day, I lost the ability to see live TV (could change channels, but just got gray screens). I restarted again and all has been fine since. This Tivo is mainly a backup unit, so my game plan is simply to see if it stays working without doing anything else. My "old" eyes didn't see any bulging with the power supply capacitors and my chat with Weaknees (as well as the previous posts here) make me believe it's a motherboard issue. I'll post back later if I see any changes in my Tivo's behavior.


A gray screen (just uniform, featureless gray) can indicate a problem with communication between the drive and the motherboard.

Make sure the combo cable is properly seated on the drive and check the motherboard end of the data part as well.


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## nooneuknow (Feb 5, 2011)

unitron said:


> A gray screen (just uniform, featureless gray) can indicate a problem with communication between the drive and the motherboard.
> 
> Make sure the combo cable is properly seated on the drive and check the motherboard end of the data part as well.


It's also a well-known issue with the S3 & HD series, that plagued them until software 11.0g, which I have some inside knowledge about.

TiVo denied it was a (known) problem, right up until the official TiVo staff leaked it to the call center people, that a fix was imminent.

I had never once had it happen to me, until the "fix" rolled. Then, I got hit by it as often as those who had been complaining about it for years. It was a hardware issue, that they made a software band-aid for. For some reason, the new cases were limited to a small percentage of markets, clustered on/near the coasts. They opted to leave it as it was, since the numbers made happy, far exceeded the angry new ones experiencing it, post band-aid.

While it is in the realm of possibility that a hard drive issue could cause a uniform gray screen, the more known issue was a gray screen, or black screen, depending if you had changed the letterboxing borders from the default gray, to black.

If the gray you describe happens with the letterboxing borders set to black, that's a way to differentiate between any possible confusion, as to a cause.


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## gkottner (Jun 5, 2010)

unitron said:


> A gray screen (just uniform, featureless gray) can indicate a problem with communication between the drive and the motherboard.
> 
> Make sure the combo cable is properly seated on the drive and check the motherboard end of the data part as well.


Last night I decided I'd screw the cover back on, so I checked the cables at the same time. They didn't appear to be loose, but I went ahead and unplugged and re-plugged. The gray screen did only happen that one time and rebooting appeared to fix it.

And since I don't know how to copy 2 quotes, my software version is at 11.0m.

As a side note, my HD was only unplugged about 5 minutes and when I plugged it back in, I got the flashing green light again. Again after keeping it plugged in for about 4 hours, it started up and and all was well again with recordings and watching live TV.


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## Wulf (May 18, 2005)

I might have the same or related problem that I just posted here:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=519945

On mine, the green light is on steady, but it blinks off once every minute or two when my display goes black. Is this the same blinking behavior described in this thread? I'm going to leave my Tivo on for a few hours and see what happens.

Thanks....


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## gkottner (Jun 5, 2010)

It's a continual flashing light. Once or twice a second. The Tivo does nothing else. Hope that helps.


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## Wulf (May 18, 2005)

gkottner said:


> It's a continual flashing light. Once or twice a second. The Tivo does nothing else. Hope that helps.


Yes, thank you. That's a different behavior from my problem.


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## jimozach (Apr 19, 2008)

I know this is an old post, but I wanted to let people know that I had the FGLOD after a five-hour power outtage. I used a heat gun on the RAM chips and it worked perfectl...low setting on heat gun for ~30 secs. One thing I did notice is that after I got the green light to stop flashing, I unplugged it and carried it back from my workbench to the entertainment center and plugged it back in, The FGLOD came back on. I heated the chips again, plugged it in and left it so. Flashing green light gone an everything is working fine. Moral of the story is keep it powered after FGLOD stops flashing.


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## rmassey (Sep 5, 2002)

If the FGLOD is simply a bad mem stick, do we know of a good source to order memory. Is it stock PC type memory or something special. I'd like to avoid pay $200 to weekness if possible.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

rmassey said:


> If the FGLOD is simply a bad mem stick, do we know of a good source to order memory. Is it stock PC type memory or something special. I'd like to avoid pay $200 to weekness if possible.


If you don't have any experience soldering and unsoldering Surface Mount Devices (if reading those words didn't cause you to shudder, then the answer is no), then you're better off hoping the heat gun or hair dryer will re-flow the bad solder joint.


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## SnakeEyes (Dec 26, 2000)

ebabinet said:


> I ruled out that it wasn't a hard drive issue by disconnecting the hard drive.
> I ruled out that it wasn't a power supply issue by testing all the voltage levels from the power supply.
> Then, I found out from a knowledgeable source that the Flashing Green Light is often caused by faulty RAM and that if you heat the RAM chips it will temporarily cause the RAM chips to work. I used a hair dryer to heat all the RAM chips a little and then after turning on the Tivo, amazingly it worked. Then through a process of heating one RAM chip at a time, I was able to determine which chip is faulty.
> 
> If anyone knows somebody who offers SMD soldering services in the San Francisco Bay Area, please let me know. I'm sure they exist, but haven't found them yet.


For 5+ years it was thought to be dead, then I found this tip and reanimated a TIVo HD with Lifetime. Kudos to you.


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