TiVo Series 3 troubles... looking for help

[Sylin]

A few days back my TiVo Series 3 started slowing down to a snail's pace when accessing the guide or TiVo Central. I talked to tech support, who had me remove my two S-type CableCARDs, and the unit seemed to recover. Thus they concluded it was faulty CableCARDs, and I've got my cable co coming out Monday (jeez...forever) to swap them out with M-type cards.

Anyhow, in the meantime, my TiVo has taken to rebooting itself at random intervals, or not allowing me to FFWD or RWD. I'm beginning to doubt it's the CableCARDs and am suspecting my TiVo has faulty RAM.

Anyone else experience this oddity?

[Clark Kent]

Try this site, simply the best Tivo site in existence...

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/index.php?

If they can't help you no one can.

[Sylin]

Originally Posted by Clark Kent

Try this site, simply the best Tivo site in existence...

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/index.php?

If they can't help you no one can.

Thanks for the tip, Supes!

[vsbdtv]

Sad to say that I've experienced this problem twice, and both times my box had to be replaced under warranty. In my case, the system would recover when the cable feed was disconnected. Then I could watch already recorded material, but any new recording seemed to be problem. Oddly, the problem was aggravated when the cable was connected and one or more tuners were tuning a high-def channel.

I haven't seen the latest threads on tivocommunity about this, but at the time some people were thinking it is some kind of a drive problem. One fellow replaced his drive with a 3rd party unit, and the issue went away. Other reports were that there was some kind of unspecified software problem that causes the problem.

[Sylin]

Originally Posted by vsbdtv

Sad to say that I've experienced this problem twice, and both times my box had to be replaced under warranty. In my case, the system would recover when the cable feed was disconnected. Then I could watch already recorded material, but any new recording seemed to be problem. Oddly, the problem was aggravated when the cable was connected and one or more tuners were tuning a high-def channel.

I haven't seen the latest threads on tivocommunity about this, but at the time some people were thinking it is some kind of a drive problem. One fellow replaced his drive with a 3rd party unit, and the issue went away. Other reports were that there was some kind of unspecified software problem that causes the problem.

Hmmm... this is my case exactly. If I remove the cable cards, the problem goes away. I can see why TiVo blamed the cards initially, but I found it odd that I can watch SD programming w/o a problem, but HD programming causes hiccups. That's why I'm guessing either bad RAM or a bad HDD, since the amount of data being managed increases sharply with HD channels.

Charter can't make it out until Monday to replace the cards, but I think I'll call Tivo immediately after and try to get a warranty replacement. Did they advance exchange it to you? Or did you have to send it in first?

[vsbdtv]

Originally Posted by ikcizokm

Charter can't make it out until Monday to replace the cards, but I think I'll call Tivo immediately after and try to get a warranty replacement. Did they advance exchange it to you? Or did you have to send it in first?

Both times I did the advance change, but Tivo temporarily charges $800 or so to your credit card. But if you return the old unit as soon as you get it, it will probably never even show on your bill.