color streaks

[Barry Stark]

I have a TCD240080 that I put a couple of WD 160 drives in a couple of years ago. It has been working perfectly until this afternoon when it started having intermittent streaks of color flash on the screen at random times. Mostly yellows and blues but no set colors. Streaks will sometimes flash in a band across the screen from one side to the other or just affect the area within the bounds of an object or a person. It happens at any time when the video is going through the Tivo even when using "live TV". I did reboot to see if that might help and noticed that when it is in the monochrome mode it did not do that. I'm guessing that when it is in that mode it is getting all its' video from a program on some E-prom or the like and no hard drive interaction. I'm further guessing that the menus and such are via software loaded on the hard drive. I think it is a hard drive problem. Your thoughts? I saved the original drive so a drive swap would be pretty simple.

Barry

[Lou Jacob]

I have a TCD240080 that I put a couple of WD 160 drives in a couple of years ago. It has been working perfectly until this afternoon when it started having intermittent streaks of color flash on the screen at random times. Mostly yellows and blues but no set colors. Streaks will sometimes flash in a band across the screen from one side to the other or just affect the area within the bounds of an object or a person. It happens at any time when the video is going through the Tivo even when using "live TV". I did reboot to see if that might help and noticed that when it is in the monochrome mode it did not do that. I'm guessing that when it is in that mode it is getting all its' video from a program on some E-prom or the like and no hard drive interaction. I'm further guessing that the menus and such are via software loaded on the hard drive. I think it is a hard drive problem. Your thoughts? I saved the original drive so a drive swap would be pretty simple.

Barry

This does not sound like a typical hard drive problem.

The first thing that comes to mind is that it could be a bad video cable or faulty connection. I'd do a little troubleshooting to see if that is the case; try using a different set of connectors on the back of the TiVo, jiggle the cables, and ensure they are connected to your TV or A/V receiver properly.

If its not one of those things, it could be a problem with the TiVo itself.

If its easier for you to swap back to your old drive to eliminate the drive as a problem, you can try that, but just remember that you'd be changing the orientation of the cables to go through that process; be careful to keep track of what you are doing and the impact each step has...

[Barry Stark]

Lou -
I turned the TiVo off last night and just turned it back on. Been on for about 30 minutes now and no streaks. I wonder if the problem is something getting hot? I'm in the process now of transferring all the programs, that I'd hate to lose, to a hard drive. 14 hours estimated time via TiVo desktop. One of the minor downsides of big drives in your Tivo I guess. :) anyway I'll see what's happening in the morning. Just in case it is something on the mother board dying, just what are my options? Can you folks fix motherboards. Does TiVo? I'd hate to lose my lifetime subscription. :(

Barry

[Lou Jacob]

If you have a problem other than the hard drive being bad, we work with a partner, http://www.ccscorporation.net to do repairs. You can contact them, directly to save some time. Or you can order a recertification from our site, ($75) send us the unit and we'll check everything out. If its a problem we can fix, we will, otherwise, we can send the unit out to CCS and pass their charges through to you.

Hopefully, you've tried the other suggestions I made before ruling them out.

[Barry Stark]

Lou -
I don't know how to explain this one but the streaks seem to be gone for good. The night I first posted this thread I felt that it was a good chance that one of the drives might be failing. Thinking that it may be a good idea to save the drive as much as possible till I could get my backup drive in place, I unplugged the TiVo. When I got home from work with my external drive the next day I plugged the TiVo back in and it worked perfectly. I waited a full 24 hours before I sent this reply to see if it may be heat related and re-occur but it's still good. The only thing I did was to unplug and then plug the unit back in. I guess I'll just have to wait to see if it re-occurs. Thanks for your help.

Barry