If it were me, I'd try a new power supply.

TCD24008A no lights but fan works

I tried your troubleshooting tips and unplugged the IDE cable from the HD and I do hear the drive spin up without IDE plugged in. If I plug IDE drive back in the drive does not spin up when I plug power back in to box.

Question: Is this a power supply problem, a Mobo issue or a Drive issue? The trouble shoot guide doesn't realy tell me what the actual problem is when I complete this test - unless I missed something - which is totally possible

Thanks for your reply..

Either a power supply or a motherboard problem. If you want a TiVo flat-fee repair option, we offer that.

I was hopping to just order a power supply so I could fix it but if that doesn't work then a mobo replacement is required? Could it be anything else, what is likely hood of one or the other?

It's not really a mobo replacement, but a repair.

It's really hard to guess at the likelihood without the unit being here.

My Tivo Series 3 went dead a month ago (rebooting at first, than just dead with no power). I purchased the power supply from weakness, replaced it and it works now but...there is this weird pitching noise coming from one of the elements on power supply (not sure which). It is pretty loud and definitely not something to ignore. The weird thing is I am almost sure it started a couple of weeks before Tivo initially broke down. At the time I was ready to blame it on the fan, but now it is obvious it comes from the power supply.

Any ideas?
I am not sure why would I hear the same thing with new power supply? Or it is just a coincidence and I got a bad power supply from weakness? In any case I am hesitant to let it run now, before collecting some info on this symptom.

Thanks!

Are you sure it's not the drive? A high-pitched noise is more likely to be the drive even though it could be the power supply, or even a motherboard component.

You could try powering down the unit, disconnecting the drive, and powering back up to see if you still hear it. Of course, if you don't it might be that there is no load on the power supply.

I'll try to disconnect drive tonight and see what's going to happen, but the noise is definitely coming from power supply.

OK - if so, we should be able to swap it out.

I did not manage to try it out last week. Out for the vacation

Anyway I tried to disconnect hard disk yesterday, still have the same noise coming from the power supply

Is it still possible to swap power supply as you suggested? My Tivo is off now, I do not want to damage anything at this point.
Is there any reason you can think of that would cause the noise on power supply - tied to rest of the device instead of to the PS itself? Maybe I should just try another PS and if problem persist...ask again

Thanks for the support!

As long as it's under warranty, sure. Just email us at [email protected] with the order info.

We had a crazy storm hit last night, and I'm pretty sure it fried something inside my TiVoHD. Our house was struck by lightning (or something near by was at least) and it appears that anything with a COAX cable running into it (a couple old TVs and my TiVoHD) is toast. One of my old TVs won't turn on at all, and my duplex neighbor is seeing odd symptoms from all of his cable boxes, and the video card on his computer (which had a COAX running into it) is toast.

My TiVoHD powers up, in so much as that the green light on the front turns on, and I can hear something whirring inside of it (not sure if it's the fan or hard drive or something else). My Samsung TV knows there is a HDMI cable connected to it, but does not detect a signal coming from the TiVoHD. If I unplug the HDMI cable, the TV asks me to plug a cable in. When I do it says "searching for signal" and shortly changes the message to "No signal" after that.

Does this sound like a blown power supply? I'd hate to mis-diagnose the problem and end up ordering the wrong replacement parts. Is there a way, once I open the TiVo up, to easily see if the power supply is the problem?

That probably is a blown power supply, but it could be several other things, like a bad HDMI port. You should try some other output options (component, composite, S-video) and see if you get any output any other way. If you don't through any source, then you likely have a bad power supply.

I have an old Humax T-800 Series 2, which took a power hit in my last house. I replaced the power supply and the HD, and the system appeared to be working fine -- about a week before I moved. However, when I hooked it up here, it now sporadically freezes. I always get the "Welcome! Powering up" screen, although it occasionally (about 10% of the time) freezes there. Another 15% of the time, it gets stuck on the "Almost there" screen. The other 75% of the time, it boots, but then randomly freezes up, usually within a few hours of rebooting it. I am running the system through an UPS now, and the COAX also comes in through an intergrated surge protector on the UPS. Any ideas? It's a little frustrating to dump time and money into the repair and now have it periodically failing...

Might try the kickstart 54 procedure described here:

TiVo Kickstart Procedure

If the drive passes, then you might want to consider our flat-fee repair service, presuming you have lifetime service:

TiVo flat-fee repair service