Ok I also pulled out the meter and the voltage seems to be ok and steady even during power up. There is a single capacitor with a slight top bulge but no others. I also checked all of the connections. I am getting a little worried it may be a mother board. It is a clean drive from weaknees so I am guessing it is not the drive. any input would be great!

Series 3 Rebooting

I have read the string, removed all cards, removed the cable connection, removed the video switching box, removed the tivo slider remote, removed the internet connection, swapped cards, removed the optical audio connection, replaced the stock hard drive with a brand new 2TB from you all, and pulled a little hair out.

So now with nothing but the HDMI and the power plug installed it is still rebooting never getting past almost there just a few minutes more......

It does not make any strange sounds it is not hot and I can not see any other reason why it would reboot but it is every few mins.

If any one has any suggestions I would love to hear them.

Thanks!

JS

You really still get all of your live channels? Do you have any premium channels?

Today my S3 just kept rebooting, never getting to the menu screen. I tried holding the pause button during the restarts trying to reinstall the software but the tivo was not responding. I also unplugged it for over 3 mins and it is still doing this.


I'd like to repair it if it could be done, it does have a lifetime sub.

*Update*
I did remove the cable cards and now it is working...
All of my channels are still there without the cable cards in...
What is the point of having cable cards?

Series 3 with reboot/channel macro blockitng problems

Just purchased hard drive upgrade from WK in case it is the drive but the symptoms are:

(1) had Seagate Drive external 1TB on tivo and knew this was a problem
(2) removed Seagate and purchased WDC 1TB
(3) pairing WDC was troublesome and had many reboots with pairing/unpairing
(4) removed WDC when problem continued
(5) macroblocking and occaissional reboots along with sluggish menus continue
(6) noticed cable card was loose and poped in back in
(7) RTFM and read the directions by WKJeff at top of this thread
(8) was able to re-pair cable cards, but it is still sluggish to a degree that I am unable to rerun guided setup.

I will continue to try to rerun guided setup until I get the new hard drive.
Good news is new hard drive is 1TB so after I will have a 2TB S3 with lifetime service.

Meanwhile I will move the old Pioneer into that room.

Also I wonder what I should do with my oldest TiVo Series 2 AT&T model with extra hard drive. It has lifetime service, but does not work. Is there any value in it? Can't believe I actually have a TiVo almost a decade old although it is not functional.

It could be an issue with the signal strength coming into the TiVo. See:

http://support.tivo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/150

You might also want to get a UPS, see:
http://www.weaknees.com/protect.php

Rebooting every few months

Hi,

I've had my Tivo 3 for more than a year, and I get reboot "cycles" every few months. For some unknown reason, the box starts rebooting itself. I can be watching something or not, no discernable pattern. After a while, things go back to normal and the Tivo works perfectly!

I've talked with Tivo Support today and during the last reboot cycle. They even sent me a replacement box and still the issue returns. They are saying it could be an issue from the cable company, but I unplugged the coax cable and the box is still rebooting itself.

Any ideas what it could be? I do not have CableCards on the box. It seems that these wouldn't resolve the issue if my problem comes up every so often. I have the wireless network adapter and have also tried removing it and connecting directly to my router.

Thanks,
Carmen

The 2007 info is really pretty out of date - it's related largely to software versions that aren't in use.

I do think that TiVo is probably right about the attenuation issue. We often see that. So the easiest thing to do would be Radio Shack - it's not an expensive part, and it could solve the issues.

TiVo Reboots = Signal Strength?

TiVo S-3 constant reboots. Sometimes runs OK for an hour or so. Runs great if the incoming cable line is disconnected from the TiVo.

Called TiVo. They had me go to Cablecard Diagnostics and look at:

SNR = 36 dB on both cards
Signal Strength jumps back and forth between 95 and 100

They said the signal is too strong and to get an attenuator from Radio Shack.

Called Time Warner and the tech who came said the signal is fine. And he didn't know what the 95 and 100 stood for (no parameters.) While he was here, he saw no Corrected nor Uncorrected Errors on the Tivo unit nor on the TW DVR that is also on that input line.

He went online and googled S-3 reboots. In 2007 a forum said to redo guided setup for each cablecard and then for both together. That it happens after a power failure. I did have a power failure a week before, but I don't know how long it lasted.

Does that make sense?
Is the signal really too strong?

Any advice?
Thanks, cb

You can't re-use the external on this same box if you put in a larger internal. The external will only work with a stock sized internal, which is why we still sell the 250GB drive for that one model.

But you can just plug it into the other unit - all the rest is on-screen.

So we'd recommend getting a 1 TB drive for this unit, and moving the external to the other.

Our 2 year old S3 Tivo with lifetime service has been rebooting intermittently for a few weeks. We thought we had it fixed with a software update, but after several days of no problems it is now stuck in an endless reboot loop. We have accepted the fact that it needs a new drive, but I have a few questions I was hoping someone could help me with. This unit had the 20hour HD internal drive, so we added a 500 gb external drive for space. As we went through troubleshooting, we thought the external drive might be the problem, so we tried having the Tivo boot without it, knowing that we would lose our shows. It kicked out of the process of removing the drive in seconds and reentered the reboot loop, so we know it's the internal drive that needs replacing. My question is, if we replace the internal with a WK 1TB internal, can we safely reuse the external drive on another Tivo? We have one HD S3 box that is still attached to a standard def TV, so we never added storage, but we are upgrading that TV soon and would like to reuse the external drive. My second question is, if we can and do use the external drive on the other box, will it automatically reformat when we attach it, or do we need to do anything to clear the drive first?

Broken or Comcast issue?

Tivo series 3 has been working fine for almost 3 years. All of the sudden it froze up on Welcome screen. I reconnected the box on a new TV to try and trouble shoot and it seemed to be working. In the meantime I had ordered a replacement drive. After installing the new drive all seemed fine. Now tonight it is slow to respond. Live tv is cutting in and out and it rebooted on its own. Are the Cablecards really the problem here or is the box/drive just a piece of junk?

Possibly. You might also want to ask the cable company if they have a multi-stream cablecard.

Endless "Powering Up" with cablecard #2

My Tivo S3 is stuck in the endless "powering up" phase. In an attempt to fix I replaced the hard drive -- which didn't solve the problem. So I restarted the Tivo without the cablecards and was able to run guided setup. After much trial and error, I can get the machine working as long as I only use a one cablecard (slot 1). The minute I install the second cablecard the unit goes back into the endless "powering up."

Any suggestions? Do I need a new cablecard for slot 2? Thank you.

I unplugged my ota antenna and everything springs back to life. Plug it back on and everything goes nuts again. And the video is all choppy.

I ran the first drive test and it passed, so now I'm running the overnight one.

I ran kickstart 57, but it ran for like 15 minutes and then restarted. .