I have 2 Tivo series 3 that the hard drives failed within a few months of each other and I imaged 2 new drives at different times WD AV-GP 2 TB AV Video Hard Drive WD20EURS and one of the series 3 works great.
I also replaced the bulging caps on the power supply boards. One of the series 3 tivo was stuck in the powering up screen, new problem. I tried unplugging the fan and the tivo works with no problems, so i bought a new fan and tried it and still stuck in powering up screen and reboots. I checked the voltages and they are good.
What I did was connected the fan directly to the power supply board 7.5 volts pins bypassing the mother board and everything is working. I have used it for about 2 months and it's been working (No Problems).

Do you think it's the power supply board or the mother board?

Thank you Rick

We have not heard reports of rebooting issues with these units. I'd suggest you give TiVo a call and see if they can shed some light on the problem. If you can, you might try removing the cable signal from the back of the unit and running it without live TV--just to see if performance changes any.

Rebooting on Roamio

Hello Michael,

Have you heard of any rebooting issues on the Roamio? I recently purchased the Roamio Plus and it rebooted on me twice today. After all the issues I went through with my Series 3 DVD (see below) I'm very sad to see my brand new device rebooting. Plus I get a lot of TiVO service errors on the new device.

I'm also wondering if my old TiVo might have been OK and something else was the issue. I've had TiVo for 9 years in the same home so I would imagine my set up is fine. But after trying a new hard drive, power supply, power cord and cable card for my Series 3, I was not encouraged when Roamio started rebooting.

I purchased a new power supply and was really confident that this would solve my problems. However in less than 24 hours, I've had two reboots. I think it's time to purchase a new Tivo. My only survived for 5 years which is really disappointing. Am I able to return the power supply and hard drive I purchased?

I only have Ethernet connected for program data. No USB devices. I will try to power of up again tonight without the Ethernet.

Its is TiVo HD. TCD something.. I am at work I will let you know when I get home.

Thanks

Have you tried disconnecting network and USB devices? Sometimes those can cause a reboot loop.

What's the exact TiVo model?

I sent my Tivo to you a few months ago. I replaced the CableCard as you thought that was the problem and did not see any issue with the power supply or anything else that you checked... It was fine when you sent it back to me and I replaced the cable card... now, after a few months the thing powers up and then after 10-15 minutes goes into a reboot loop. Just says, "Welcome! Powering Up..." then screen goes black and then "Welcome! Powering up..." comes back.. I need to unplug the Tivo for a while before I can get it to boot up properly and then after 10-15 minutes it just dies.

I have replaced the hard drive in this thing 4 times already... I replaced the cable card... not really sure what else to do. It has lifetime service on it.. I would love to get this thing fixed...

Thanks,
Jeff

You should definitely try a new power supply before you give up:

http://www.weaknees.com/ps

Hello,

I'm about ready to give up on Tivo. I've had my second Tivo, the Tivo Series 3 HD XL, for about 4 years now. I am having a similar problem as others in this thread. My Tivo constantly reboots itself. It happens so often that I can't link it to any one action. Sometimes it's when I'm playing something back, sometimes it's when the TV is off, sometimes it's when I hit the Tivo button. Some days it will reboot as often as 5x per hour, other days it won't reboot at all. I've read through this post and have tried the following (in order):

-Replaced the hard drive with one purchased from WeaKnees
-Replaced the power cord (a cheap one off eBay)
-Followed the steps outlined in the first post
-Replaced the CableCard (Comcast)

Nothing has solved my problem. This just began happening about 6 months ago and I can't think of anything else in my set up that has changed. Do you have any other suggestions for me? Are there any other steps you recommend I try before ditching my Tivo? With the Lifetime Membership I paid about $900 for this thing and it only lasted 4 years.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Sure - email us at [email protected]. Huge attachments won't come through, but for pics, you should be able to scale them down without a problem.

That said, I think you do have at least a bad power supply. Any bulge at all means you have problems, definitely.

But you probably also have a bad drive. Rebooting like that is probably a bad drive in 95% of the cases.

It's definitely possible in your situation that the bad power supply damaged the drive. But, whatever the case, you do probably need both parts.

Need some help diagnosing what needs replacing in a Series 3 HD; hard drive or power supply. Trying to post a couple .JPG pictures of a suspect capacitor, but they fail to upload every time. Can I e-mail them to someone at WeakNees?

Background:
I retired the unit a couple years ago (but it still has active lifetime service) and replaced it with a TiVo Premier. I decided that I should take it out of the closet, try to diagnose the problem and repair it, because I am currently paying a monthly fee on another active unit (an old Series 2 that won't last much longer). To my surprise, after telling it to ignore the external hard drive that was no longer connected, the Series 3 seemed to work flawlessly (as far as I know) for a couple months, so I assumed it had something to do with the external hard drive (but I am now using that same drive with no problems on my Premier, so maybe not). Then after the power went out for a couple hours one morning, it started an endless cycle of rebooting. At first it seemed it would complete rebooting and work for a little while before rebooting, then there was much pixelation while watching TV and the system became completely unresponsive to any remote control or front panel input; only pulling the plug reset it. After that it would just barely finish completing the reboot and start to show the TiVo Central screen (you could see the TiVo man and the screen background, but the text/menu never came up) and then immediately start rebooting over again. It now just continues this cycle of just barely completing a reboot and then crashes & starts to reboot again. (NOTE: There are NO Cable Cards in this device and it is not hooked up to an antenna (although it used to be), only BrightHouse Basic cable.)

After reading many posts on how this issue could be either the hard drive or the power supply, I opened the unit to check the power supply and noticed one capacitor had a very slightly domed top, but I'm not sure if it is damaged. There is no other sign of damage to any power supply component (no browning, leaking, etc.). I have a couple annotated pics of the capacitor but cannot seem to upload them. If I can avoid it, I would obviously prefer to not spend $100 replacing the power supply only to find out it was fine and that the issue is actually the hard drive.

Thanks!

We'll certainly try!

I was just about to take my TiVO out to ship it to you, when I saw troubleshooting comments regarding the removal of the CableCard. I removed it, but it's still rebooting. I would have kicked myself if I had shipped it out without having checked that out! Imagine getting it to you, only to find out I had a bad CableCard! It must be something else though. I hope the hard drive is salvagable however, I have hundreds of hours of shows and movies that I still haven't watched yet! :-(

Hi All, Just wanted to let the admins know that I was having reboot and the GSOD issues w/ my S3 HDXL. Performed the procedure from the beginning of this sticky....and voila! Tivo is once again stable and running smoothly. Thank You!

Glad to hear it, although these days, most rebooting problems are actually bad hard drives.

Tell us if you run into the rebooting issues again.