It could be a bad drive, but two drives with the same problems seems a bit unlikely. Was the lockup identical?

It appears to be identical, but it has only happened once with the new drive. It's never happened while I've been watching tv and as far as I can tell the pattern is that it will lock up in mid-morning.

Do you have a UPS? You may be having power fluctuations. More info is here:

http://www.weaknees.com/protect.php

I have the same problem, which started after upgrading RCA DVR40 to larger hard drive, after the original hard drive crashed. I will put a UPS on the DVR and see if that helps, but there is already Tripplite surge protect on it and we have excellent, new construction underground power here and the DVR never froze before now. Maybe refrig circuit is on same leg of house power causing slight dips. Would a $40 UPS cure that? Should it have to? The DVR never stalled prior to 2 weeks ago. I have been using the new hard drve upgrade for a couple months with no problem until now.

I have noticed that if I leave the DVR screen on a something static which requires no hard drive activity like the recorded shows menu, it will freeze after about half hour or so. But if I leave it on live TV it never freezes.

That said, it acted up a week ago and then seemed to act normally again, and I was not keeping it on live TV (I think) and it worked fine for a week. Then it started again this morning. There is no hard drive sound when it is stuck. Only unplugging it will fix. Pretty annoying. I got a discount coupon for weaknees by email today, but I would hate to buy a new DVR without knowing what is wrong with it.
Thanks
Rich

What model Tivo?
What software version?
Do you ever put the unit in standby?

Thanks for your response Jeff, sorry for my slow response. I will subscribe to the thread.

The model is a DirecTivo RCA DVR-40 Series 2.
Software is 6.3f-01-2-121
I never put it into standby, should I?

It froze again last night while playing back a recorded show. The moment it froze, the sound of the hard drive changed, there was a soft whine sound added to the normal mechanical jitter.

I rebooted it last night and went to bed without setting it to live TV. It was frozen again by the morning.

Thanks for any advice you can offer on how to fix this!
Rich

That's almost definitely a hard drive problem. A "replace" kit for your model should fix the problem:

http://www.weaknees.com/dv40.php

Given that you have 6.3f (the latest version) that rules out the problems with previous versions.

OK, thanks Michael.

I just bought this upgrade disk from weaknees on 11/21, I hope it is still in warrantee! I will call on Monday.
Thanks again.
Rich

Sounds good - or email over the weekend and we can get you started:

[email protected]

I am having a similar issue..
I have a TiVo Series 3 HD dual tuner a little over a year old. I had a couple of green screens, and one frozen screen, neither occured while watching, but appear when I turned the tv on. Clock on face is stopped at apparently the time it occured. TiVo suggested bad hard drive so I bought replacement/upgrade from Weaknees - thought everything was great! Last night when I turned tv on about 9 pm was on frozen screen and clock was frozen at 5:30 PM. I unplugged the TiVo to reboot and it came up fine. I am not unhappy with the Weaknees upgrade, I was ready for that, but I am concerned that I did not find the problem. No UPS but I have had not problem for a year...longer than that with a series 2 in that location. Do I need to look into that? This is all very disconcerting that I voided warrantee to fix/upgrade and now still have issue!

I have installed a APC UPS and the problem seems to have gone away, for now. It worked for 5 years without a UPS so I am skeptical that this is not coincidence. I have good quality underground power here. But there it is! No more freezing. I do not power the TV through the UPS, not even on the non battery side, the voltage drop causes the UPS to overload. I have the TV on a separate surge box.
Good luck
Rich

A UPS can really do a world of good for these machines. For the best results, of course, we recommend getting one before the problems start.

dshehane -

Your problems may be a little deeper. A UPS won't hurt, but we'd guess that you have a motherboard and/or power supply problem. Where did you originally purchase the unit?

First, thanks for the immediate feedback!

Second, I went to look at UPC's at Fry's Electronics and they gave me so much wimpy information I thought I should come back and check with the forum before I bought. They seemed to think that none of the apc models were "stand alone' all required software on a windows pc to manage the power. Coming back to the forum, I see you did use an APC brand. Any special model? I also noted that the TiVo is rated at 1 amp @120 volts AC - which would mean roughly 120 watts...so it would seem that the 200 watt model would work fine. Is that what you are using?

Third- my Series 3 HD is just a few months over one year old. That is what is making me a bit concerned that the new drive did not solve the issue...I killed my TiVo repair possibilities when I swapped out the drive...they will no longer repair for $150, only replace at full retail price. I kinda' painted myself into a corner, looking for options. It would be nice if the UPC solves the issue! Hope springs eternal!

So, I should do the UPC first, cheap and easy - just give me a bit of help with the sizing and model. If that doesn't do it, are there next steps?

Thanks again,

Dave Shehane
West Linn, Oregon