Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Bolt Motherboard Failure?

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Bolt Motherboard Failure?

    Hi, I'm trying to diagnose whether I have a motherboard problem with my Tivo. My Bolt is about 6 years old and was working fine until about 12 months ago when it started randomly freezing and rebooting. I decided to replace the HDD with a verified Toshiba CMR drive. I also replaced the power supply. That was about 9 months ago. I continued to have random problems until I decided to remove the cover of the Bolt thinking it was overheating. Well, to my delight, the Bolt worked flawlessly for at least 6 months straight. Now, in the past few weeks, the same problem has returned; random freezing and rebooting. I have tried basically everything I can think of including removing cable card, swapping power supplies (I have 2), plugging in direct to the outlet not surge protector, and using a different HDMI cable. Now the bolt seems to be stuck in a loop displaying the "Tivo" start screen before rebooting. It's not possible to get to the flashing lights step to even do any diagnostics.

    I did notice that while watching TV before my last failure, I saw a lot of random streaky rainbow colored lines appear on the screen before it rebooted.

    At this point, seeing how the HDD is only 9 months old and I can't help but conclude that there's something wrong with the motherboard. Since WK cannot fix a mb issue, I wanted to see if there are any tips here before I decide to move on from this Bolt.

  • #2
    I would suggest you try a new hard drive and if that doesn't resolve your issue, it is likely not fixable.

    Comment


    • #3
      I've ordered a new HDD and will see how it goes. In parallel, after leaving the Bolt off and unplugged for about 18 hours, it started up and has now been running for 24h straight. Very strange. This seems to indicate the Bolt is not fully dead. I have a wild theory that may not be related to the HDD. Has anyone ever heard of the Bolt overheating due to poor coax signal strength? I have already diagnosed that the particular coax port I have the Bolt connected to has less than optimal signal strength (too many splitters in my line I believe).

      Comment


      • #4
        So an update here. Ordered a new HDD but it didn't seem to make any difference. I now believe this has something to do with the cable connection and/or cable card. I mentioned the rainbow lines that come on the screen before the problem starts. Well, I've been able to sort of cause the problem by touching some of the parts near the cable connector (with the cover off). It does not even take much force at all but this seems to be where the problem is coming from. If I leave Tivo off for a bit it seems to work again for a limited time. Perhaps some of the chips near the cable card are overheating. I do see that the plastic near the cable card has yellowed indicating heat exposure.

        Although the engineer in me wants to continue to try to find the problem and troubleshoot, I have to call it a day. Although reviews for the Tivo Edge are not favorable, the special they are running now cost me just $346 for a new device with all-in plan. If that device last for just 2 years I will come out ahead from a money perspective. I plan to make sure the Edge is cooled properly from the get-go.

        Comment

        Working...
        X