[drlava]

A little thread to mourn the passing of a Good, hard working 5504. While I was away on Saturday, a fork of a lightning bolt hit my arial and traveled down the copper coax core into the poor RTV and a SIR-T151 receiver, instantly killing them. From the RTV, a high voltage surge bridged the ethernet isolation transformer and traveled to my lan, where it spread out killing 2 swtiches, a router, printer, laptop, and 2 desktops. A TV and DVD player also were mercilessly rendered bricks. There is evidence of bouncing sparks burnt into the dust underneath the SIR-t151. The 5504, may it rest in peace, had performed its duty admirably for almost 3 years.


It is now time to bring online the backup unit, or see what my insurance says about new replacements might be available. Is TiVO in the future? DHG-HDD* (will it get guide after 2009)?

 

[slowbiscuit]

Go for the Tivo. And be prepared for teeth-grinding as you assimilate into the Tivo way.

 

[Crunchy Doodle]

We are the TiVo. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.

Bye.

Quote:
Originally Posted by slowbiscuit /forum/post/14283908


Go for the Tivo. And be prepared for teeth-grinding as you assimilate into the Tivo way.

 

[rlichtefeld]

I had something similar happen on Monday night.


It took out 2 routers. And, 2 of my 3 ReplayTVs (1 - 5040 and 1 - 5504) now cannot connect to my new routers. No ethernet light when plugged in. I've verified that the connections are good by plugging in my laptop to each plug.


So, is the best thing to do to contact MikeyBoy and have him repair the network interface on the 2 ReplayTVs? Both machines work (record, playback, etc.) they just don't connect to the network.


I have 2 spares in the basement that I picked up cheap on eBay a few years back. But, there are some shows on the 2 machines that I'd like to view. Although, there is always Poopli.


Thanks for any advice or information.


Rob

 

[drlava]

Chances are you can find replacement units for $50 or under locally (check craigslist, etc). You can get the shows off the hard drive using extractRTV. Also, Mikeyboy I'm sure could help you.

 

[rlichtefeld]



Quote:
Originally Posted by drlava /forum/post/14401027


Chances are you can find replacement units for $50 or under locally (check craigslist, etc). You can get the shows off the hard drive using extractRTV. Also, Mikeyboy I'm sure could help you.

Since I have 2 spares in the basement, I could just swap the hard drives (and my billing records at D&M) and be up and running pretty quickly.


Then, I could take my time to figure out what to do with the motherboards with the bad ethernet ports.


Hmmm....


Rob

 

[drlava]



Quote:
Originally Posted by rlichtefeld /forum/post/14401447


Since I have 2 spares in the basement, I could just swap the hard drives (and my billing records at D&M) and be up and running pretty quickly.


Then, I could take my time to figure out what to do with the motherboards with the bad ethernet ports.


Hmmm....


Rob

With your 5040, I believe you can swap the eeprom chip also so there is no need to change which unit is activated. The 55XX series has the eeproms soldered down.

 

[nded]

Mikeyboy (or any other good technician with a desoldering tool) can free the EPROM in a 55XX for transfer to another mobo.

 

[rm -rf *.*]



Quote:
Originally Posted by drlava /forum/post/14402321


With your 5040, I believe you can swap the eeprom chip also so there is no need to change which unit is activated. The 55XX series has the eeproms soldered down.

The later 5k's (the "quiet" fan models) have soldered eproms. Only the early 5k's with the constant speed "noisy" fans have socketed eproms.

 

[rlichtefeld]

The first swap went great. Swapped hard drives between the 50xx with the bad NIC to the 50xx in the basement. It spooled up first time, etc. Just had to change the MAC address reservation in my DHCP server.


However, when pulling out the brand new never opened 5060 from the basement, I decided to just replace the units. The old unit was a 55xx, and didn't have Commericial Advance. The old/new 5060 booted a little slowly but seemed to work - for 3 days.


I left it Tuesday night recording the Olympics, and found it Wednesday morning not responding to the remote. Held in the power button to get it to reboot, and it took forever but finally showed the Please Wait screen, and then nothing more. I then unplugged from router and tried to reboot. Now nothing. The blue button lights, the hard drive spools up, but never shows Please Wait. I looked at MikeyBoys page about problems and opened the box, tried to tighten MoBo screws - they were all tight. Check the power connector, and it looked OK. Plugged it in, no difference. So, I thought maybe the hard drive. Since it was already open, I swapped drives with the 55xx that had been working. Still does not come up.


The symptoms when plugged in to RF connector. (Don't have composite on the TV that is easy to get to)

1) Blue light comes on front panel

2) Video goes away for about 10-20 seconds

3) Live video comes back

4) Nothing else.


Rob

 

[hdonzis]



Quote:
Originally Posted by rlichtefeld /forum/post/14435926


The first swap went great. Swapped hard drives between the 50xx with the bad NIC to the 50xx in the basement. It spooled up first time, etc. Just had to change the MAC address reservation in my DHCP server.


However, when pulling out the brand new never opened 5060 from the basement, I decided to just replace the units. The old unit was a 55xx, and didn't have Commericial Advance. The old/new 5060 booted a little slowly but seemed to work - for 3 days.


I left it Tuesday night recording the Olympics, and found it Wednesday morning not responding to the remote. Held in the power button to get it to reboot, and it took forever but finally showed the Please Wait screen, and then nothing more. I then unplugged from router and tried to reboot. Now nothing. The blue button lights, the hard drive spools up, but never shows Please Wait. I looked at MikeyBoys page about problems and opened the box, tried to tighten MoBo screws - they were all tight. Check the power connector, and it looked OK. Plugged it in, no difference. So, I thought maybe the hard drive. Since it was already open, I swapped drives with the 55xx that had been working. Still does not come up.


The symptoms when plugged in to RF connector. (Don't have composite on the TV that is easy to get to)

1) Blue light comes on front panel

2) Video goes away for about 10-20 seconds

3) Live video comes back

4) Nothing else.


Rob

With the RF connector it's a bit harder to tell what's going on. With composite you could make sure that the "Please Wait..." screen is coming up that the unit is working. However, it is still most likely that it can't boot from the hard drive. Check the hard drive power voltages and make sure that the IDE ribbon cable is good. You could also try re-imaging one of the hard drive to make sure. If you want to find out for sure that the unit is at least starting up, then you need to use the compsite output to see if anything is happening (could use a composite to RF modulator if necessary)...


Henry

 

[rlichtefeld]



Quote:
Originally Posted by hdonzis /forum/post/14437017


If you want to find out for sure that the unit is at least starting up, then you need to use the compsite output to see if anything is happening (could use a composite to RF modulator if necessary)...


Henry

I have an old VCR there that has composite in. I could hook up the Replay to it, and have the RF out of the VCR to the TV. That should work the same as a RF modulator. Thanks for the idea!


Rob