My Tivo died tonight. I turned the TV on to find the picture frozen. I rebooted it, but when it came back on, it was skipping like crazy and taking forever in the menu screen. Then it just froze again. Looks like I'm gonna have to call customer service and send it in for a new one. The manual says I need my receipt, but I won it from Tivo and it didn't come with one. I hope that is OK.

Anyway, the point here was... Can you live without your Tivo, if you have one. I know it is driving me craze not having it. How can anyone live without it???

maybe you could shoot it

Go to Rent-a-center. You won't be able to go back to cable. Youre spoiled.

You can wait till Sopranos 2nd season comes out on DVD. That is just like Tivo.

Mine died two months ago, same exact thing happened.

Unfortunately, mine was out of warrenty (waaaa!)

So.. I unplugged her and let her sit for a few weeks while I saved up to get 'er fixed.

Then... I read about an overheating problem on the tivo forum (www.tivocommunity.com) - they said to turn it off, let it cool down for several hours (I guess a few weeks could only be better!) and to then turn her back on, delete all your shows (in case some of them were corrupted while things were overheated), and then reboot.

So... I first moved the tivo in my rack (it had a dss box above it and a dvd player below it) to it's own shelf with nothing stacked on top to keep it nice and cool.

I then started it up... and then when it came live I nuked all the existing programs. Shut it down again, and rebooted. It's been fine ever since.

ummm...I dont even have cable television much less a tivo.
try playing frisbee.

Sounds like Microsoft got ahold of your TV.

I would also suggest unplugging it for the night and see what happens tomorrow.

Moving Thread to Hardware Forum...

After the 90 day warranty is up, it's $100
for out of warranty service.

If it's something on the mother board, best for
a total replacement.

If it's your hard drive, you might be able
to a CDR copy of the correct software (1.3, 2.0.1
etc) and a new drive. I've had to do this.
avsforum.com has alot of
Tivo hacks going around.

Sometimes you can get a (refurb) 14hr or 20 hr model for $100 - $200. If you are little more technically adept, you can add extra storage time w/an addtional drive.

If you just want to ditch it, at least can scrap out the
hard drive. That alone is worth $100.

UTV is running $400 ... maybe w/a ALOT of Amazon GC's.

[Edited by BEC on 03-23-01 at 11:22 PM]

TiVo Help Center

I know it has been almost two years, but I fixed it last night. I was bored so I dug out the old thing and hooked it up with a new 40 GB HD that I had lying around.

I downloaded a software version 3.0 image and imaged the new drive. I stuck it in and after setting it up and re-subscribing, I now have a working 40 hour Tivo.

I have Tivo again!

So how did you survive for 2 years without a Tivo?

The same as I did before I ever had it. I just didn't watch much TV.