Hughes HDVR2 crashes and won't boot - Possible overheating?

[MarkEHansen]

I have a Hughes HDVR2 DirecTiVo DVR unit, which has just started giving me trouble.

When I first got it, I added a second disk drive to it (twin 120GB drives), although the drives feel pretty cool to the touch.

This weekend I found that it had crashed, and was stuck on the 'Powering Up' screen (the gray screen). Upon opening the case, I found the accessory cooling fan had stopped. This is the fan mounted on the drive mounting bracket which blows air onto the M/B underneath the drives.

I had a spare fan, so I replaced it and found that the machine would now boot up normally. However, sometime overnight, it failed again and was found sitting at the 'Powering Up' screen.

I took the machine up to my workshop, where it boots and runs fine (for a couple hours anyway - that was all I tested there). I placed it back in the TV room and it booted fine. I watched the internal temperature for a while, and it climbed to 42C. Before I could check it again, it crashed.

Is 42C too hot? The machine reports this as 'Normal'.

Could running the machine without the accessory fan have damaged the heat sensor somehow? It didn't make any noise, so I had no idea it had gone out :-(

Of course, I'm not sure this is a heat-related problem, it just seem pretty coincidental.

Is it possible to get these machines checked-out and fixed? It's at it's end of use, as I've already got a new DirecTV HR23-700 and was just keeping the old machine around until I viewed all the recorded shows from it.

Thanks for any help.

[litzdog911]

42ºC is not too hot for these Tivos. I'm guessing that you actually have a hard drive problem on one of the hard drives. It might have been originally caused by overheating when the original fan died.

[BattleZone]

I agree: it sounds like the controller on the hard drive got cooked and is now unreliable when it heats up to operating temps.

[MarkEHansen]

Well, at one point I fired up the machine and used the old screwdriver-in-the-ear trick to listen to the drives. The primary drive sounds nice and clean, but the secondary drive was making some noises that sounded like it was hunting the heads back and fourth. At that point, the machine wouldn't boot.

I unplugged the machine, then plugged it back in and the drive was no longer making this noise and the machine booted.

Sounds like that second drive is bad? I wonder if I can still copy stuff off of it to a replacement? Perhaps if I keep the drive real cool while copying from it?

I wonder if I'll even be able to find a replacement for it?

By the way, what can I use to copy the data from one drive to another. There used to be a utility that did this at a real low level, but now I don't even remember what it was called.

Thanks for any help.

[CCarncross]

There are some linux utils to do this,people have been doing it for years, I recommend checking the tivo forums, I'm sure its a sticky over there.

[MarkEHansen]

Thanks, I had forgotten about that forum. There's a good thread with all kinds of good How-To info.

I'm not sure if the problem is with the HDD or the power supply. I guess I'll try to find a replacement disk first, and if that doesn't solve it, then I'll try finding a replacement power supply (probably just a replacement machine to use as parts).

Thanks again to all.

[litzdog911]

Also check out these sources of information, much of which you'll find in the Tivo Upgrade Center forum:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=25

http://www.weaknees.com/index.html

http://tivo.upgrade-instructions.com/

http://www.mfslive.org/

http://www.newreleasesvideo.com/hinsdale-how-to/

http://www.dvrupgrade.com/dvr/stores/1/instantcake.cfm

http://www.9thtee.com/

[MarkEHansen]

I just wanted to let folks know that I was able to copy the contents of the second drive to a spare I had, and it didn't help. The machine still would not boot up.

I then read the article on replacing bad capacitors in the power supply used by this machine (and others):

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Repair-a-Hughes-HDVR2-Tivo-Power-Supply/

It looked like my power supply suffered from the same malady. I purchased new capacitors from Mouser (as described in the article) and put them in on Friday.

So far, the machine is up and running just fine. It was a pretty cheap fix too. The caps were only $.60 each (I paid more for shipping than I did for the parts), and installation was free :)

I sure am glad to get this machine going again. Thanks to all for their assistance.