Tivo repair gurus ( Cali, Greek et al )

[2ride]

In a prior post Cali wrote said the following:

quote:Originally posted by kozmo21
What do you look for in the log files that shows a tuner could be bad?



key word is not COULD....There IS at aleast one bad tuenr
This tells the story

quote:
Cam[120]: Initialized css to 49
Jan 17 20:50:42 (none) CamManager[124]: CamManager : Main loop pid: 124



quote:
ApgLogFrequency( 0 sec )
Jan 17 20:50:10 (none) kernel: Finished creating ApgDriverFrameIter
Jan 17 20:50:10 (none) kernel: Using a smartSorter!
Jan 17 20:50:10 (none) kernel: Creating ApgReader


I have this same issue with a friends dsr6000 that he bought off ebay ( for over $300, incidentaly )

I am attempting to help him was hoping you could expound on the meaning of these log entries and exactly why they indicate a bad tuner.


As a followup, now that I am relatively certain a bad tuner is the culprit, is there anything I can do via software to disable the suspect tuner?

Any other suggestions?

Sell it to a repair guru?



Thanks in advance

[newbiepower]

I dont understand why we cant just remove the bad tuner and just use the good one? Because the 2nd tuner is optional so if it on there the OS should not see it, right?

I remove my modemtest file and now my tivo work, somewhat, still have issue right but, it got pass the updating database stage, soooooooooooooo happppppppppppppy

[GREEK]

as far as newbie powers thoughts, no you cant just disable the tuner in the software. After all this time someone would have done it if it was that easy, these things have been out for years. Its not really worth the effort, they can be fixed. The software checks the HD first, then the busses by row. THere are several popular things that cause the tivos to hang. I only see stuck tivos when the lnbp chips are melted and missing. THis causes the circuitry to remain open and hangs the tivo. A really popular one is a bad modem controlller, even if you remove the test it still hangs and you need a really specific and expensive chipset press to replace, you have to be a real tivo repair shop to have one. There are alot of damages caused by surges and lightning, many things are interlinked and share the voltage spike. If you really want help then post exactly what the problem is with each unit and where it gets stuck or what its doing. Say #1 is this and #2 is that. Its easier than trying to guess whats wrong. BTW the anything bought from ebay is usually AS-IS for a reason. If your paying alot, get someone to stand behind the machine. Half of the dtivos on ebay have problems.

[cali]

I'll just say if you spend the time in a tivo ( hardware & SW) you will learn all of its hang points. WIth each fix that I have found, I have been able to link it to a failure point via SW.

If you got bash, and a hardware problem, I can almost gurante I can fix it.

Now if you have a complete log, post it...the good one and a bad one, and we can discuss it further.

[rc3105]

speaking of hang points - will an otherwise functional t-60 boot without lnbp15sp's?

[Loopie111]

I am currently fixing a dsr6000 and I have the #1 tuner and it's lnbp chip removed and it boots fine.

[GREEK]

You'll have no probs Riley, boot away. let me know if you need help. technically, I've had everything but the powerpc and the tivo chip off the board and gotten bash and bootup. tuners, chips, modem circuit, mpeg decoder, and both i5505 can be removed and run. I dont recommend trying to acquire signal with partial signal hardware removed.

[rc3105]

was afraid of that, means this crypto is toast - now I gotta go invent a another way of decrypting that doesn't involve the atmel...

[GREEK]

give me details of whats going on. I got a junkyard of ser1 units if you need chips.............