Soldered PROM into TiVo HD; fans come on, but no 'post'

[karpodiem]

Been spending quite a bit of time reading threads/working on the software end with the hard drive connected to my PC and went through all of the necessary steps (had quite a bit of help with this :P )

anyways, I put the chip I purchased from omnikron back into the Tivo HD and...no post. Fans whir, lights come on the front dash turn on very briefly when it's first plugged in, and then turn off. No video out. Nothing

Put the original PROM back in, nothing. Swapped in an untouched HD from a second Tivo HD, nothing. (Fans continue to whir and the unit is 'on', but no video signal. Plugging an ethernet cord into the jack yields no blinking lights either, just a solid green/yellow)

Here's an image of my soldering work - http://mgovideo.s3.amazonaws.com/Misc./photo.JPG

any ideas? I'm getting my second Tivo HD back from Omnikron later next week, so I can always take a look and his soldering to see how it compares but...I'm pretty sure my soldering should do the job.

anything I'm missing here?

*edit - also, is it possible to swap a Cablecard between two Tivos of the same model?

[Omikron]

Your symptom is definitely pointing to a PROM connection problem of some kind. Even with no hard disk installed you should get a solid green light on the front and a "TiVo Sunrise" on the TV.

It's hard to tell from your photo, but it's possible you have some pins bridged. Inspect them closely with a magnifying glass.

Additionally, if the solder you're using has rosin flux, make extra sure it's completely cleaned off with high purity alcohol or ideally a flux remover of some kind. I've seen problems crop up when flux creeps up the pins in the socket and prevent a good connection to the chip.

Moving a CableCARD, even to a different slot the same TiVo, will break its pairing. The only time you can do this is if the cable company doesn't even bother pairing the cards. I only know of one company that has ever done this, and that was my old provider in Iowa, Mediacom.

[buccobruce91]

it took me two or three tries before i got all the pins soldered with good connections and no pins bridged. my tivo had a similiar reaction until i got everything soldered well. it was definitely a case of "if at first you don't succeed, try, try again".

hope this helps

[unitron]

I haven't done any board socketing yet, but based on my experience unsoldering and transplanting crypto chips, allow me to warn you of the dangers of re-doing your work too much and causing the solder pads to come off of the circuit board.

[karpodiem]

Just got my other TiVO HD back from Omnikron.

Spent eight hours last night working on it and...IT WORKS!!!!!!!!!!!

when I did my first transfer ('93 Rosebowl - Michigan vs. Washington) I was...pretty choked up. I remember watching that game with my Dad on New Year's Day, and to have a nice clean copy of the game was something I've wanted for a long, _long_, time.

Thank you to everyone on this forum for all of your work. I truly appreciate all the time everyone has put in on this.

I plan on writing an extremely newbie friendly thread with pictures/video on everything that needs to be done in order to transfer shows from your Tivo to your computer.

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants"

[lrhorer]

Just got my other TiVO HD back from Omnikron.

Spent eight hours last night working on it and...IT WORKS!!!!!!!!!!!

Congratulations. Eight hours? Oof. You'll definitely not want to spend that much tie re-doing your hacks when upgrades are pushed to the unit. It should only require a few minutes to hack the system when you are properly prepared before hand. I definitely recommend scripted upgrades. External scripted upgrades are fine, but if you are going to go that route, I definitely suggest you get an external drive enclosure and use it as your primary drive. With the THD, it is trivial to swap the controller headers inside the unit, making the external drive the primary, and the internal drive, if any, the secondary drive. With this and an eSATA port on the external PC, there's no opening and closing the TiVo or removing the hard drive and putting it back. One simply shuts off the TiVo, shuts off the power to the external enclosure, attach the external enclosure to a PC, boot Linux, and proceed. Running the scripts only takes a matter of moments, once you have the new tivoapp patches in hand. Some people prefer to defer this step until after the drive is installed back on the TiVo.

It takes a little more time to set up, and somewhat more work on the TiVo drive itself, but if you choose to implement internal / insitu scripted upgrades, then you eliminate even the rather small hassle of having to remove the enclosure and boot Linux on the external PC. The entire thing is handled at the telnet and ftp prompt.

Thank you to everyone on this forum for all of your work. I truly appreciate all the time everyone has put in on this.

You're welcome.

I plan on writing an extremely newbie friendly thread with pictures/video on everything that needs to be done in order to transfer shows from your Tivo to your computer.

Well, OK. That's a taller order than you might think. Remember, too, there are a number of ways to skin this particular cat.