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Weaknees Upgrade Causes Ghost Image and Jitters
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Posted by: CookieMonster

I just upgraded my Sony SVR-2000 Series 1 with a weaKnees 120GB Upgrade kit, so that I now have two hard drives in my system. Everything loaded perfectly and now the system says that there is 180 hours of basic quality and 49 hours of best quality.

The next time I turned on the tivo, the picture had a double image that has shifted about 1/3 of the screen size to the right and the picture is very jittery. The ghost and jitters appears while watching live tv through the tivo, while searching through menus and also while watching pre-recorded programs (from both before and after the upgrade). I checked the direct connection from my cable box to the TV and it is normal. I also swapped cables to check if the problem was related to the cables.

Please help.

CM

Posted by: weaknees

This sounds like it may be some sort of grounding/interference issue. Have you tried using a different cable to go from your TiVo to your TV - as in trying coax instead of RCA, or S-video?

Michael

Posted by: CookieMonster

I have tried all three outputs to my TV, S-video, composite and coax also tried different inputs from my cable box, coax and composite. I don't think the problem is with my cable box because my direct connection between the TV and the cable box is normal.

I have also tried moving the Tivo to another TV in a different part of the house and I still have the same problem. All this makes me think it is not a grounding/interference problem. Besides, it was working fine before the upgrade.

Any other ideas?

CM

Posted by: weaknees

You can certainly send the drives to us and we can check them out. Just email us at tivo@weaknees.com and we'll get you the shipping info.

You might also peek around inside the box to make sure there are no grounding issues there.

Michael

Posted by: CookieMonster

I checked inside the Tivo and everything looks normal (no loose wires, etc.).

Should I try removing the new drive to see if the old drive works normally on a standalone basis? Or does the the previous addition of the new weaknees drive make that now impossible to check?

If at all possible, I want to isolate the problem so that if I need to send the new drive back to weaknees, I still have a working Tivo.

I love my Tivo!

CM

Posted by: stevel

Once you have added the second drive, you can't use the TiVo with only one drive.

That said, I can't imagine what could go wrong with a disk drive that would result in such problems, nor would I expect a replacement drive to fix image issues.

Posted by: c3

Does the problem appear on the boot up screen? If so, disconnect power and data cables from both drives and try again. If the problem is caused by the drive(s), the symptom would go away.

Posted by: CookieMonster

It was appearing whenever I turned on my Tivo. I did as you suggested and unplugged the power to both drives and both data cables and then reconnected them. Now my Tivo seems to work fine. Yeh!

Thanks very much c3.

What was the problem? Will it reoccur and how can I prevent it from reoccurring?

Posted by: c3

Actually, that's not what I suggested, but since that fixed the problem, GREAT! I was thinking that if the drives somehow caused the interference, running the TiVo without the drives would make the problem go away. Of course TiVo can only display the boot-up screen without the drives.

Posted by: weaknees

Wow - I can't imagine how those cables would cause ghosting. Data integrity loss would cause lots of other problems, but not likely that. But maybe one was causing interference somewhere.

In any event, glad it's fixed.

Michael

Posted by: CookieMonster

There was no data loss. The power cables to the drive were tied around the cables running from near the transformer to the main board. I cut the tie and unwond the cables. Maybe that was causing the interference problem??

Posted by: weaknees

Possibly - or maybe just the tightness of the cables was causing a problem, although I woudn't expect it to be that problem.

In any event, don't our instructions tell you to cut those cable ties? I can look tomorrow, but if you have them in front of you . . .

Michael

Posted by: c3

That would explain the different results. It seems like the additional drive caused enough noise to disturb the sensitive analog circuits, through coupling to the analog supplies in the power cable bundle.

Posted by: DCIFRTHS

CookieMonster: Please use caution when titling a post that makes an accusation. It may get a lot of people to read your post, but it can hurt the reputation of the person / people / company you accuse.

Thanks.

Edit: Actually I didn't notice that you put a question mark icon in front of your post title.

Posted by: CookieMonster

As to the instructions: I had plenty of slack in the cables to plug the cables into the second drive without cutting the ties and unwinding the cables. The directions say to cut the tie if the 2nd power connector is held down. My second power connector was not held down, hence I did not cut them.

In any case, even if the tie was cut, the power cables were still wound around the cables connecting the power supply to the main board. The weaknees instructions say nothing about making sure those cables have been separated from the power cables of the drive.

c3, Stevel and Michael - Thanks for your help.

DC: The addition of the new additional weaknees drive did cause the problem. Without the new drive the problem did not exist. Cause and effect.

I believe this post will help people who use the weaknees instructions to install their upgrades. It provides additional clarity and gives weaknees suggestions as to improving installation instructions for us Tivo novices. As such, it is important to have weaknees in the title of my post.

I suggest you refrain from accusing people of malicious intent when we are all just trying to get the most enjoyment out of our Tivo and inform other forum participants.

Thanks.

Posted by: weaknees

Well, for what it's worth, the problem you reported is not to be expected, and quite frankly we have never seen or heard of it prior to your post.

That being said, we do appreciate the feedback and it's great that your problem was easily solved. If for odd reason we see it again, your experience will prove quite helpful. We have seen, and have helped people through, stranger things.

Glad to hear that the fix was a simple cable-tie cut.

Michael