Registered: Jul 2003
Location: FL
Posts: 137

Hey all, I ordered a kit from Weaknees and should be upgrading the recording capacity of my 40 hour Series 2 either at the end of this week or the beginning of next week.

Anyways, this will be my first time doing this and I don't want to screw anything up inside my box by doing this upgrade in a place that may be hazardous to my TiVo (ie: lots of static electricity and humidity). That said; where is a reasonable place to do this upgrade and avoid any hazards to my gear? I was thinking my garage but than I realized humidity is a big problem there since I live in FL. Any suggestions? where do you guys pop your cases and do these upgrades? thanks.

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205 Hour TiVo Series 2


-Keith-

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Registered: Jan 2003
Location: A2 Michigan
Posts: 19

I use the kitchen table spread with some old newspapers to protect the table from scratches. Humidity helps keep static electricity from building up so if the air in the house is dry form air conditioning you might want to use the garage.

Another item to consider is what you wear do not were polyester or wool and be sure to ground yourself to a water pipe or the cover of a light switch (for plastic covers touch the metal screw) then before touching anything inside the TiVo touch the metal case of the TiVo and touch it often while working to keep any charges for building up.

BE SURE THE TIVO IS UNPLUGGED from the mains allow a little time for the caps in the power supply to loose there charge.

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Nashua, NH
Posts: 7476

I bought an antistatic service mat - it's padded to protect the table (and whatever I'm working on) and has an integrated grounding strap. You should use a grounding strap - these are available at Radio Shack.

Touching a water pipe isn't necessary, but do touch the metal chassis of the TiVo before touching parts.

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Steve

One thousand three hundred thirty-three, zero

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Registered: Jun 2004
Location:
Posts: 40

One word of warning! Watch out for the edge of the front bezel where the cover slides into the front, right in front of the hard drive. It us very sharp!! I attempted to remove the power connector from the hard drive without removing the drive from the case first, well my hand slipped and oooouuuuccchh!!!!! I sliced my thumb to the bone right through the vein. It took 3 stitches to close! So much for saving money on an upgrade!

Good news though when I looked at the Tivo unit the next week it had dried blood all over the MB! I took some alcohol and cleaned it all off. I thought the it was toast for sure. I hooked it back up , with the original drive, and everything worked! I then proceeded to complete the upgrade and everything went fine. The box works perfectly. I guess my blood must be non conductive!

Anyway the moral is don't worry too much about static discharge. Just use common sense and you should be fine.

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Registered: Jun 2004
Location:
Posts: 76

People are too paranoid about static discharge. Just remember to repeatedly touch the metal housing of the case before you start messing around with the computer parts. And the message about the sharp edges and getting a cut that drips onto the computer components is good advice. Also don't use a screwdriver with a magnetic head if it is going to get close to the computer stuff. You can use it on the screws holding the hard drive, but on motherboard screws, don't use it.

I've personally built hundreds of computers and done thousands of upgrades. I've never worn static electricity strip because I've never found one at the store. I always touch the metal case, especially after walking across the rug. Probably 5% of the time this actually does discharge some static electricity. The rest of the time there is no charge.

The big thing you have to watch with hard drives is to make sure the power plug stays intact as you push the plug into the drive. On cheap ones, one of the cables might push back out the plug housing and cause intermittent loss in power. This will kill a drive faster than just about anything else.

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