A few days ago I pulled the power cord on my TiVo Series 3. As I’ve done several times recently, I was taking my Series 3 to a friend’s house to see how many over-the-air HDTV channels TiVo could receive in his neighborhood. Embarrassingly, when I got to my friends house, plugging the S3 in yielded only a a soft, staccato tick, tick, tick. Later, at home, I removed the cover and isolated the ticking as coming from the power supply. Happily, a quick Goggle search lead me to this Weaknees trouble shooting page where I identified the sound as a classic sign that the TiVo’s power supply was caput. A few emails back and forth with Weaknees support and I was off – ordering the replacement power supply for $99 USD and having it shipped overnight via UPS to Canada for another $49.52 USD. Replacing the power supply was simple and took only 5 minutes. Anyone can do this.
$99 – ouch. You must have really needed the TiVo to have needed the overnight shipping. Then again, I couldn’t live without my DVR as well.
It was election night … I’m a political junky. My S3 can only record OTA network content. Turns out the network coverage was pretty bad. I spent most of the night switching around the cable channels using my Series 2 (cable cards are not available in Canada).
…Dale
I just wondered why one would but and replace a power supply for that series 3. it seems that unit has a history of problems and you can get a refurbished premier hd for $99 and monthly is only 12.99. after the first year they charge 99 a year. Although I had lifetime service on that seriese 3 i decided it just wasn’t worth it. did you know that tivo’s 3 year waranty is only good for 1 fix !! lifetime doesn’t mean much.. but that series 3 is a clunker. I had the forst tivo out and never had a problem.. this one lasted a very short time. think they know they made a bad box but don’t seem to care. if you like tivo guess you’ll put up with it all