Well, our TiVo started to die.

For a few months it’s been locking up on us … didn’t seem to mater what it was trying to do. Record, playback, or just sit idle.

While we were on vacation, the Linksys WRT54G wireless router got screwed up … so the Tivo wasn’t able to download any new program info. Thus, it ran out of data.

When I got back and reconfigured the router (not sure why the router got screwed up in the first place), the Tivo tried to download 2 weeks worth of data.

Unforunately, it kept locking up when it was trying to process the downloaded data.

I figured it must be some corrupt data … so I decided to reset the entire thing and have it reload from scratch.

I ran the reset … and it locked up a few times when trying to download the data again.

Even after it was able to download the data, it kept locking up.

I called TiVo and they said it was probably dieing … and offered me an exchange. Exchanges cost $149. Oh well, better than buying a new unit and signing up for a new lifetime subscription (which, btw, is going away soon).

I opted for the advance exchange … where they send me the new unit before I send the old one in. Standard deal … they charge the credit card for the new unit and the cost of the old one … and issue a credit when the old unit arrives.

Got my RMA and waited for the new unit to arrive.

Yesterday, the new unit arrived. Same basic unit, except it doesn’t have the front panel buttons (which I kind of liked).

It took a while to get it configured, because it had a much older version of the OS pre-installed … and I thought my only option was to use the phone. We don’t have a phone line near the TiVo, so I had to use the wireless phone jack. It has a lot of static on the line, so the connection was much slower.

Eventually it finished the setup and we were off and running.

Now we just have to setup all our Season Passes and favorites again.

Luckily we had the snapstream so at least we could time shift our viewing.

[tags]Tivo, TV, Television[/tags]