Tivo - Power on-Power Off...to Save Power!

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Maxcat

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#228941 31-Jan-2018 10:37

Any thoughts?

A few years back I had 5 Tivos running and a PC on 24 hours a day.

I turned off the 2 Tivos and the PC and found a quite substantial drop-off in power and the bills that came with them.

SO: I have a bedroom Tivo. But with the loss of the HNP, it is never used as the recipient of programmes recorded as it once was. Very occasionally it might be set to record.

I am thinking now of turning it off on a timer at midnight and turning it on at 9pm - so around 3 hours a day instead of 24 hours a day.

Anyone have any views on what stopping and starting a Tivo every day might do?

This is purely to save money on needless Tivo on-time when it is only used at the bedroom at night.

michaelmurfy

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#1949109 31-Jan-2018 10:46

I am pretty sure they have a power saving mode built in. It'll be best to use that to prevent drive corruption.

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Groucho

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#1949119 31-Jan-2018 10:55

Don't officially know but it's effectively a PC and PCs risk corruption if not shut down properly which would be the case running on a timer.

It's highly unlikely to happen being a core feature but a good compromise would be an option to prevent continually recording 24/7. This would allow the HDD to park itself which I think is where much of the power consumption goes.

In my ideal world, it would be awesome for the TiVo to allow recordings to be streamed via a local network to a solid state media device such as a TV stick or Raspberry Pi running Kodi. Due to encryption can't ever see this happening, but...

Maxcat

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#1949125 31-Jan-2018 11:06

Same discussion here:

https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?t=1247249

gregmcc

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#1949129 31-Jan-2018 11:16

You are better off leaving it on all the time. Considering the boot time and the risk of data corruption every time its turned off. Tivo's with the original hard drive in them have a habit of failing on power up.

Maxcat

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#1949193 31-Jan-2018 12:16

Bedroom Tivo now on a timer.

I'll let you know how long it takes until it fails.

I have a backup and it is the least used of the three currently in daily use.

So...put it down to an experiment.

Behodar

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#1949204 31-Jan-2018 12:28

Groucho: Don't officially know but it's effectively a PC and PCs risk corruption if not shut down properly

Well that depends on the OS; some are perfectly happy to be yanked from power. I have no idea whether the TiVo OS is one of those though! Does it have a "shut down" option in the UI? I don't recall one but I may be misremembering.

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Maxcat

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#1949206 31-Jan-2018 12:31

No shut down.

Another discussion here:

https://www.tivocommunity.com/community/index.php?threads/external-timer-switch-at-night-save-energy.456061/

mattwnz

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#1949220 31-Jan-2018 13:07

When you shut it down, aren’t you supposed to shut it down via the TiVo menu first. If it is like a pc, PCs certainly don’t like to be shutdown via the power switch, and will often have to do a disk check after the restart. I think it may shorten the life of it.

Skolink

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#1949260 31-Jan-2018 13:42

Here's your answer. No

https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?topicid=96298

Maxcat

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#2015295 13-May-2018 18:25

UPDATE:

I started in January - power off at midnight - on at 6pm.

Tonight my Tivo failed.

ALL lights on the Tivo were blinking - no TV image.

So it took 5 months to corrupt the drive but corrupt it it did.

I have installed a back up drive and all is going - so not a power supply fault.

So the experiment didn't work.

old3eyes

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#2015494 14-May-2018 08:41

From memory the standby feature on the TiVo just shuts off the front panel LEDs and the HDMI output. Pity there isn't a real standby like most DVRs have.

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Maxcat

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#2015498 14-May-2018 08:50

After all lights were blinking, blue green and a few others...I quickly shut it down.

So I took it apart, put in a master drive I still have (just to see if it would get to the main screen), thereby confirming the power supply was OK.

It did.

So I put the corrupt drive back in and it's working fine.

I won't put it back on the timer, Tivo won't stand regular turn offs, so I'm glad I tried but the end result is it's back on around the clock.

BlueShift

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#2015531 14-May-2018 09:34

Maxcat:

UPDATE:

I started in January - power off at midnight - on at 6pm.

Tonight my Tivo failed.

ALL lights on the Tivo were blinking - no TV image.

So it took 5 months to corrupt the drive but corrupt it it did.

I have installed a back up drive and all is going - so not a power supply fault.

So the experiment didn't work.

Well, technically the experiment did work. You just don't like the result...

(I work with scientists...)

Maxcat

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#2015534 14-May-2018 09:41

No it didn't work according to WAF rules 27B-6 (All fixes of electronics must not require that use of hand-tools, swearing, removal of covers and or electronic component parts).

The drive is working again, but it broke all WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) rules and therefore it is now back on full time.

I couldn't do a thorough analysis of the power consumption saved - but it is probably going to be less in time and money than a major hardware fix for this Tivo it if had been a totally corrupt drive.

NOTE: WAF Rule 27-8 If it costs more than an hour to fix with more than 7 swear words used in 60 minutes, that is deemed to be a WAF Failure.