Tivo frezes when connected to interet

[KiwiKen]

Hi all, I am not a super techo but need some help diagnosing what i going on. When I'm connected to the net full time the Tivo will freeze (screen freeze and no remote control response) which requires a reboot, date reset etc. If I do manage a successful call I have to remove the network cable or the Tivo will freeze after some time. Perhaps there are some log entries I should be looking at but they don't mean much to me. I'm at risk of missing a recording of Desperate Housewives and that could spell disaster ......
I'd appreciate any suggestions.
Thanks - KEN

[Wibble]

Hi all, I am not a super techo but need some help diagnosing what i going on. When I'm connected to the net full time the Tivo will freeze (screen freeze and no remote control response) which requires a reboot, date reset etc.
KEN

It's probably not the internet as such, it's probably either some dodgy cabling or one of the machines on your lan is sending stuff that is confusing the tivo. (The kernel is rather ancient.)

So I would try a different cable and port.

I would also use wireshark to sniff on the network. Basically anything that show up while you are not doing any network traffic is a likely candidate.
It will be Broadcast or multicast, udp or icmp.

[Skolink]

What nzTiVo/ozTiVo image are you using? I found v1.5 to freeze fairly often, but v1.6 almost never freezes. Not really sure what is was on the image that was causing it. Disabling things like Tivowebplus helped, but didn't completely fix it. Have you got the network card driver 'timing' set to 'failsafe' (timing=16), 'optimal' or 'turbo' probably wouldn't cause freezing, just poor network performance.
If you are using a PAL tuner make sure the RF output channel is not set to an existing channel, even one you don't receive like Sky UHF, this will cause the network to malfunction.

[Darren King]

Have you got the network card driver 'timing' set to 'failsafe' (timing=16), 'optimal' or 'turbo' probably wouldn't cause freezing, just poor network performance.

Actually it has been known to.

As Skolink has mentioned, if you have not set the timing to "failsafe" (or edited the config file to say timing=16) then please do this first and see if that cures it.

[KiwiKen]

Thanks for all your help.
I've replaced the cable and changed the port.
I can ping the ip address successfully now but cannot putty to the Tivo system to do things like set the date (and it appears to be getting worse).
Could you please point me in the right direction for checking the network card settings you both suggested?
Much appreciated - KEN

[Skolink]

Maybe try using Teraterm Pro 3.1.3 (it's free) rather than Putty. Also if you do 100 pings (ping -n 100 <tivo's ip address>) do you get 100% success?
Otherwise you will have to put the hdd back in the PC and do the Turbonet setup menu option again.
If you do manage to login use the command nic_config_tivo or these commands:
cd /etc
rw
joe oztivo.conf
edit(or add if not there) the line timing=16
hit cntrl k, then x
ro
reboot
Or alternatively you could make or buy a serial cable to issue the commands, if you have a laptop you can place next to the TiVo.