FreeAgent Theater and GoFlexTV

[delirious]

Is this common?  Seems it works fine until it warms up and then it freezes in different parts of movies.  Sometimes 4-5 minutes in.  I just updated to the latest firmware and is seemed to help but it's probably because I upplugged it and let it cool down while I took it up stairs to put in the serial number for tech support.  Which wasn't available

[delirious]

This is just an addendum. I tried firmware 2.22 and 2.23, which 2.23 seemed to be better.  Purchaed 3 drived.  Two 14mm 750 GB goflex ultras and both would freeze up at various times.  Then I tried a 22 mm 1.5 TB drive and it would freeze almost immediatly.   I then tried an older FreeAgent go drive with USB 2.0 and it plays the whole movie.  I did have one freeze right near the end.   I am using the same video file (yes I have tried others and they freeze too) for consistency and all these drive freeze at various times.  I know when I stop the goflexTV and turn it off after a freeze and let it cool off, then it picks up where the freeze left off and plays until it gets warm again.   I can only assume that one, heat is the culprit.  Two.  USB 3.0 drives (the newer ulra portable goflex units) don't jive well with the drive.  I'm leaning towards the goflex TV getting too hot as the issue.  

Can anyone comment on these utra portable drives and using the goflex TV.  The 14mm (two drives) that I tried seem to do much better than the 22mm larger drives I have to plug into the USB ports.   I did try the 14mm drives plugged into the USB slot with the same results.  seems like the one that goes the longest is the freeagent goflex drive.  All the drives are formatted NTFS.

[delirious]

Just a follow up.  Seagate replaced my unit under warranty.  The goflex TV has been discontinued with no replacement in the works.  So I guess bye bye to future firmware updates.

[delirious]

I got my replacement unit in yesterday... a refurbished unit.  Immediatly I thought, great, I got someone elses headache.   Plugged it in with the 750 GB 14mm drive and the unit froze about 6 minutes into the movie.  I've tested this movie, an ISO file and I know it works.   So I then decided to put the unit in a plastic bag and I put it in the refrigerator for 20 minutes.  I then took it out of the bag and plugged it in.   Played for 14 minutes with no glitches in the movie at 6 minutes like before.  So, it played longer this time.  

I then got an old computer fan (120 mm) and hooked it up to a 12 volt power supply.  Sat the goflex TV on the fan while it was frozen and the movie started to stutter, unfroze and played the whole way through.  The movie played twice this way with no freezing. I put the fan so that it would blow up through the corrigated area on the bottom of the goflex TX, so the flow would go out the sides of the unit.

So both units are overheating and causing the freeze.  I have tried external drives and they work when plugged into the USB ports and the movies play fine with an occasional freeze.  But, if you plug in the USB 3.0 750 GB drives that are 14mm that slide into the unit, FREEZE!  Tried it with two different, brand new 750 GB 14mm units.

And of course it's Saturday and seagate is once again closed.   Problem solved.  These units overheat when you plug in an external drive into the slot.    Of course I could use an external drive from now on but then I won't be getting what it is originally designed to do by having a plug in drive, will I?

Like to know who else has this problem or is it me with bad luck on two devices.   Try the cooling method, I bet you can get the same results.

I'm using firmware 2.23 on both devices. The replacement came with it installed

[siljelind]

I also have figured out I got an overheating issue with my seagate product.

I bought a GoFlex Tv yesterday and i have no disk pluged in to it (accessing files through the network instead, from a GoFlex Home to be exact).

I started up by installing a new firmware as recomended and after that it started to go downhill. Nothing played like it should, the interface was painfully slow and it failed to connect to the internet.

Opened a complainet about suspected corrupt firmeware since it was running but everything worked poorly.

This morning I tried starting it up and it worked beutifull for about 4-5 minutes. After that it slowly returned to the state it was in yesterday.

I then figured it probably was overheating.

Now I tried everything from putting it solo on the floor to placing it high as far away as possible, placing it upside down, on its side etc. The only way to get sufficent cooling is to have a big table sized fan directed straight towards the underside (having the GoFlex TV placed on its side) on full force.

I dont live in a warm region. It's 3 degrees Celsius outside and inside I have normal room temprature (betwen 20-23 degrees Celsius depending on messuring point).

When the unit is starting to show symptoms of beeing overheated it doesnt even feal that warm when I put my hand on it but tempratures keep on rising as things goes downhill.

It's a shame really cause I like the functionality of the product when it is doing its job. But there is no way I am going to have a big fan turned on everytime I'm going to watch a movie or listen to some music so I will have to look for something else to solve my needs it seems.

[delirious]

I would RMA it. I did. Went through two RMAs and the first RMA did the same. Second did not. However, when using the 750 gb goflex drive that pops into the bay, it overheats two of my units and they freeze at various times. My solution was to just put the drive on the external port. It works fine then. Sad though. I did purchase a small fan to insert into the unit when the warranty expires. I plan on soldering the fan in to run off the existing current. These things should of had a fan inside them along with a heatsink. Poor design.

[siljelind]

I start to believe that the problem is firmware related. I think that Seagate has tried to get to much juice out of the hardware and in effect overclocked its own hardware with its firmware upgrades.

Most units might work fine but they might have used different versions of the same hardware that might have different ability to get rid of the extra heat generated from the "over clocking".

I will try different ways to passively cool the device (don't feel to optimistic about the outcome of this but it's worth a try). And if that fails I will go through the hustle of trying different firmwares to see if the overheating goes away.

RMA is probably not a practical option. Seagate have yet not replayed to my initial case at all and the company I bought it from seems to have the attitude that anything that happens after you agree to pay them is your problem (Clas Ohlson's webstore clasohlson.se one of the worst costumer supports I ever encountered).

The whole idea of getting the two GoFlex units (TV and Home) was to get something that I new would work right out of the box and give me most of the functionality I needed from a HTPC without the hustle of building and configuring one. The total price for the two units ended up at about the same but I was willing to trade some functionality for not having to deal with problems my self. That plan didn't work out to say the least. I should have built my own HTPC instead of trusting Seagate and their resellers it seems... :-(

[siljelind]

Now my Goflex Home have died as well. No response what so ever. My guess is heating issues... Lets see if Im right. Anyway I will never ever buy anything from seagate ever again.

[kenji57]

I also bought a GoflexTV, Goflex Home and Goflex freeagent portable drive on the strength of the Seagate brand name.

After all sorts of issues I finally cut my losses and bought a Kaiser Baas wifi media player and I really regret not getting that first off. The Kaiser Baas is a combined media player and NAS with inbuilt wifi or ethernet connectivity. The interface is slicker and more responsive than the goflexTV and I'm much happier with it.

The really annoying part is that some of the issues on this forum date back to 2010 and still haven't been addressed by Seagate or even updated in their product documentation.

[bodhi78]

I think overheating is the most likely culprit. Try to use your GoFlex drive with external USB port. Or use different USB drive.