The TiVo Stream 4K is a great streaming device. We have three now. I bought the first one to turn an older TV into a smart TV. Another was recently added to our main TV, which is an Android TV, so that we could have one central My Shows list for all of our streaming services. To avoid the “running low on storage space” messages from installing too many apps, I expanded the storage of the Stream 4K with a USB flash drive. I didn’t make the connection at first, but this caused the TiVo Stream 4K to start randomly rebooting. Or at least it seemed random. Thankfully the Stream 4K boots up quickly. Still, it was an annoyance.
I first noticed one of the reboots when trying to see how well the TiVo Stream 4K ran games. It ran a side-scroller puzzle game fine but rebooted when I tried to run a racing game. Then I noticed it would sometimes reboot when using the Peacock streaming app.
My theory is that the power used to access the USB flash drive puts the power requirements of the TiVo Stream 4K right to the limits of the capabilities of the power supply. The power supply provided with the TiVo Stream 4K is essentially a USB phone charger that can supply 1.0 amps.
Get to the solution already
You probably have other phone chargers laying around. Get out your magnifying glass and read the fine print on the charger (aka travel adapter, power adapter). If you’re my age, get out your readers, a magnifying glass, and a bright light. Or use that magnifying glass app you probably already have installed, you geezer.
Find a charger that supplies more than 1.0 amps (A) at 5 volts dc and try it with your Tivo Stream 4K.
Look for one that can do at least 1.5A and 5 volts dc. The symbol that looks like an “equals sign” (=) with the lower bar dotted means DC.
Here’s the one I used:
As you can see, it is marked as being able to supply 1.55A at 5vdc. In case you’re shopping for a new charger, 1.5A at 5vdc works out to 7.5W (watts).
We’ve had no random reboots since.
If this does not work for you
- You may have a different issue. Time to go back to your favorite search engine.
- You could try finding a charger with an even higher amp/power rating.
- If you don’t have a spare charger over 1.0 amps, you might be tempted to try using two chargers. The Tivo Stream 4K indeed has a micro-USB port and a type USB-C port, but the USB-C port “is not used to provide power,” per TiVo.
