Expansion Chassis problem?

[trombino]

Hey Everyone I'm having some crazy problems with my rig and I'm hoping someone out there in Digi land has seen this before...

My HD4 rig has become unusable of late. When I open a session, PT either immediately or shortly thereafter goes into spinning beach ball mode. I can see that there is heavy activity on 1 processor. The app isn't frozen.. it still responds to events just very, very slowly (like minutes). Sometimes I can play a bit of the session first, and then get a 6042 error. I've received other DAE -6 as well. This problem used to happen late at night, after the rig had been runnning all day and a restart would clear it up, but it has gotten worse over time. Force quit PT and the system returns to normal.

My setup: Mac 2.5GHzx2, OS 10.4.5, PT 6.9.2, HD4 (non-accel), magma 32bit/33HMz 7 slot chassis.

I have trashed all preferences and init files.

I have an expansion chassis (Magma 32bit/33MHz 7 slot). I have replaced the VHDCI cable with a new one. I have replaced the host card in my mac. I have replaced the power 275W power supply with a 350W supply. I have even replaced the whole backplane.

I have tried running my HD cards inside my mac. Works fine.

I have tried running a friends HD Accel cards inside my expansion chassis. No go.

I have tried running 1 card in the chassis. Works fine. 2 cards - fine. 3 cards... No go. I swapped the cards around to see if it was the card, and it wasn't. Must have something to do with running 3+ cards?

I've reinstalled the OS and PT.

Trying to think what else I've done... seems like I've tried every combination of things that I can think of. All signs point to the chassis for me, and yet replacing every component of it hasn't cured my problem.

Can anyone help?

[thoyee]

Trombino,

Have you tried installing Protools 7.1X?
Also, try running DigiTest Software just to validate and verify funcdtionality of Digi Cards.

According to DigiDesign "AnswerBase" Pro Tools HD Accel systems require Pro Tools 6.2 or higher. Please make sure the correct software is installed. If it is, this error could indicate a hardware problem with an installed HD Accel card.

Good luck

[sleadley]

From The Magma FAQ:


Will DigiDesign ProTools HD Cards work in my MAGMA Chassis?.

In most cases, the answer to that is yes. We have an HD2 system on hand for testing with our expansion chassis, and had an HD4 system on loan for a short time. First we started testing with our currently available products and found the following information that you need to know before you install these cards into your MAGMA Chassis.

The HD cards use 3.3V, no 5V power is used by these cards. The ATX power supplies sense minimum load on the 5V power line so if the HD cards are in the expansion chassis by themselves the power supply may not sense enough load to stay on. We have a load device that can be attached to one of the hard drive type power connectors on the power supply that we correct this by providing the minimum load on the 5V line for it to be happy and stay online. Any MAGMA Chassis not using the latest 400 watt PFC (Power Factor Corrected) Power Supply should have one of these load devices to insure they work in all configurations.

Since the cards only use 3.3V, they use quite a bit of it. We recommend that anything larger than the HD3 be used with the 400 watt PFC supply. The 320 watt ATX supply has limited 3.3V and is recommended for systems with HD3 or smaller setups.

We tested these cards with our currently available chassis and then we tested older versions of the chassis to include the 80 pin versions of our chassis. They all worked equally well within the above constraints.

We do not recommend systems with AT 300 or 400 watt power supplies with or without the VRM (Voltage Regulator Module) for use with the HD cards. The VRM produces too limited an amount of 3.3V and due to the age and lack of testing the 400 watt version may not safely support 2 HD cards.Testing with the ProTools HD cards have given us the following Track Counts, your actual counts may vary depending on the number, and the type, of plug-ins that you use.

Hope this helps
Simon L.

[trombino]

Interesting post sleadley. I used to have a SampleCell card in my expansion chassis and removed it when the problems started. Now that I think about it, it seems like removing the card actually made it worse.

Time for another call to Magma. I've spoken with them a couple times since this started and they never mentioned this voltage issue.

[trombino]

Just posting a followup for anyone that experiences a similar problem in the future... After buying $1000 in parts from Magma and wasting a couple of days trouble shooting, it turns out that my problem could have been solved by a $13 part: the 5v Load Resistor. I'm also going to beef up my power supply to 400W just to be safe and in anticipation of getting another process card someday.

Again, Sleadley, thank you so much for your post.