Nubus expansion chassis freezes at boot

[frankenmac]

I have an Avid (digi) nubus expansion rack, and when MacOS boots, the system locks solid searching for the ProTools drive. If I disconnect the drive, it boots fine with the "no drive" comment. Card shows up in the digitest but says no tests for it.

Single session8 card, I've tried three different ones. 882 interface. Software is 4.1.1, OS's 8.0 through 8.5 (tried clean installs, too), and the systems I've tried are an 8100 and a 9150. Whether it is plain, uses the PDS video, PDS video with Newertech G3 or Sonnet G4... doesn't matter. With an upgrade in place, it just freezes faster.

Works just fine if the card is in the system.

Dur?

[milesofwire]

Do you have the slot switches in the chassis set for a PPC? the proper order is: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A F , Also you have to have the PPC ECI card for this to work..

[frankenmac]

The switches are fine. However, if you put a card in a slot with ID 0, it doesn't find it. The card and box came from an Avid AMP system so it is PPC capable. I tried this in a Quadra 700 and got the same result, however it actually displays a bomb error message, saying something about unaddressable interrupt or something to that effect.

[milesofwire]

Did you put the ECI card in the Middle slot in the 8100?

[frankenmac]

I tried it in all slots in the 8100, 9150 and both Quadra slots. Same thing all around.

[ppuskari2]

Well I guess I can try this out this weekend or soon enough. I also have a Avid AMP I can try this with. On the Avid AMP you have to be doubly careful what goes where, because the AMP actually is the standard 8100 motherboard with an expansion chassis extension to begin with.

Okay, I just doublechecked my label on the AMP.. The main motherboard gives you Nubus C D
the expansion connector gives you 8 7 A 4
B is used as the bridge between both the expansion and the motherboard B slot

The Expansion Chassis will give you 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A F

So you should have duplicates in digitest on 8 7 A 4 and B

This would mean you need a SuperSlot to install the card in. Mine is on D (closest to pds slot)
The Session8 card should be fine in the expansion chassis on anything but any other slot except if you already have any cards in the AMP on 8 7 or A
Slot C on the motherboad should be clear and is also SuperSlot addressable and non duplicate.


I can power up and get the slot assignments, but it was a real pain to get setup with my Media Composer hardware in general. There is something called a Superslot addressable nubus slot setup on the AMP. If the nubus card can't support or requires it and you have the setup backwards, it will do just what you are describing. Unfortunately there are no tech articles anywhere that mention this. My E-Card on my Avid rig has to go in a superslot, and the Atto scsi card must go in the non superslot. Take a look at the label on the back of the AMP case top to see what I am saying.

You definitely need the short 7 inch card for that expansion chassis though. double check that to be on the safe side. If you have the 12 inch card, it's the older Quadra card. The 7 inch card will work in BOTH Quadra and PPC machines. Also since the AMP is already extended you might be clobbering nubus assignments to begin with. Like I said above, I'll take a look again at mine and report back. The slot number/letters might also be on the AMP lid as well.

Hmm, other than that, also make sure the HD you have on your Session8 card also works on the standard buss of the mac/AMP If not that can be an issue as well. Make sure the 882 interface is connected and powered on as well so clocking is output to the card and it recognizes things.

If you really want to try something for trouble shooting at least on the AMP. Remove the Nubus B slot crossover that connects the two boards. Then put that session8 card in one of first three slots to the right. You should be okay with with the G3 cards installed. As long as its NOT the Sonnet 400 or 500 variety. Use the onboard video. If you still have a problem, it might be a bad Session8 card. I had a Session8 card that would do something similar sorta, It wouldn't lock the machine but would NEVER recognize any hard drives...It was just dead.

Test that first, then if that combination with the 882 interface and the hd online with the Session8 card works, then put the ECI card in the slot closest to the right when looking from the front toward the back. Then hook up the chassis with NOTHING installed in the chassis. Run Digitest and see if you have any duplicate slots and note them down. AT this point you should have NO duplicate slots listed if your chassis is correctly set to the 0123456789af configuration.

If you still have no hangs at this point, remove the Session8 card and put it in the first slot you saw that did not have a duplicate. usually is that leftmost one Nubus 0.

Okay, after that, you can put the Nubus slot B bridge back on, and test again with Digitest and see if any more duplicate slots show up. You should have as above duplicates on 8 7 A 4 B

Note that you can only have ONE card in each named slot. So if you see duplicates, make sure only one physical card is there whether on the chassis, the AMP expansion board, or the motherboard main slots.

Also keep in mind that not many other boards can work in the expansion chassis. I've gotten the Atto Scsi Cards to work, the Avid Media Suite boards, the Avid Media Composer boards, and then any of the true Digidesign boards, Session8, AudioMediaII, Samplecell, Farms, Nuverb, MacProteus, Bridge Cards, etc.

Lastly double check that the pins on the ECI card are all in good shape and are NOT bent out of line in any way. They are VERY fine pins and I've bent a few by accident while installing the connector cabling ot the chassis before.. You'll need very fine needle nose pliers and some luck to fix it if you find bent pins.

Hope this might help you. I can definitely feel for you. My rig has taken about 2 years now to get working well in all the permutations, I've experimented with.

Good luck and report what you find if you will,

ppuskari2

[milesofwire]

I will second the idea of the bent pins, as I had that failure as well on my Nubus rig..(forgot about that one)

[frankenmac]

Well, we tested the cable thoroughly and there's no pin problems... so I guess the interface card can't configure itself properly?