Digi 003 internal LED's and no firewire comms.

[A.D.D Recording Studio]

Hello all.
I am aware that this is an ongoing discussion on a few forums, and I've read all I can find but have still not been able to solve my problem.
I have a second hand 003 that Protools 10 cannot locate, and I do not get the 1394 LED on the front panel.
I have replaced the FW802B Dual Line Driver IC, but it made no difference.
I have one internal LED blinking, D9, and no other internal LED's (if there are any).
The system appears to go through a boot sequence on power up with all the front lights going on and off, and various matching clicks heard.
Before I spend any more time and money on it......My questions are:-
What does the blinking D9 indicate?
Is it supposed to blink?
Should there be other LEDs on?
Thanks
Glen

[albee1952]

I would direct this to an authorized service center. Maybe AllProElectronics.com? They are in Nashville, TN and repaired my 003's FW PCB a year ago and its been fine ever since. Maybe they would be willing to offer advice since you are outside of the USA

[A.D.D Recording Studio]

OK, I'll try a different question...
Can someone with a working 003 please look through the side air holes and let me know if there are any LEDs either on all the time, or blinking.
Thanks.

[Darryl Ramm]

You do not need folks here to do extra work for you. If you have no 1394 light, here are your debug steps....

1. Simplify any Firewire cabling, remove everything else from the Firewire bus except the 003.

2. Swap the existing FW cables and any adapters for other cables and adapters, preferably known to work with a Firewire card known to work with something else. Or try on a separate computer with cable and interface card known to work with something else. And be careful, Firewire cables sometimes manage to work with one device and not another, just try to check the cable(s) and any adapters as best you can.

3. Check on your computer if *anything* shows up at all in the device manager when you connect the 003. Always make that connection between the 003 and computer 9and any otehr Firewire peripherals) powered off... or just leave everything connected and powered up all the time. If it does show as an unknown device or something else (I forget what it will show) it may be a driver problem. You need the latest 003 driver for Pro Tools 10 *not* the 003 driver for Pro Tools 11. Make sure you have the correct driver.

If the 1394 LED still will not come on you very likely have a fried firewire chip in the 003. A not uncommon problem, and often caused by hot-plugging these connections. Any repair center can fix, or any person handy with a soldering iron can probalby fix this, the common chip that fails is described in enough posts here and elsewhere. if you can't get a cheap repair done then junk the unit and maybe replace it with one off EBay or similar, or buy a new interface.

[A.D.D Recording Studio]

Interesting reply to a simple question....
I never asked anyone to do extra work for me, I simply asked if the LED is supposed to blink or not.
I do electronics for a living, have done for 34 years, and I know LEDs are used as diagnostic tools for repair technicians. Blinking can mean one thing, remaining on another. And not on at all, something else.
D9 blinks even when the 003 is simply powered up with absolutely nothing else connected, no Firewire or anything. So I thought I'd ask a very simple question. Can someone with a working 003 simply look to see if there is a blinking light in theirs.
But anyway...
1. There is nothing else connected to the Firewire bus to remove.
2. I have no other Firewire devices or cables to try. I have one PC, one cable, one 003.
3. The computer itself does not detect any device connected to it at all. Nothing. Not an unknown device, or anything what-so-ever.
4. I have already swapped the FW802B chip, as per my first post. That was the first thing I did.

If D9 blinking is an indication that there is a serious problem within the workings of the 003, then swapping cables and hardware and installing drivers(already done) and trying different computers etc would be a waste of time. Thus before I decide the next course of action, I thought I'd try and find out whether or not the blinking LED D( was normal or not.

[Darryl Ramm]

Ugh sorry, I don't know what I was reading but I clearly never read your original post.

I understand now why you are asking, sorry I don't have a 003 to look at for you. Hopefully somebody else will.

You probably know that the Avid authorized repair center in Australian is Technical Workshops http://techshops.com.au I've heard good things about these folks in the past and you never know it may be worth calling them. You might get lucky with somebody willing to help out somebody technical--or they may have a guess if it was not the FW PHY chip what they would likely charge for a repair.

[A.D.D Recording Studio]

No worries Darryl.
My concern was that I could waste hours trying different cables and computers only to eventually find out that a blinking D9 means that the system is dead and there was no point. I thought I'd go down the D9 path first, and then if it turns out D9 is supposed to blink, I'd continue on with the investigation.
Turns out D9 IS supposed to blink.
I also made an error in my other post. The old PC we're currently using with the DIGI-001 and Protools 6.4 (the system we want to replace with this 003 and PT 10) has a Firewire card in it that I bought and fitted weeks ago when this second hand 003 arrived. It did not work and did not detect the 003. Then when this new PC with on-board Firewire arrived and didn't work either, I hit Google.
That's where I learnt about, and subsequently fitted a new FW802B chip. When it still didn't work with the new PC, I registered here to find out about the blinking LED before I went any further.
Well, just thought I'd take your advice and for [bleep][bleep][bleep][bleep]s and giggles try it on the old PC with the Firewire Card.... AND IT DETECTED A NEW DEVICE, A DIGIDESIGN 003RACK. The new chip has worked!!! I just assumed if the new chip had fixed it, it would work with the new PC.
Now I'm going to have a beer and a bit of a sob, before I try and work out why it isn't working with the new PC. And for anyone else going through the same pain, yes I have reset the Firewire port to LEGACY.

[Darryl Ramm]

Well that was a good find, and BTW I also had my wires crossed on drivers, muddled with Mac stuff. The current latest windows 003 driver 9.0.8 does support Pro Tools 10 and 11 in a single driver (the Mac drivers do not).

[albee1952]

FWIW, I have had success using both 003(controller) and 003R on my PT10 system(actually, they both work on PT11 as well), but the trick is to install the correct driver. Its different for 10, 11, AND depending if the 003 is the rack or controller(which means you have to choose from 4 different drivers). Next hurdle is the actual install of the driver, and I would first uninstall if you have installed but its not working. Then, I would run the installer again, but(the big BUT) power OFF the 003(which I would do BEFORE uninstalling a failed driver), and right-click and use the Run as Administrator option. Once its finished, power the 003 ON and with any luck, you will see the Windows message that new hardware was found and new driver was installed. Hope that helps

BTW, regarding using the Legacy driver, for me it does not work. Using the TI Compliant driver is the only option(of the 3 choices) that works here(on 3 different computers)

[Darryl Ramm]

Oh jeez I still have that wrong, looking at the 003 rack not console drivers. Dave, so can you help out with specifics here? Are you saying that the 9.0.6 console driver does not work for Pro Tools 10 and 11? What driver version does he need for a 003 Console and Pro Tools 10 (for Windows 7/8/8.1)?