Magma Expressbox7 EB7 Which one? Gen I or II

[Howardk]

used to have a ton of unexplainable, intermittent Kernel Panics when running HD7. The crux was that all cards alwyas passed DigiTest which only tests the funcionality of all the chips. However, problems started arising when the chips were under load as they draw considerably more power then.

Because of the way each mix is evolving different chips on different cards will be allocated even if you are failry consitent as far as track count/voice allocation and plug-in usage is concerned. That means erratic behaviour is very difficult to pinpoint. A bad PSU can screw things up in more ways than one so if you buy a chassis and start having issues this should be your fisrt port of call.

I recently spent some long and very painful hours troubleshooting my system until a member on this forum pointed me towards the PSU as a possible cause (I should use this opportunity to thank Bob Nagy again for doing so).

Just added more HD PCIe cards to my Digidesign EB7. I had 4 cards and now I have 7. I did have one crash, but did work for a couple hours. I am wondering if the Power Supply limitation is the issue, and if so it is no brainer to upgrade the supply, or is it a fringe issue?

It is put together and in a rack at the moment, but it seems it is a standard ATX power supply? Curious what size repleacement Power supply would right for 7 HD PCIe cards, a 750Watt like this, or? Wondering the HD cards use more 12VDC or 3.3VDC, because it seems these larger repalcement supplies have less 3.3VDC Amperage than the original Magma 550Watt Supplies?

I did a bunch of searching/googling, and could not find the current draw spec for the HD Core/Accel cards. A link to that data, at full load, would be great.

Hoping someone has been thru these details. Thanks in advance!

[fm_xtk]

Originally Posted by Howardk

Just added more HD PCIe cards to my Digidesign EB7. I had 4 cards and now I have 7. I did have one crash, but did work for a couple hours. I am wondering if the Power Supply limitation is the issue, and if so it is no brainer to upgrade the supply, or is it a fringe issue?

It is put together and in a rack at the moment, but it seems it is a standard ATX power supply? Curious what size repleacement Power supply would right for 7 HD PCIe cards, a 750Watt like this, or? Wondering the HD cards use more 12VDC or 3.3VDC, because it seems these larger repalcement supplies have less 3.3VDC Amperage than the original Magma 550Watt Supplies?

I did a bunch of searching/googling, and could not find the current draw spec for the HD Core/Accel cards. A link to that data, at full load, would be great.

Hoping someone has been thru these details. Thanks in advance!

I never managed to find out the current draw of the Accel cards but the PSU I ended up using a replacement was a Corsair 850W. I only bought that one because it was the only one in stock in my local shop at the time. The one you linked to is 750W which should be fine, too. A regular ATX will fit nicely so you will have no problems there.

I also replaced the stock fan with a BeQuiet! SilentWings and the difference was phenomenal.

I hope this resolves your stability issues. What computer are you running?

Enjoy your chassis - it's amazing how quickly you will take HD7 for granted. I am now running a HD2 alongside mine...

[Howardk]

I never managed to find out the current draw of the Accel cards

I did a lot of searching and could not come up with the spec either. I have an inquiry in thru the back door at Avid, hopefully they will come up with the current draw spec for these cards, and if so I will post the information.

What computer are you running?

2010 Mac Pro 2.66 12 Core 24GB RAM OS X 10.8.5 Pro Tools 10.3.10
I see you are running OS X 10.9.5, which I presume you know is not supported Supported List, any issues other than the uninstall? I worry about all the 3rd party things, such as Native Instruments, Celemony/Melodyne, Universal Audio Quad, etc. . .

[Howardk]

Ok, now running HD 7 in my Digidesign Express Box 7 chassis. I could not find a spec, but since all the power supplies I looked at (from 500W-1000w) all have about the same current rating @ 3.3VDC, I assumed the HD Cards draw most of their power from the 12VDC rail, like a PCIe Video card, so I upgraded the supply to this 850W power supply.

After that, worked last night for a couple hours, no problems. Came back today and Pro Tools crashed 3 time in a row on loading session, even after complete power cycles on everything. The 4th time was a charm. I did keep all the crash threads, but they are not readable to my inexperienced eye. Worked on a mix for an hour after that without any problems. . . Hope this is not going to be a continuous problem. Thoughts?

[fm_xtk]

Originally Posted by Howardk

Ok, now running HD 7 in my Digidesign Express Box 7 chassis. I could not find a spec, but since all the power supplies I looked at (from 500W-1000w) all have about the same current rating @ 3.3VDC, I assumed the HD Cards draw most of their power from the 12VDC rail, like a PCIe Video card, so I upgraded the supply to this 850W power supply.

After that, worked last night for a couple hours, no problems. Came back today and Pro Tools crashed 3 time in a row on loading session, even after complete power cycles on everything. The 4th time was a charm. I did keep all the crash threads, but they are not readable to my inexperienced eye. Worked on a mix for an hour after that without any problems. . . Hope this is not going to be a continuous problem. Thoughts?

I would say keep an eye on plug-in cache. Most people turn it off completely but I tend to leave it on if I am pulling up sessions with (near) identical plug-in assignments. I have experiences regular crashes when switching from one large project to another (maybe even at a different sample rate) and Pro Tools can't handle figuring out which plug-ins should remain or which plug-ins should go where - exacerbated by the fact that Accel cards have different kinds of chips in them.

WHich version of Pro Tools are you running? I have recently upgraded to 10.3.10 but am finding it less stable compared to 10.3.8 so will be rolling back at the next opportunity.

[Sajin7]

I know this is like a year later and Avid has moved on however I can get an EB7 for a Native system I am considering also there will be external graphics cards involved. Is this still a good purchase. I will be running Ultimate at some point but Natively PCIe card. Is this possible?`

[fm_xtk]

Not sure I understand the need for a chassis when all you want to put in it is a single HDN card?