Please Help!! Expansion Chassis Failure.

[Nicolasixxx]

I have a 7 slot, 32 bit Digi expansion chassis (SBS model) with 1 core, 1 accel, 5 process cards and I'm running PT 7.1 on a G5 1.8dp (gen1).

Pro Tools crashed yesterday with a "DAE Error 4". On restart, Pro Tools was unable to find hardware. Also, the 192I/O's have the orange rather than green status ring around the power button when everything is on.

I've put the core card in the G5 in place of the pci host adaptor and Pro Tools sees it fine. I've also taken all the cards except the core card out of the chassis and hooked things up and it's the unable to find and orange ring on the 192's situation.

The fan in the chassis still runs, but it seems like the cards aren't getting any power (shown by the orange rings on the 192's I think).

I've searched the DUC and it seems like chassis failures are very rare.

Any ideas????? Work is piling up over here!

Nic

[Lee Blaske]

I think you'd want to measure the voltage going to the MOBO to see if the power supply is actually delivering the correct voltages. Personally, I'd suspect that the power supply has died.

Power supplies in expansion chassis generally seem to be regular computer power supplies. I don't know if there are particular requirements. Maybe if you did a search, you could find another similar power supply to substitute. You could also try to have it repaired if it's defective.

These days, computer repair generally means throwing out an entire major component, and substituting a new one (a lot cheaper than bench time required to fix something).

I could be mistaken, but I think SBS is out of business, so that could be a dead end. Perhaps someone knows if there's another company that has taken over support for those products. Old links to SBS now seem to go to GE Fanuc. Maybe they've taken over support.

BTW, expansion chassis failure is not that uncommon. Back when I was using an SBS chassis myself, I had to take it in to be fixed twice, and the charge was around $500 each time. Fortunately for me, SBS was located in Mpls./St. Paul where I live, so I could get it over there fast.

[koko]

Hi,

sounds similar to a problem with our MAGMA P7B chassis we had several years ago.
The problem was fixed by meticulously cleaning all contact points on the backplane and cards with isopropyl alcohol and changing the seating order of our MIX DSPs inthe chassis.

Good luck...

[Nicolasixxx]

Lee,

When your chassis ps failed did the fan continue to work? Mine does. The orange ring on the 192 suggests to me no power to the cards, but I'm not positive that is the case. And I've spoken with someone else whose power supply died and, unlike mine, their fan stopped operating.

Given the symptoms is it possible that this is somehow software or firmware related? I want to rule out any easier fixes!!!

Nic