HDX card not recognised - repair fee?

[jacko]

Originally Posted by Hugh-H

Hello,
Two separate occasions a PT update ruined some of our HDX cards. The last occasion Avid wouldn't replace them, I paid the exchange fee of approximately $1800 ($900 per card), and they sent replacements in a day or two with 30 days to return our broken cards.
That was in the US, not sure about Poland.
Hugh

Wow, I didn't realise an update could break an HDX card.
I'm wondering what had happened to mine. Still waiting for the information from Avid.

I'll probably have to pay for the repair despite the card being 8 months old. It has been bought from a liquidated company and they won't provide the original purchase invoice which is required for a warranty repair.

[Peter Duemmler]

Have you tried this?

https://avid.secure.force.com/pkb/ar...t-HDX-firmware

[jacko]

Originally Posted by Peter Duemmler

Have you tried this?

https://avid.secure.force.com/pkb/ar...t-HDX-firmware

I have. That didn't work, there was no prompt for firmware update from Pro Tools. The card was sent to Avid service at the end of November. I'm waiting for the diagnosis.

[YYR123]

Ireland?

[jacko]

Originally Posted by YYR123

Ireland?

I assume it would be in Ireland by now. I was instructed to send it to a local Avid distributor and I believe they send it to Ireland.

[jacko]

I have finally received a repair/replacement quote: $1371 including VAT which is very close to a second hand price of an HDX card on eBay.

I'm thinking now that I could sell the card for spare / repairs. Is there any third party service that might be interested in purchasing my HDX card?

[jacko]

I think I should warn people that purchasing second hand cards is risky when they fail. Although it's fairly simple to transfer the ownership of a card, it can be very difficult to proceed with a repair. It's not a simple "hey, I've got a card that needs to be fixed" > "sure, send it to us, we'll charge you $$$ and you will get your/replacement card in x days". I opened my support ticket back in November asking how I could proceed with a repair. I've received many different, sometimes contradicting bits of information, from a possible warranty repair which this card supposedly might have been still under, to almost $1400 through local repair centre. I've been contacted by a nice person over the phone but no matter how nice they are they need to follow some complicated procedures which unnecessarily prolong the whole process. I'm hoping this eventually will go as planned after a few months and the card will be fixed. But if it ever fails again after I finally decide to put my trust into it to become my main mixing system, I will look at eBay first before I open another support ticket. I think that if I stick to HDX with my mixing, I'm gonna have to invest in a spare used card.

If you do decide to purchase a second hand HDX card, make sure you receive original purchase invoice, as the lack of it is the cause of this huge delay.

Coming back to my case: After receiving this huge bill of around $1371 in local currency, I was offered the option of doing it through Avid directly for the initially suggested $850. Now I wait, apparently it takes very long for a certain department to prepare an invoice. Once I pay I might finally get a working card, after a few months of trouble.

[jacko]

Yesterday Avid CS told me to retrieve the card from their representative distributor / service provider and then send it to the service in Ireland. Funny. I remember I wanted to send the card to Ireland back in November and I was told not to do that.
We're entering third month since I requested the repair. Plenty of misinformation from Avid. I sent the card where I was instructed to send it to on 3rd of December and I started my support ticket requesting the repair in the first half of November 2018.

[Hugh-H]

Hello,

Yes, PT updates can break HDX cards, it's happened twice to us, total of 4 HDX cards. If there is a firmware update it can fail and brick the card.

FYI for troubleshooting HDX cards - Avid will recommend resetting your HDX firmware and there are instructions for it. Of course we did that. As part of the process the HDX card must remain powered while the computer is restarted. Unfortunately there is NO CURRENTLY SOLD MAC COMBINATION that will allow that. The thunderbolt expansion chassis' available, Sonnet and Magma, both power down when the computer is restarted so the slot powers down, so no firmware reset is possible. A problem Avid does not accept when troubleshooting your HDX failure.

I was able to dig out an ancient Magma 1-slot half-length chassis that stays powered up, remove the enclosure to fit the full-length HDX card, attach an external 12v supply for the aux power connector, and perform the firmware reset Avid wanted. It looked scary but worked. Didn't fix the HDX issue of course.

So, if Avid asks you to reset the firmware make sure you're able.

Hugh

[jacko]

In case the card fails again I'm not sure what I am going to do.
I think when they finally fix the card I will put it for sale.

I can't keep something that is easily prone to failure and impossible to repair.
My HD6 Accel in Magma is as old as dinosaurs and it's absolutely rock solid.

If failed HDX card is causing some major trouble with service (I mean, take a look when I started this thread), I think I will move to a native domain with Apogee or Focusrite Thunderbolt solutions.

If I heard my story from someone else, I would never believe it.

PS.: I started studying Reaper... They're getting there with the automation features and some stuff is actually better than it is in Pro Tools.