6.4.1 TDM G4 Tiger

[John_Toolbox]

I seem to remember there being problems with NVIDIA cards from that era. Can't remember the specifics, but I always tried to stick with G4's that had ATI cards.

[Siegfried Meier]

Ya, this one is an ATI, so not sure what is up. I'll swap out another one to see if it fixes it. Only happens through the KVM though, direct connection is good. Definitely not the KVM as it's worked for years, and continues to work on other computers.

OK, so I installed 6.4.1 CS4 this morning, and my non-playing back action is back again. What an effin' piss off. Means I have to reinstall the entire operating system from scratch again, as when I tried to roll back the problem continues to exist. This will only be the 7th time I've done it now.

These old systems are hardly worth even maintaining. Nothing but problems.

[Siegfried Meier]

Ugh. Reinstalled 10.3 with just 6.4 TDM, and the problem still exists...

I'm about to completely lose my mind...something must be defective. The MIX card, the Mac, something is totally screwed.

[Siegfried Meier]

Ok....kinda got it working again. At least I get playback, but now on an audio track I see level...for no reason. No input, no plugs. Bursts of noise of some kind that show up on the track meter as well as the 888 meter. Panning a mono track hard left will still show this level as 1-2 on the 888.

Very weird...and getting weirder by the minute...

[John_Toolbox]

You have a bad 888 or a bad mix card for sure. That is not normal behavior.

[Siegfried Meier]

Yup, this is what I've determined. The 888 was in storage for a few years, but worked wonderfully before then. The MIX core card is new (used), and it's my guess that it's a faulty card, regardless of what Digitest is telling me.

Bummer. So much time wasted...

[Siegfried Meier]

Alright, so I thought I'd try this one last time, and I played a 44.1 WAV file through Quicktime and using Coreaudio. It plays fine...audio output on 1-2 only, but at least it confirms that the 888 is working correctly, yes?

So, with Digitest passing the card, and the 888|16 seemingly working, there must be still something wrong with the Core card, yes? Perhaps when the actual DSP chips become active it all goes south. When I just tried to play audio out of Pro Tools again it was all distorted and messed up. After quitting, going to Quicktime, it played fine again.

Thanks,
Sig

[John_Toolbox]

digitest doesn't necessarily guarantee a card is good. I've seen bad cards pass, and good cards fail(or at least I couldn't find anything wrong with them).

One thing about 888's too is they get hot, especially when audio is passing through them. so it could be that when the 888 get's enough activity that the heat triggers your problem.

If I were to guess though, I'd say it's the card. mdd G4's run hot to begin with, and are notorious for power supply problems. so adding a hot card that puts more strain on the power supply could be enough to mess things up.

[milesofwire]

If that Mix card turns out bad can I have it to try to repair?

raceboat( at )pacbell( dot )net

[kurt]

You are of coarse trashing all digi prefs before any new try?