Updating older chassis with magma board set PE6NE (PE6R4)

[crizdee]

Hi,

Anyone done the update of an older chassis with one of the Magma board sets.. http://www.magma.com/products/board-sets/

$1500 gets the pe6ne turning your old chassis into the latest PE6R4.
I'm thinking of doing this? any problems.

Chris

[HearInc]

Originally Posted by crizdee

Hi,

Anyone done the update of an older chassis with one of the Magma board sets.. http://www.magma.com/products/board-sets/

$1500 gets the pe6ne turning your old chassis into the latest PE6R4.
I'm thinking of doing this? any problems.

Chris

I looked at that, and called Magma, but my case is so old that it would require a new back of the box and redrilling the holes, and a bigger power supply. So, not worth it for me. If your old one is relatively recent, you can probably do it without much trouble. They'll tell you at Magma to be sure you've got a 400W power supply, but don't buy theirs... it's like $250... I saw them for $35 elsewhere.

[Galahad]

I've been wondering about this myself, from what I can gather you can put one of these in an ATX case (it doesn't have to be a Magma case). I was thinking of getting either the PCI4NE or the PE6NE, which would be a much cheaper solution than buying a ready made magma system. For a 4 slot I figure it would be $799 for the board, $100 for the case and $50 for a PS. I just would like to know if anyone has one working (4 or 6 slot).

Cheers

Alan

[HearInc]

Originally Posted by Galahad

I've been wondering about this myself, from what I can gather you can put one of these in an ATX case (it doesn't have to be a Magma case). I was thinking of getting either the PCI4NE or the PE6NE, which would be a much cheaper solution than buying a ready made magma system. For a 4 slot I figure it would be $799 for the board, $100 for the case and $50 for a PS. I just would like to know if anyone has one working (4 or 6 slot).

Cheers

Alan

As I understand it, the only one that's qualified to work is the one in this box. Here's the backplane on it's own. I guess for HD you need the Low Latency version. I've read about guys that have other ones working, but it sounds like there are track limitations that are under normal Digi specs.

[Lizardpoint]

Hi Chris,

I've got the Digi Ethernet expansion currently but ordered the Magma Board set from the US (When the exchange rate was alot better than it is now)

I got an old Magma chassis (Hopefully the Digi 6 slot chassis will work with PT8 even if its not qualified and I can sell it to get some money back - It cost me almost £2K less than 2 years ago !!!!)

I stripped out the board from the old magma chassis and hit my first of many problems:

1. the old PSU is AT while the new board requires an ATX psu.

2. Only 3 of the 8 backplane mounting holes line up, so you'll have to get busy with a drill to put the extra support pillars in the right place.

3. The rear panel of the old chassiswill need to be cut away as the super high speed connector fouls against it and the backplane wont fit.

I've put it all in the "Too difficult pile" for the time being.

I suspect that a standard ATX PC case might be a better option so will look into that next

And even if I do get it working and complete the planned update to Leopard and PT8 there's more misert in store...

Rumours of losing a processor with RTAS plugins,

Some of my fave plugins not leopard and/or PT8 friendly

Oh well, I suppose it keeps me off the streets....

I'll let you know ho I get on.

Lizardpoint

[crizdee]

Originally Posted by Lizardpoint

Hi Chris,

I've got the Digi Ethernet expansion currently but ordered the Magma Board set from the US (When the exchange rate was alot better than it is now)

Lizardpoint

Hi,

I have just installed PT8 on a MacPro 8-core Harpertown and the Digi expansion HD/6 ethernet chassis. core/accel/accel/process

Its a bit too early to give an exact report of how things are running! But..

At 96K i can only get 96 voices (I though an expansion chassis was needed to get bigger track counts? well according to the expanded systems guide

RTAS seems only a bit better than my G5 dual 2 gig

Autotune EVO RTAS is crash city AT4 RTAS on PPC PT8 never crashed and i could get about 40

Only loss of plugins so far for me... SSL LMC. maybe Trilogy but i'm going to try their intel wrapper?

Cost of upgrading plugs about £700 for me Autotune/Mach Five/ URS MP5/Sonnox/Soundtoys

If you want to sell your Magma board set let me know

Chris

[Mixchump]

Hi There,

I ordered a PE6-NE board upgrade set and installed it into an older chassis that also had the incorrect PSU. I just grabbed a nice silent PSU from the local computer hardware supplier, and everything was fine after that.

I did have to drill a few holes in the case to re-locate some standoffs, and of course took the tin-snips to the back of the case to make room for the iPass connector... Seriously no big deal.

If you have a newer chassis, or any ATX computer case, you're in business.

So far, it's been working flawlessly for me, and no performance hits that I can detect. Even though this board is much lower-latency than my old Digidesign 64-Bit chassis (PCI to PCI), I've left the hardware buffer at 1024 just because it doesn't matter to me either way...

TONS of RTAS horsepower with the Harpertown 8-core, and things are much less crash-prone than the G5 Dual 2G ever was.

Just for clarification here. The motherboard inside a PE6-R4 chassis IS a PE6-NE. The only difference is that you're not getting the case and PSU. That's it. No magic.

Anyhow, working great here. EVO is solid here. Hmmmm. I have to say, I do shy away from the TDM version because I feel like I can hear a lot more tuning artefacts than the RTAS version...

As far as voice count goes, I always thought that 96 was the max at 88.2/96k, and 192 was the max at 44.1/48k. I've got HD6 running here. HD-Core, and 5 Accell cards. All slots used. ROCKS!

Anyhow, that's what I can tell you at this point!

Cheers, eh?

[Studiocube]

Hi,
I'm about to build my expansion rack with a PE6NE kit.
Which PSU should i buy to manage the PE6ne motherboard ? I can't find atx psu with 2 atx 20 pin connectors ...
If someone could advise me would be cool !

[crizdee]

Originally Posted by Studiocube

Hi,
I'm about to build my expansion rack with a PE6NE kit.
Which PSU should i buy to manage the PE6ne motherboard ? I can't find atx psu with 2 atx 20 pin connectors ...
If someone could advise me would be cool !

Hi,

You only have to use one of the atx power connections on the board!

On the pe6r4 the atx socket nearest to the back of the chassis is NOT used.

Read this thread it has all you need to know in it...


http://duc.digidesign.com/showthread...ht=magma+pe6r4

Chris

[summit01]

I did the upgrade... the problem is the back panel- there are no holes. Either you have to drill them or glue the back panel. Same with the power supply. Btw. you have to buy an extra 450W supply, since the old supply is 350W, I think. I fried my old one...