I/O Cards not found on bootup

[Bruce Graham]

Hey all;

From time to time my d8b doesn't "see" the I/0 cards in any of the slots. I have 3 DIO's (AES Cards) and 1 Analog (in alternate slot).

Shutting down and rebooting seems to fix this.

Any thoughts before I take it apart and give it a bath and a good cleaning?

Thanks & Cheers
Bruce

[FrankH]

Bruce:

Once or twice over the last 15 years, I have bumped into this problem. The solution almost always was to remove the cards, clean the edge connectors and quickly re-seat each about 10-20 times to exercise the contacts on the female connectors. Failing in that, time to re-seat/exercise the ribbon connectors on the cardcage/backplane board.

That should bring 'em back to life.

I've also had this happen with FX cards on occasion. Same fix as above.

I've never encountered a situation where a number of I/O cards were unseen on boot...where a simple reboot brought them back online. FOr me, rebooting resulted with same problem.

I find that a bit odd but not surprising considering how many times I've booted to discover the meter bridge DOA where only a reboot could bring it back.

[Crash]

I have a DIO.8 in slot one that will sometimes show empty for multiple boots from time to time, nothing I do in terms of edge cleaning, excersice works for me. Putting a different card doesn't fix it either so my next step is to get into it and look at the card cage and associated cabling.

I have never heard of a meter bridge being DOA on boot up.

[FrankH]

I have never heard of a meter bridge being DOA on boot up.

Welcome to my world. It does it quite often and has been doing so for years. In a pinch, I'll ignore rebooting because the GUI meters still work.

[Bruce Graham]

Hey Crash & Frank;

Thanks for your thoughts on this.

I also noticed (and forgot to mention), that when the d8b doesn't find the I/O cards none of the meters do not show anything. This, I discovered, when trying to playback through the external sources section. I could hear it but not see it. After a reboot, the cards were found and the external source could be seen in the 2 mix meters and heard.

So..... the next time it didn't find the I/O cards, I fired but my HDR played a tune and none of the meter worked. I could her but not see. Do a reboot and all the little meters jumped as per usual.

Interesting? I'll start by cleaning the whole darn thing! It's time anyway.

Thanks again.

Cheers
Bruce

[salvaes]

Bruce:

Once or twice over the last 15 years, I have bumped into this problem. The solution almost always was to remove the cards, clean the edge connectors and quickly re-seat each about 10-20 times to exercise the contacts on the female connectors. Failing in that, time to re-seat/exercise the ribbon connectors on the cardcage/backplane board.

That should bring 'em back to life.

I've also had this happen with FX cards on occasion. Same fix as above.

I've never encountered a situation where a number of I/O cards were unseen on boot...where a simple reboot brought them back online. FOr me, rebooting resulted with same problem.

I find that a bit odd but not surprising considering how many times I've booted to discover the meter bridge DOA where only a reboot could bring it back.

Ninety percent of the problems of this type are due to dust and dirt, and as mentioned Frankh the best solution is to remove, clean and everything will return to normal

[Y-my-R]

I'm relatively new to this forum, and keep resurrecting old threads I find, as I'm running into the same sort of issues.

I bought two d8b units, and while trying to figure out which one I want to bring back to normal "d8b" duties, and which one I'll turn into a control surface, ran into the same odd issue with both of them, and that is:

- Both d8b's will not recognize the DIO.8 card in the Tape 1-8 slot, most of the time.

...and that happens no matter which of the 6x DIO.8 cards I own, that I put into that slot... and on both d8b's.

I already did the basic stuff that was suggested above before finding this thread (trying different cards, re-seating repeatedly to create a better contact surface... I even used electronics cleaner in the slot the card goes into. Same result.

Until a few days ago, it still worked to just reboot if that card wasn't found - then it usually came back (and I didn't mess around with re-seating the card, etc. up to that point). But since 2 days ago, it never detects the "Tape 1-8" card, no matter how often I shut down and restart... and all the reseating and cleaning of the slot didn't do anything.

I know... as suggested above, the next step is to take the thing apart, clean all the contacts and re-seat the ribbon cables, etc.

Just thought I'd chime in on this thread and say "me too".

I'll report back once I had a chance to do more troubleshooting. I just find it odd, that it's the Tape 1-8 slot that causes problems in both d8b units... but anyway.

If anyone has any other suggestions, it would be much appreciated... otherwise, I'll be taking a deep dive into the innards of this thing some time soon...

[Y-my-R]

...I just popped the d8b open and reseated all the ribbon cables (at least the ones you can reach when taking the bottom lid off), and he problem is still the same. "Empty" is shown for the Tape 1-8 card slot, even though a DIO.8 is in there (no matter which of my 6 Dio.8 cards that work in the other slots).

Since the problem is consistent across my two d8b's, I started wondering what it might be that the units have in common, and that's the same CPU. I only have one fully working CPU, the other one only provides power. Cleaning the 25 sub-D and disconnecting the big fricken power connector also didn't change anything (did that twice, once for troubleshooting, than another time before taking the unit apart).

Not sure what's going on...

[Y-my-R]

OK, I'm sure this is a fluke... but the Dio.8 card is recognized now. If it's reliable will turn out, but here's the only thing I changed (which should not be related, but somehow it works now):

I had trouble syncing to an external source (for now, and M-Audio Octane ADAT preamp). Only the internal sync via the Apogee Clock card would stay locked.

I ordered a BNC "T" piece and a Terminator, to make sure that the Octane's Word Clock Out port is properly terminated (and if not, connecting the Terminator would fix that). This finally arrived today.

So, I connected the T-Piece to the M-Audio Octane's Word Clock Out, the Word Clock cable going to the d8b's Apogee Clock card on one side of the T, and a 75 Ohm Terminator on the other side of the T.

Not only does the d8b now sync to external clock, it also recognized the Tape 1-8 card. Time will tell if this really fixed it, or was just a fluke. Otherwise "Twilight-Zone" style component interaction

[Bruce Graham]

Hey Y-my-R;

Great Avatar!

Since I posted the original post (2015) I have not had an issue.

I have been through several OS upgrades & re-installs since then. No hardware changes (4 x AES, 1 x Analog, 2 x UFX, 2 x MFX), running 5.1 Crack. A beautiful thing!

Here's hoping things continue for you, and welcome to this forum!

Cheers
Bruce