HDR issues- new guy- keyboard stops working

[keny]

Hello!
Super glad to see this forum and see its still active, because I've got questions!

I have a 2003 (i believe) D8B and HDR and recently revived it trying to start recording an album. 3 songs in and I get "track write error-playback engine stopped." After reading stuff for days (about the battery and BIOS) I'm thinking my internal disc is actually full and that was causing the error.

Anyhow, after reading several tips on here, I replaced the battery and of course immediately ran into the system 43 error. After my panic and thinking I lost all my tracks, I found bios settings and went in and saw that my HDR was trying to find the startup disc. Once i switched that setting, my stuff came back-hoorah! I still was getting the track write error so I erased some stuff to presumably make space and there it was... I was able to record a track more than 3 seconds without it shutting off.

BUT.... now im having a different problem: When playing back a track, normally you can use either the space bar or mouse to start/stop playback, but now, after its about 45 seconds or more into the song, all of a sudden the space bar/mouse or even the buttons on the front of the HDR wont work! it starts out fine but then i basically have to shut the machine off to get it to stop, as it will just keep playing ad infinitum otherwise!
Obviously I cant record or mix or anything with it like this.

Is there a BIOS setting I'm missing? I also noticed that the printout that i have for BIOS doesnt exactly match whats inside my box. theres a couple settings there that arent on the printout/vice versa irl.

My HDR serial is (21) CD12202

can anyone point me to which version of bios?

Sorry I am new to this thing even though ive had it a while now (used) and while I'm great at recording I suck with computers...badly...
Ps, again, the keyboard works at first, ive changed the battery, and also the transport section (4 track style buttons on far right of the D8B) dont work on mine (the word clock there isnt synced and buttons are presumeably broke, so I have to use the HDT mouse for control. but its worked fine until now)\

Thanks!

[keny]

I’ve looked up that i do have the new motherboard, but looking inside my machine, the setting parameters don’t exacrly match the bios settings i can find.

It’s almost like my keyboard goes to sleep mode. If i keep stopping and starting the track with the space bar or mouse, it does fine. If i let it play without touching it for about a minute or more, suddenly the keyboard and mouse will not work anymore and i have to physically press the power button off or it’ll go on all night. Does this on any file, doesn’t matter which.
Any suggestions?

[Y-my-R]

If "only" the keyboard and mouse stop working, or if the buttons on the front of the HDR also stop working, sound like two completely different potential problems.

Can you confirm that the buttons on the front of the HDR work at first, but stop working along with the keyboard and mouse? If so, then it looks more like the entire HDR locks up, rather than just losing connection to keyboard and mouse.

First, I'd make A LOT more space on that internal harddrive, to see if the problem still happens. It could be as simple as there not being enough HD space for regular Operating System operations.

If that doesn't fix it, you have to figure out which mainboard you have, so you can see the right BIOS settings and set them appropriately.
You say it's the newer board, but the settings don't match... what brought you to the conclusion that it's the newer board?

Besides, my understanding is that there are two different motherboards for the D8B, but only one board for the HDR. But I might be wrong here. Is it possible that you looked at the BIOS settings for the newer D8B board, trying to apply them to the HDR?
These boards are different from my understanding, so I don't think it works that way.

I'd compare pictures in the database, to see where the components on your mainboard are, compared to what is pictured for the HDR.
Or just take pics of the board and share them here, if you're uncertain.

...but then again - IF there's two versions of the motherboard for the HDR as well (I don't think so, but I'm not sure) - could you look at the BIOS settings for one, and if they don't match, look at the BIOS settings for the other? Honestly, I'm also not sure if the BIOS settings for the HDR are listed in the Database - bus sounded like you found something.

To get back to the problem - of course it's important to make the correct settings in the BIOS... but I'm not sure if the wrong settings would cause the whole HDR to boot, but then lock up.

Is there anything else visibly wrong? For example, is the CPU fan maybe not attached the way it should be? Or, for example, have you maybe taken the heatsink off and put it back on without cleaning it and putting new thermal grease between the processor and heatsink? If so, it's possible that the processor overheats after a few minutes and then locks up.

Anyway... the above is what I'd do first, to try to isolate the problem.

Best of luck!

[Y-my-R]

I had a few minutes, so I thought I'd take pics of the BIOS settings in my HDR.

I don't think I ever compared them to the officially approved settings - but at least my HDR doesn't lock up, and usually runs for hours without issues. That's even though I get a Latency Timer should be "2" message on bootup, and I meant to turn off the endless memory check that happens on bootup, too. Both would be signs that my settings are likely just "auto-settings".

But again - it doesn't lock up and works fine. So, if you set yours to what is shown in the screenshots, then the BIOS settings should at least not be the cause for the issues with your HDR.

Do you at least see the same kinds of settings in your HDR? If not, you probably really have a different mainboard in yours, or at least a different BIOS version.

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The forum only allowed 5 pics in total per post. Will post the 6th and last in a moment.

[Y-my-R]

...and here's the 6th and last pic of my HDR BIOS settings, that appear to work without crashing the unit (or losing the keyboard and mouse).

I hope this helps.

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[keny]

first, thanks so much! Im at work and will check this stuff when i get home today. As far as the bios settings, yes these look like mine. what I'm talking about that is different from the stuff ive printed off from online is in the second photo, for example, the "GATE a-20" is ON my machine, as it is yours, but that particular line isnt in the specs ive seen. there are a few others in the different page settings that have different lines as well... was confusing.

to be clearer, the buttons ON the HDR lock up too, along with the mouse and keyboard. last night it even did the opposite: after id walked away for a few minutes, it was stuck NOT playing... track was like 5 or 6 minutes in and same stuff, you couldnt start it again.

Mind you, NONE of this was happening until a few days ago when i changed the HDR 2032 battery. when rebooted i go the dreaded 43 error. then i got into this bios stuf and changed some settings, one of which was the one where it was trying to find the bootup disc (that i do not have). when i switched that setting it all came back, but with this problem with the keyboard and mouse (i know its not either because ive switched them with spares i have-same result).
one thing i HAVE discovered is that i was painfully short on disc space.. i keep the unit on the ground and didnt see that it said id had less than 12 minutes remaining. Honestly i think thats why i was getting the tracking errors in the first place, just didnt realize it. I own a bunch of external drives with all sorts of bands my old studio guy had recorded. i tried one of those last night and it does the same thing. I also tried putting in a RAM card with 1 gig and it didnt like that at all (it had two 256 meg cards in it), and wouldnt reboot. hopefully I'll have more luck tonight.
I'm definitely going to try clearing some more space on it today.

[keny]

also to clarify, I found somewhere online that told you how to see which motherboard you have, and this is definitely the HDR bios btw (my D8B console works same as it always has-crackly faders and all).

the newer motherboard has the big old orange square chip in it, as did the picture i found, and thats what mine is. I didnt disconnect or touch anything besides the battery, and yesterday take the ram cards out and back in.

imma go through all the bios settings again tonight and punch in what your pictures show. aside from the two different versions i'd found online (which were MOSTLY the same, just either missing a line compared to mine, or adding a line mine didnt have etc), yours looks identical to what i have, at least the first two pics.

[keny]

So far so good! Thanks for the bios pics. Yes, that is exactly what mine looks like! I followed your advice and cleaned off a bunch of files, and after the reset it seems to be back to life. I think it’s 2003 old ass couldn’t keep up, with its 256 meg RAM, is probably what set it off in the first place.

I recorded a few minutes of drums last night and it didn’t lock up finally! Thanks again man.

[Y-my-R]

Glad to hear things are looking good now - at least after recording for a few minutes.

I wish you continued luck and success with your D8B and HDR!

Btw., making the HDR and D8B sync up in a way, where you can use the transport controls on the D8B, and even the REC/RDY buttons, doesn't require any additional hardware than what you already have... as long as both units still have their 9-Pin to 2xMIDI Adapters, and you have two MIDI cables to connect them both (Out to In, In to Out).

I don't recall if they usually just find each other, or if you have to make some "SMPTE Sync" settings (note that this is different/separate from Word Clock Sync). But if you connected the MIDI cables between the units and the transport buttons on the D8B don't start working magically, just report back. This should be simple enough to figure out.

I don't remember if you said that you're audio connections between the D8B and HDR are digital, or analog. If they're digital, then it's actually quite important to get the "Word Clock Sync" set up right. You might not notice right away, but not doing this might cause occasional digital clicks that can ruin your takes while recording.

There's an option to re-sample incoming digital audio, which could resolve this... but that makes the audio quality a bit worse (but not immediately noticeable, unless you got golden ears). So, it makes more sense to get the digital Master/Slave clocking right between the D8B and HDR, if you're connecting them digitally.

If there are only analog connections between the D8B and HDR, then you don't have to worry about that, though.

Alright - again, good luck, have fun with these units, and post again if you need additional help to get the transport buttons working (SMPTE/MIDI-Clock Sync), or the digital sync set up correctly (Word Clock Sync).

[keny]

Yeah actually i believe the transport buttons on the D8B are just broken on their own. I got this unit from my old studio guy who just told me “these don’t work anymore, but you can just use the controls on the hdr mouse.”

I think they just got beat on over hundreds of sessions, so there’s probably a broken solder or something. I’ve never had the D8B apart to see but maybe now i will. I have the midi Y cables and all attached, and I’m sure it COULD be repaired if i knew how, because everything is.
I actually contacted the old mackie guys a few years ago who said they still had a pretty good stockpile of parts and the labor knowledge, but I’d have to ship it to Seattle from Colorado so i never pulled the trigger. I got this untie for 600 bucks so i didn’t wanna spend ya know, another 200 to ship plus who knows how much repair cost. So i just used it as is. It does do some clicking but not usually when I’m tracking, just moving a fader.
It’s other issues are the common broken talk back button, and channels one and two have an issue. You can use them, you can arm them, you can record to whatever track channel from them, but basically the faders don’t do anything. Like you can’t mix with them at all, the tracks are whatever input vol yiu recorded then at and not adjustable, unless you move the files to a different fader. It’s weird. I’ll use them as hot inputs though, for like kick and snare, since there’s only 12 XLR inputs at a time, and then just move the files somewhere else to mix them.
I may rip the thing open at some point and see what i can repair, now that I’m getting into using it more. For now i just wanna make a demo lol.
The problem of course is it’s all so outdated that not a lot of people are going to bother with it or have parts anymore. This forum gives me hope though!
I am fairly used to and like how the thing works though!!

My main trouble is figuring out the aux/and effects and getting those effects onto a track! Still confuses me but I’ve done it a few times. I have an analog outboard processor that i can get going through aux and effects return. the internal effects still challenge my pea brain though.