"communication errors" with multiple scope boards..

[RP_001]

In addition to my post about major problems with feedback / crackling using 3x scope boards... (http://www.planetz.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=25836)

Fortunately the feedback and the crackling problems are over finally. Also, my PCM91 is working great using the AES/EBU IO, i guess using the IO's on the "Main board" solved the crackling of my synths. I also put my 3 scope cards in the middle pci slots, and some changing of the board-id's in the cset.ini solved also the very annoying feedback.

The only problem i have right now are the " communication errors " with board 2 (which is my latest installed scope pro type II card). At asks to reload dsp's and if i press OK, CPU increases to 100% , and it nevers stops loading. If i quit scope using taskbar, it crashes, and i have to reboot my pc. No matter what sequence i use in the cset.ini file, it always points out to this board...

So, i took this board alone, and did a fresh scope install, and copy my backup on top of this. However, when i use it "stand-alone", no problems occur whatsoever. I can load all devices till dsp meter shows red. When i connect another scope board(s), it shows these " communication error " randomly. Sometimes when increasing/decreasing poly, or changing presets, or sometimes loading the project. This is the 3rd board in my sequence. When i create a project with 45 dsp's, problems occur when dsp meter is around 2/3 , where my 3rd scope card begins.... Mostly not immediately, but after restarting the project, or adding other devices.

The other scope boards work great together, but this one only likes to play alone

I already did a few "re-seating" of the cards, and cleaned the gold plates thoroughly with deoxit 5, so im pretty sure this is not the problem. Cleaned/changed my STDM cables. I think i also did most of the known tweaks, like irq sharing/ usb off / bios tweaks / cset.ini edits.....

Only thing i can think of right now is changing to the original IO plate of this board ( replaced the original classic to a AES/EBU ) , and see if this makes any difference. Otherwise a hardware failure maybe??

Anyone having any experience like this?? What number of STDM's is recommended, and to which connections??

Any ideas are welcome

Cheers!!

[garyb]

only 1 s/tdm is required. more may or may not improve performance, depending on the devices used. use the connector closest to the i/o first.

try reseating the i/o plates on all cards.

after that, it may be Ralf's domain...

[luigicampala]

http://www.planetz.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=25580

maybe that thread can help you.
I had similar problems and after cleaning the i/o plates and applying the stabilant on the contacts evrything is running fine.
Good luck!

[RP_001]

Thanks! I already noticed that post...

I was about to to detach my suspect's IO daughterboard, when i noticed that when i removed the plastic protection plate, i could tighten up plastic screws, which seemed to be a little loose.... After that i attached only one STDM cable, and i havent got a "communication error" since then.. I could also quit scope using taskbar, without the system crashing..

Today will tell if it got any better, or else i will still remove the io daughterplate..

Greetz

[RP_001]

Still no succes

I removed all the IO plates and cleaned them all. I noticed that on my newest card a little piece of gold is scratched off the 1st golden stdm connector on the card. That could be an explanation for the "communication lost with board 2 " off course...

Strange thing is that when i use only 1 stdm connector, no communication errors occur, but only with multiple stdm's connected. However when i use only one, i get these "no dsp placement found", and asks to optimize my project, mostly several times.

Im afraid i'll have to send it for repair, as i tried everything i could think of.. Does something exist to repair this myself?? Something to put on a layer of gold to the connector??

cheers!

[dawman]

I was cabled up with the max STDM's and prefer the single cable.
You will see the No Placement Found and they are painfully slow, but once optimized it should run really smooth.
When mixing together Type I's & II's all cabled up, I noticed it the most.
Is your AES/EBU card any trouble?

[RP_001]

Hey Jimmy!

All my cards are AES/EBU

The one causing troubles isnt the one i bought from you though..

I dont have any errors/crashing when using only one stdm cable, only the annoying loading times and optimalizations.. More stdm connectors improve loading time, but also give the "communication lost with board 2"

Strange thing though is that the part where a little bit of the gold plate is scratched off, is on the first gold connector, and when i use only one stdm cable on this connector, no communication is lost whatsoever When i load devices or increase polyphony it asks for optimalization or gives a "unexpected dsp overload" error, even when my dsp meter hasnt reached it's maximum. Waiting for a long time solves this most of the time. Only when using 2 or more stdm cables, real problems start....

Every combination of 2 scope cards work great so far (using 1 stdm cable). I made 2 versions of my project. One with zero or 1 voice poly, and one with very high poly. When using 2 cards only, i can load my HiPoly project without any problems, till the dsp meter shows almost the maximum.

Devices used; Solaris/Prowave demo/Prodyssey/Minimax/BB2 devices/FPmixers

Before i send it back for repair (if it's a hardware failure) , i want to make sure i did everything possible to solve my problem...

So any ideas what the ideal situation is for loading a project? Save it with very low poly and then increasing it after it's loaded?? Also, is there any relation between these error's and the sync/async in the dsp meter??

I dream of the day everything runs smoothly again

Greetz!

[dawman]

The Bowen synths are quite extreme as far as parameter counts go.
I had similar troubles but once I replace the Type I card and used less cables, my troubles ceased.

Funny, the DAW that has had the best satbility w/ zero troubles, is the 1st DAW I bought w/ 3 x Type I's from 1999 !!
I used it on my last road gig 4 years ago, and decided to buy it.
It can load tons of plugs and tracks of audio and live instruments. It tends to choke on high synth poly though, but it has never really been used for that.
It's a live recording rig, and custom PA using the DAS mixer w/ 6 x AUX's fpr wireless ear monitors.
Type II's seem better suited for giant synth projects from my experience.
I hope you get it working the way you need it to, as you have some serious weapons.

I bet you like the PCM91 'eh?
3 x Scope Pro's, Bowen synths, and a Lexicon is one powerful rig.
I can only say from years of live work with these cards, is that once it becomes stable and runs, that's it. You want have intermintent troubles, etc. Just one awesome rig.

Good Luck.

[dawman]

True.
I have many presets just using CEM's for basic synths that allow high voice counts, but Solaris still has a large footprint of over 900 parameters.
I am sure all of us Solaris and QWave owners are happy about that too.

[Fluxpod]

E-mail ralf.He was super helpfull with my srb 0001 error of doom and it sounds like something strange in your case aswell.

[RP_001]

Im pretty sure that all of my 3 cards are type II.

Two of them have Production date of 2000. The other one from 2006. I scared a bit when i first saw them as i knew most cards before 2001 were type 1. However i used them both standalone, and i was able to run latency up to 3ms. I didnt have any significant PCI problems either... Or there must be some difference in both types which i didnt heard of so far..

Using only 1 stdm cable is not really an option. With 3 cards connected the time loading and optimizing just takes too long. More stdm's result in communication errors randomly. Sometimes i can work for some hours, as long as i dont change presets and change devices too much...

Space F told me he heard of someone using a syncplate together with a A16 or other ADDA converter that this might solve such problems. Anyone ever heard of this??

I will also mail Ralph if he has some other suggestions

Cheers!

[dawman]

SpaceF's advice is as good as Gold IMO.
If he's helping you, there's few who have the hours on Scope boards that he does.

[RP_001]

I cleaned all gold connectors and io's with deoxit. Also changed stdm cables

[mcm060769]

Hi,

I have maybe the same issue. Three pulsar II boards, connected with two STDM harnesses and randomly connection errors and nearly every time I try to quit scope application (before I want to shut down my Pc) the PC freezes (crash).
It's so frustrating but does anybody have news in this issue ?

Michael

[mcm060769]

sure, sporadic issues are the best
and you are right. I cleaned the contacts several times, I changes the cables, I assambled new ones, I reinstalled the complete scope system, I wasted the complete PC and used the components based on recommendations in this forum..... it seems to will be a never ending story

I tried the fix to use only one stdm harness instead of two but after that I got so many more dsp reorganisation issues that I cannot say if it hides the basic issue or if it was fixed.

Is there anybody who has an idea to try additionally ? Is it maybe a side effect of the software ?

[fidox]

in my case,
i changed motherboard cause of problems running 3 cards, i still have that motherboard , but just Luna II installed, so no problems with that,
i had problems running 3 cards, even the chipset is the same, cpu slot, almost identical, just other company and problems gonne away,

I had problems with Asus P4C800Deluxe and Intel 865PERL (don't have it anymore), running 3 cards (2 x Pulsar XTC and Luna II), tried everything possible,
after using Scope platform with Cubase, sequencer soon stops and everything freezes, sometimes blue screen appears when using with Modular in Scope,
i guess i had luck, cause then i bought another motherboard Abit IC7 (the same chipset like Asus) and after then works really nice,

i do have that computer with 3 cards just for making music, no internet connection (cards), a lot of services disabled, no other cards installed, really raw setup,
Winxp, Standard PC mode, every card on different IRQ, Scope 4.5 ...

i'm sure every setup is different and my problems could or could not help to other users, but like i said, other motherboard makes my music setup very solid, so i can
make music and not repairing windows and similar


sometimes i get error messages like DSP optimization or similar, but that only happens if i add large modules into scope project and depends which ones, but after doing optimization or just restaring Scope helps and i can load modules in DSP meter to the end ...






matej

[RP_001]

@mcm060769

Is it only causing trouble when using 3 cards?? Have you tried any combination of two cards??

I had trouble using 3x scope pro's. Right now im using 2x scope pro and 1x pulsar II xtc, and everything runs smoothly. No problems whatsoever (except for some reloading of dsp's sometimes, but no freezing and/or bluescreens/rebooting)

I will send my other scope pro for repair in a few weeks, although im still not sure if it's really broken... I know it's very frustrating... Ive been configuring my scope/pc for 2.5 months till i found using 2x scope/1x pulsarII "solved" my problems??

What pc specs?? mobo/processor??

[mcm060769]

@fldox
I started years ago with a pulsar 4 dsp. Later I wanted to expand the power of the system and bought an additional 6 dsp card. Communication problems started with this configuration in 2004 and I read forums, asked the creamware support and so on and everything they said was: check your/change your cable harnesses and clean up the contacts of the boards. The used MOBO I never remember. Because nothing helped in the past I sold the 4 DSP card and replace it with another used 6 dsp card. Hoping the communication issue was based on incompatibility between old and new generation cards. Unfortunately the problems came back. I planned to route my external synts per scope to my mac and decided to buy an additional 6dsp card and to waste the untill than for pulsar cards used pc and to buy a MOBO recommended in this forum. With every step of optimisation the system performance and stability has been growing up to the rest of issues I stated here.

@RP_001
In summary:
No, it depends not on the number or type of boards. No doubt if I use three or two or mixed up with older boards.
I tried over the past yeas three different MOBOS and in sum 5 different dsp cards (3x 6dsp that is my actual set and 2 aditional 4dsp but never more than 3 cards together).
Actual I use a P5P800 Asus together with a P4 3GHZ and 1GByte RAM. The freeze issue comes only up on my actual MODO when closing scope application so far I remenber right.
Three days ago I change the cables and no communication error so far until today starting the system.
If I wiggle the connectors and restart the scoe application it will work for a couple of hours.
A friend told me about a silver coating liquid. Is it possible to coat the board contacts new or would this lead into corrupt contact quality ?

Michael

[katano]

Im pretty sure that all of my 3 cards are type II. Two of them have Production date of 2000. The other one from 2006.

I always thought type II cards were produced since 2002, weren't they?

[mcm060769]

my cards have te following revisions/production dates:

pulser II 12/2002
pulsar V2.01 04/2001
pulsar V2.01 12/2000

Are these cards incompatible ? Have had anybody experiences with re-coating the stdm board contacts (see my question above) ?