Is my card broken??

rodos1979 · Post by **rodos1979** » Sun May 11, 2003 4:52 am

Hello to all

The last few days I am experiencing some very nasty problems for no apparent reason.
Please have a look first here: http://www.planetz.com/forums/viewtopic ... &forum=5&9
The problem has not gone... Furthermore, I get "Unexpected DSP overload" messages just when I turn on the PC, and communication errors with Pulsar 2 (board 0, I have 2 cards) and SFP is most of the time synced to the SPDIF, although there is nothing connected there!
I have cleaned with alcohol the SPDIF RCA connectors, and I unconnected the I/O bunch of cables and cleaned the connections there too. Problem still not gone!

What can I do more? What can be causing that? (I have no overheat issues for sure!)
All these things happen just from the beggining, when I start the PC

Please, HELP!

Thank you

rodos1979 · Post by **rodos1979** » Sun May 11, 2003 4:56 am

P.S. I have never experienced again the problems before. And for the last 2-3 months I had no problems AT ALL!
I was away from my home for 2 weeks and when I came back I found that.
The only thing that has changed, is that I have bought some high-quality shielded RCA cables, which substituted the old cheap ones I had...

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Sun May 11, 2003 5:49 am

hi,

is the card properly seated ?
you might try the cheap cables again...
which you probably did anyway

The red light for sync in samplerate window doesn't have a meaning if nothing is connected to the respective port.
The system frequently senses if something is plugged in and if you touch the connector right then, it can get fooled.
But as long as you don't slave to an external port it doesn't have any influence.

good luck, Tom

rodos1979 · Post by **rodos1979** » Sun May 11, 2003 7:53 am

Astroman, of course it has a meaning & influence. When the red light is on, the samplerate reads -----, and everything behaves as if there was no soundcard... (in my case)
I ll check if they are properly seated as you suggest, although I find it a little bit difficult for the cards to 'go away' from their position alone, since I have not moved or transfered or hit the PC...

[ This Message was edited by: rodos1979 on 2003-05-11 11:54 ]

[ This Message was edited by: rodos1979 on 2003-05-11 12:04 ]

rodos1979 · Post by **rodos1979** » Sun May 11, 2003 11:03 am

Hello again!

I cleaned almost everything in and out of the PC with a vacuum-cleaner and I cleaned all the connections with alcohol. Furthermore, I found out that one of the STDM cables was not properly seated.
I have booted 10 times the PC and I have not seen any errors yet. I think it must have been probably the STDM cable, which cas causing all that!
Well, keep fingers crossed that it will continue to function as smooth as now!

By the way.... Is the colour of Pulsar 2 card different that that of the XTC? I cant remember how they were in the beginning... Now, the Pulsar 2 is a light green and the XTC is a dark green.
I am asking that because I had the P2 on Slot 1 (Asus P4T533-C) just below the Matrox 550 AGP card and the XTC on slot 4. I hope it didnt change colour because of the heat of the Matrox. Anyway, I have repositioned them to Slots 4&5. The STDM cables seem to fit better now as well.

Take care, and dont forget to clean the dust from your gear sometimes!

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Sun May 11, 2003 3:23 pm

hi Rodos,

Great that your system works again !
My assumption was that Pulsar is master and nothing is connected to the digital ports.
I never experienced the case that the card wasn't able to reset itself, but I only have a single one. Seems your misaligned cable blocked the whole system, tnx for the experience.
Never clean the inside of a PC with a regular vacuum cleaner IF the end of the tube is NOT metal !
The airflow causes a dramatic amount of static electricity on plastic tubes, like a Van der Graaf Generator - nothing to do with that band

which can unload over distances of up to 2 inches.

cheers, Tom

[ This Message was edited by: astroman on 2003-05-11 16:27 ]

Post by **hubird** » Sun May 11, 2003 8:10 pm

congrats Rodos!

darkrezin · Post by **darkrezin** » Mon May 12, 2003 2:53 am

It's very easy for PCI cards (and STDM cables!) to start to come loose from the slots. In some cases this can be due to expansion associated with heat, but more commonly it's just when cables connected to PCI/AGP cards (a very common example is the VGA cable connected to a graphics card) are moved/knocked/dislodged which leads the card to come loose from the slot. Of course, it is always obvious when this happens with the graphics card, as you will get some friendly beeping and no POST/boot. It's a bit more unpredictable what can happen with other cards, however.

peace