What is this !?!?!?!?! (HELP!)

Jngaelin · Post by **Jngaelin** » Sat May 22, 2004 5:55 pm

Hello friends.

I have a problem, and as allways i'll start with a story......

Im really worried right now.
Allways my problems seems to happen without ANY noticeable reason.

I have been sitting here today working for like 6 hours with my DAW, and now i saved my last work and closed down SFP...then i remembered there was something i forgot to do in that project.

I i then restarted SFP without doing anything out of the ordinary and everything looks fine (at first).

I loaded the project (that is a bit heavy on my 9 DSP's) and then opened cubase. Everything is working like a clock. NO problems NO ERRORS !!!

Then i play the song.....hmmm.....no sound?
Okay is my Amplifier on....yes?...hm...cables...(checked out fine)...what the h*ll?
How is everything routed in project......perfect!?!?! Volume?.....BUT!!!!
Everthing looks just like it's supossed to!!!....wait......what is this!?!?!
.........my DSP load monitor wasn't shoving anything loaded.
I mean i can see my boards...but no modules seems to have been loaded?!?!
ZERO %!!!! I don't like the looks of this....

I thought okay.....DAMN...another save file then.....

I have now tested about 80 different save files from different projects that i know should be working fine!!!!! No modules are being loaded when opening a project. I thought mabye cards overheated....no...temp is okay...and drivers, cards, they all look good in systemstats.

I reeboot DAW and nothing changed (rebooted alot, and even waited for DAW to cool down).

I did NOT do anything i don't usually do when creating or closing the last project before the problem occured.

Does anyone now anything about this. Im still using SFP v3.1c

What i really want to hear is : "Do not worry Jngaelin...this is a software problem not hardware.."

If nothing changes soon...i'll start crying like a frightened little baby..we don't want that now do we.

Please help med friends. I really need it.

_________________
Love to you all =)
(I Praise JAH)

[ This Message was edited by: Jngaelin on 2004-05-22 18:58 ]

Post by **hubird** » Sat May 22, 2004 6:11 pm

virus?

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Sat May 22, 2004 6:30 pm

unplug the cable, so even the standby power gets disconnected, switch it on and off a couple of times WITHOUT main power cable to unload capacitors, wait for a quarter, pray and then start it up again.

fingers crossed, Tom

marcuspocus · Post by **marcuspocus** » Sat May 22, 2004 6:39 pm

Go check your master/slave setting in sfp...

change it back and forth a couple of time, letting the system react between changes

I sound strange, but...check

Jngaelin · Post by **Jngaelin** » Sat May 22, 2004 6:42 pm

Im way ahead of you hubird !!! =)
No viruses detected (but one cannot be shure..)

I'll try it now astroman....i can't help feeling like there is something you know..that i probably wouldn't like hearing...

Have you had this problem ???

I have just now gone throught page 22 opf this problem solving forum.....no luck.

......okay....unloading capacitors.....

Jngaelin · Post by **Jngaelin** » Sat May 22, 2004 6:45 pm

On 2004-05-22 19:39, marcuspocus wrote:
Go check your master/slave setting in sfp...

change it back and forth a couple of time, letting the system react between changes

I sound strange, but...check

i will marcuspocus!

You guys....you are really here when one needs you....i guess you understand that you have my gratitude and respect.

Jngaelin · Post by **Jngaelin** » Sat May 22, 2004 6:54 pm

On 2004-05-22 19:30, astroman wrote:
unplug the cable, so even the standby power gets disconnected, switch it on and off a couple of times WITHOUT main power cable to unload capacitors, wait for a quarter, pray and then start it up again.

fingers crossed, Tom

YES !!!! It worked. But i don't see why..and if you could explain please do.

But now i got another problem....
After DAW reboot SFP wants me to load the allkeys file before enabling SFP....then again when opening a project....any project..again and again and again and again....hmm.

Anyway....i'll rather have it this way..then looking at my DSP monitor after loading a project, when it shows nothing is loaded.

_________________
Love to you all =)
(I Praise JAH)

[ This Message was edited by: Jngaelin on 2004-05-22 19:56 ]

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Sat May 22, 2004 7:13 pm

great you succeeded

the explanation is fairly simple and though I optimized the method in a decade of service there's actually no black magic included.
I have to admit though, from time to time it pleases me to appear in the office when something got stuck completely, everyone's on panic, and I can play the 'guy with the magic hands role'

chips operate on such low voltages today and are (additionally) well buffered by capacitors, that even a full power down doesn't reset all parts of the system completely - hence the procedure above

cheers, Tom

Jngaelin · Post by **Jngaelin** » Sat May 22, 2004 9:02 pm

Thanks Tom !!!

This was well wanted information.

Just one more question.

This has sertainly never happened to me before. Could this mean that mabye perhaps my MOBO is getting a bit old or something...just a thought.

I mean...i never keep my DAW up for more than 12 hours then i turn it of. So evey time i turn it on i expose my mobo and all other curcuits to "thermal stress" / power surge....mabye shings are weakening...Hope the CW cards are sturdy enough...

My quiestion is...could this be happening because of the fact that my boards and and or lets say MOBO is getting old?

second q: Should i expect something like this again?

_________________
Love to you all =)
(I Praise JAH)

[ This Message was edited by: Jngaelin on 2004-05-22 22:07 ]

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Sun May 23, 2004 8:06 am

2nd question first:
yes - better be safe than sorry. If it happened once, it can happen again - see below.

Considering all the different risks your data in the PC case has to sustain, the wearout due to age is rather unlikely - once this stuff runs for a month, it will probably run forever.

First source of trouble is the main power from the wall outlet - it can vary heavily in certain situations (out of your control) and be polluted with electrical noise as well.

Cell phones and high energy emitters like Radar from ships and airplanes might interfere.

Cosmic radiation

in fact memory (and CPU) area is so large in current systems, that the chance of memory corruption is magnitudes higher than in those years where everything was contained in just 16 MBytes of Ram.

And finally let's not forget that the current state of a Pentium, or G4/5 or equivalent CPU isn't predictable for 100% due to complexity of the circuit.

cheers, Tom