Pulsar 2 periodically completely stops working.

softfox · Post by **softfox** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 4:36 pm

Seeing if anyone has any advice:

I have a pulsar 2 card which is 4 - 5 years old. it has worked ok until a couple of months ago: It now, occasionally, completely stops working, i.e. audio software such as Cubase reports no soundcard, and it is impossible to play any audio. It is as though the card has been pulled from the machine. Restarting the computer has no effect, but it will start working again typically a few days later.

I am fearing the worst - that the card has a hardware fault and needs to be chucked. But if anyone has had similar problems any advice would be usefull. The motherboard is an Asus with and Intel chipset, i have recently upgraded to scope v4 with no effect.

Post by **Guest** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 4:39 pm

start by removing the card and clean the gold contact with rubbung alcohol and use another PCI slot.

samplaire · Post by **samplaire** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 4:43 pm

Check the temperature inside the computer. It looks like overheating.

fidox · Post by **fidox** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 4:16 am

did you also change motherboard, or is mobo the same like before ?

how about temperature and cooling fans ?

and did you upgrade to scope 4.0 in right way ? first uninstall and then install 4.0 and so on.....

did you also change anything else ?

i hope you'll figure out what's wrong

matej

Post by **garyb** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 1:00 pm

On 2005-03-23 16:39, antar wrote:
start by removing the card and clean the gold contact with rubbung alcohol

this was my suggestion, but don't use rubbing alchohol as it has too much water and it will leave a film. use 99% pure alchohol.

Liquid Len · Post by **Liquid Len** » Fri Mar 25, 2005 12:41 am

I get this occasionally (I get a message saying the system can't communicate with the Pulsar board). I just reboot the computer and everything is fine. Been noticing it for two years. Hope I haven't been straining the card by not taking remedial action (well, I removed it from the slot and cleaned the contacts but that didn't appear to change anything).

Post by **garyb** » Fri Mar 25, 2005 2:04 am

btw-
if the card dies, it can be fixed. don't chuck it!

softfox · Post by **softfox** » Sun Mar 27, 2005 2:49 pm

Thanks for advice. The motherboard has been changed since i first got the pulsar card, but it worked fine for 1 - 2 years with current motherboard before exhibiting problems.

Creamware support have adviced that having the PC Set to ACPI can cause problems, and that i should set to standard PC. Apparently this is done by seleceting a different driver from Windows XP CD, but the CD file structure gives no clues as to location of driver files, and choosing an automatic install but directing the wizard to the CD does not result in any other 'better' drivers being found, presumably becuase the Wizard thinks that the ACPI driver is the best one.

Has anyone any expereince of changing this setting?

Post by **Guest** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 3:37 pm

have you tried the following yet?
clean the gold contacts of the card.
use another PCI slot.

mr swim · Post by **mr swim** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 9:34 pm

in terms of standard mode, I did manage to do this. I notice no difference in the day-to-day running of the machine except that it is more stable.

Now, how the hell did I do it ? It was not obvious you are right ...

here we go (from here - http://www.musicxp.net)

Firstly, the entry Plug and Play OS in your motherboard's BIOS should be set to 'NO'. Click here to find out why.

During installation of the XP operating system, you will see a screen displaying the message - "Press F6 if you need to install a third-party SCSI or RAID driver". At this point, press the F5 key (this won't be supplied as an option on the screen and the installation won't wait, so you'll need to babysit the installation process and hit the key at the right moment). A few seconds after pressing F5, you will be presented with an option to select either "Standard PC" or "Other (ACPI) PC".

At this point, select "Standard PC".

If you have already installed XP with ACPI, then you can change to "Standard PC" in the device manager afterwards. However, this method doesn't appear to be as effective as disabling it during the install. To do this, Start > Settings > Control Panel > System > Hardware Tab > Device Manager. Expand the Computer at the top of the list and right click the ACPI Computer > Drivers > Update Drivers > Select List > Standard PC. Note that when you reboot your PC, you will need to re-install all of your device drivers again.

gabrielvra · Post by **gabrielvra** » Sat Apr 09, 2005 5:28 pm

Cw friends,

I'm also having some problems here. I have a Pulsar 2 either, and it wont get a sync anyhow... The Samplerate window doesnt show any sync, even when i change it to slave or Master I use the ADAT A as sync port to my digital mixer, but that samplerate window keeps checkind my AES/EBU thing and wont change to ADAT .. Just like Softfox said, it some times work, sometimes dont...i have to wait a while and then try again...
My Pulsar 2 always worked till couple days ago... any help? I'll try to clean it up the golden contact..

[ This Message was edited by: gabrielvra on 2005-04-09 18:29 ]

gabrielvra · Post by **gabrielvra** » Sat Apr 09, 2005 9:41 pm

Yeh Man! Problrm solved! I rubbered my golden contact, and what, worked... Cool..thanks guys one more time...

cheers from Rio de Janeiro...

Post by **hubird** » Sat Apr 09, 2005 10:25 pm

I never ever took my Pulsar2 out of my almost 4 years old mac G4, I once added a 2nd hand XTC card to my slots, that's all

With all the dust or even oxidation in a case, it can't be good to unmount cards.
i see a tendency here...the cards getting older?
IRQ facilyties may give some freedom, but I'm glad I don't have to deal with them, as you know

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Sun Apr 10, 2005 7:25 am

On 2005-04-09 22:41, gabrielvra wrote:
cheers from Rio de Janeiro...

another such problem in a location close to the sea - and a BIG town, too

Hubird is absolutely right: the more you move the card in and out of slots, the more the contacts will wear out.
Definetely - the 'golden' years of electronic fabrication are long over.
There was so much gold-plating once, that electronic waste location resembled goldmines - and some smart dudes made a fortune this way...

Don't take the quality of slot contacts on your mobo for granted - those are affected the same way as the card's contacts.
Unfortunately I'm not aware of any agent to improve protection of the contacts.

cheers, Tom

gabrielvra · Post by **gabrielvra** » Sun Apr 10, 2005 7:55 am

another such problem in a location close to the sea - and a BIG town, too

It really could be. Although i take care about this. Actually, i was thinking about dusty, then i figured that i had put a fan, a big one, turned to the CPU. The problem apeared after this.

I never had to take my pulsar card out of slot for 2 years.... as it worked well.

I hope the problem was just DUSTY thing...

gabrielvra · Post by **gabrielvra** » Fri Apr 22, 2005 5:45 pm

Here im again. Ok. the problem is back again, but now, even if i rubber the golden contact it wont work. Actually i did it only a couple times. I dont think this is problem now. The SFP works ok, if i open my nuendo, the XTC plugins are there and can be inserted in a track. It works.. Sound wont come out cause of the Samplerate thing that is not working...
Softfox, did u get you pulsar working back again?

cheers.

_________________
"Be Bass or be boring!"

[ This Message was edited by: gabrielvra on 2005-04-22 18:47 ]

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Fri Apr 22, 2005 11:37 pm

A definitive way to know what is going on with your card, would be to try it in another computer, for about three days. If it works stable for three days, it means it is ok, if it shows the same problem in other computer, the card is the problem.

Perhaps you can get some help with a friend, so to install the card for this number of days... I think you don't even need to do anything, but leastening to some music.

I know that humidity may damage your system. Many people have their system beside their kitchen, and they leave their doors open while cooking, and vapours go into your machine. You would say that nothing is going on, but in fact, even if you don't see it, there are thousands of very fine particules of liquid floting in the air, and this goes into your circuits damaging them. Solution: close the door when you cook, of course!

Every now and then, people should also clean their systems with a cleaning machine, a mean, a huver or something like that. You can take a little brush and gently, while you pass the machine without touching anything, very carefully, you remouve dast and your system gets clean contacts.

I hope you can post here some good news soon, good luck

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 5:24 am

regarding the hoover: I've recently had to apply one to a part of a Laserprinter, for obvious reaons - and produced a nice 0.5 inch discharge

equivalent of 15KV ...

if THAT get's into your PC, your best option is that the thing is killed completely - which it isn't of course - so from now on whatever error occurs you may reason if it's a software issue or an electrostatic damage followup. (the part of the printer didn't contain electronics btw...)

Seriously, that stuff has been examined in the 80s with horrible results, but structures were at least 5 times more solid back then.
Yet people completely ignore the existance of electrostaic damage - as my PC supplier regularily shows in his shop...

Dust by itself isn't a problem, unless it stops a fan or gets soaked with moisture.

Air close to the sea is extremely aggessive (it destroys bolt anchors on buildings in 1/10 of the time compared to in-land locations) and kitchens are good candidates as well (depends on what's on or in the oven)

cheers, Tom

alfonso · Post by **alfonso** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 10:47 am

Other contacts to check could be those of the I/O daughterboard....

It happens sometimes to me too, only in my Pulsar2, I have also a Powerpulsar and a Pulsar1 together.
It shows a blinking in the digital input as it had a w.clock coming in, sometimes I stop it changing from coaxial to opt. spdif.
Sometimes I cure it just by moving the cables a little bit.
Recently I removed the card from it's slot, re-placed it there again, secured it well to the chassis, and put something to avoid the cables to hang heavily from the back. That strange behaviour stopped now.

It seems very much like something that looses contact or has a bad contact in the spdif input.

As I can remember all the people reporting this thing have reported it for Pulsar2 card only...could be a production line fault?

Anyway, this is what happened to me.

[ This Message was edited by: alfonso on 2005-04-23 11:48 ]

gabrielvra · Post by **gabrielvra** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 9:58 pm

Man! Afonso, I just found it out. Today I was at the desk to solve the problem...I figured out what is going on. The problem is the cable, sub-snake whatever it is called. There is a bad contact going there. I just have to sustain the cable uo with something and then it will work good. If I take the cable out, I wont have samplerate problem.
Ok, now I know the problem "is not with the card", but with the cable. What can we do to fix it? I wonder if any Audio Eletronic Man can fix it, or we will have to live with this problem. Buy another cable???