#LW crashes machine II
6 messages in this thread
Chuck,
I think it may be time for a new Flyer board again. It now happens that every
time I try to cold boot my machine I have to first open it up, remove the FLyer
card then re-install it. (It used to only happen after I used LightWave and
rendered to a clip.) When I try a cold boot the machine will not boot (hangs on
a black screen) after it sounds like all the HD's do their spin-up and wake-up
on the bus.
With the cover off, I watched the Flyer LEDs. None of them come on for even an
instant.
The only way to "reset" the situation is to shut down, remove the board from
the computer, boot the machine, turn it off, and reinstall the Flyer board.
After reinstallation I get a sequence that is something like:
1. LED 8 momentary 2. LED 3 (about 10 secs) 3. LED 5 (about 2 secs) 4. LEDs 2,3
and 5 (bout 1 sec) 5. LEDs 1,2,3,5 (momentary) 6. 2 Hz (approx) flash
sequenentially from LED 1 through 5 and back to 1.
(There are some other quick sequences in between 1 and 4, but they were too
fast for me to actually catch.)
This is all at machine power-up, not Flyer invocation.
When I invoke Flyer software, no change in the above flashing patter occurs
although there is one momentary "no -lights" when I first click the Flyer Start
icon.
When I render a clip from LightWave, the LEDs hesitate momentarily with just
LED 5 on right at the point where the "Adding Frame to Animation file" message
is displayed on the Lightwave screen just after the frame is rendered to the
Program Out. Then when LightWave finishes rendering the clip, and goes back to
the Layout screen, the LEDs hesitate for a moment on LED 3, then immediately
resume the flashing sequence.
If I then select to quit the FLyer, the LED's hesitate for a moment on either 3
or 4 (too fast to tell which) and then continue the flashing.
Turn the machine off, wait 3-5 mins and turn it on. No LEDs light and the
machine is stuck at a black screen. Note, all the HD's (Flyer and otherwise)
seem to go through there normal rattle purr and sputter cycles at power-up. We
just never get to the HW diags before startup-sequence is run. If I try a warm
boot when it is hung like this, the only response is a blink on the caps lock
key light.
I tried putting the card in a different slot. No change. The only thing it
did prove is that the power-up with the card removed is not necessary.
I doulbe checked the capacitor. The "problem" location has the 16 volt part in
it with a 6 volt part right next door, which I understand, is not a problem.
There is a possibility it is a Thermal problem on the Flyer board, since one
time it recovered when I let it sit powered down for 4 hours.
1) Am I the only one reporting this?
2) Why did this only appear only after running LightWave 4.0 for the first
time?
3) Why me, anyhow?
wmc – via Autopilot!
Wayne,
Have you considered having an exorcist come by your place? <g>
Regards,
Gary
Oh wonderful! Then the monitor will spin around while spewing multi-colored
phosphors and glass bits all around the room….
wmc – via Autopilot!
I'll check with engineering, and give you a call tomorrow (may also cross-check
with Test on the further GVP-related fixes we've had to make).
Chuck.
PMFJI: This may be way off — but we have had a number of A2000 systems in
which the mother board connector (into which you plug the Flyer or the GVP
Accelerator) is not making contact reliably. The symptoms have been exactly
what you describe i.e. the system will not work unless you power down, pull out
and re-insert the board. The problem is that the the spring contacts in the
mother board connector have been spread a little too far apart and may even
have lost some of the springiness. We have used a twofold approach to fix units
in which this happens. (1) use a good spray contact cleaner and (2 Even More
Important) pull out the board and using a small pointed tool, very carefully,
work the contacts of the connector toward the center. One clue that helps
point toward this being the problem is that it is not difficult to insert the
board in the socket. — As I said in the beginning this may have nothing to do
with your problem but it has worked a number of times for us — And it doesn't
cost anything to try it.
Nick Rahal – Infotronics Inc
One of Newteks Top Ten Dealers
PMFJI Wayne,
I experienced the symptoms you described and found that disabling the
AlphaPaint libs switch cured my problem. I put a semi-colon in front of all
references to the AlphaPaint fix, problem went away, along with access to
Jerry's fonts. :^( I liked those fonts too.
Regards,
Norman Austin 70743,1535