strand 550i randomly freezing

[Crystal Cylinder]

OK, it's another wierd one.

 

My strand 550i is freezing at random intervals. The inital crash brought up a "comms" or "comms card" error on the bottom left hand side of the screen. I've changed :-

The CS controller card & all attachments- No fix

The Pentium 2 Mother board & RAM- No fix

The Power Supply - No Fix

 

Any takers?

[Kazeja]

Desk freezing normally associated with hard drive on its way out. Make sure nothing is connected to auxilliaries. If it still freezes then chances are the hard drive needs replacing.

[tokm]

Sorry this's off-topic, but its a question in regards to a post on here, so thought I'd be better to ask here than start a new thread.

 

Hard drives in strand 500/300 series desks. Can they just be replaced with standard PC/IDE drives? Or do they have to be some typically expensive strand one.

 

Thanks.

 

Tom

[JMC]

They are standard drives.. ideally replace with one as close to the spec of the one you are removing to avoid unforseen problems.

 

You do however then need an additional piece of installer software (not available from the website..) to give you the "base" install on the console (DOS etc.)

[Kazeja]

Console would have been initially supplied with a set of DOS disks (version 6.22). Once you've got DOS in the machine it's a relativly easy task to install the software

 

Bear in mind that max disc capacity that DOS can handle is 8Gig. Generally any IDE drive is adequate. I normally format and partition the hard drive to have 2 drives "C" and "D" each with 2Gig. Whilst I have not witnessed it, performance can be improved by formatting the "C" drive to 500 meg or so and use the "D" drive for archiving. Performance can further be improved if you are fortunate to stumble across a drive with a fast access time.

 

In hindsight, you mentioned that you've already changed the power supply but low(ish) power rails were also a cause for console lock up. Best place to measure is (carefully) on the unused power connector on the riser card (preferable) or one of the unused connectors in the loom.

 

Anything below 4.85v or 11.8v may result in the console locking up.

 

If power supply is OK and you're unsure on installing a hard drive, PM me and I'll go through it with you.

 

 

 

Alternativly, we can supply you with drives, already formatted with relevant 500 software for you to just put in. Obviously, there is a charge for this service.

[Crystal Cylinder]

OK,

 

So the hard drive has been replaced also and it still freezes. Btw, we are using Cisco 3750 PoE Switches (as recommended by Strand UK) Anyone else using switches instead of plain old hubs?

 

Cheers

[JMC]

For performance reasons it is *much* advised to use switches.. for so many reasons.. I don't know of anyone actually using a hub, except by accident..