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That's right... he's back... With a head scratcher

:( Back again...

Well I got my shiny new graphics card (and a spare)... Don't know whether it was purchased direct from HES or through a distributor (the wonders of having a Technical Purchasing Officer)...

Anyway... Opened it up, installed it, rebooted, et voila! AXON!!!!! Crisp image, no artifacts, just Axon! I thought my trials and tribulations were at an end... But it was not to be.

I ran each of our shows without issue in a dry tech, wash, rinsed, repeated three times, went to bed, had a couple of hours sleep, came back and ran them twice more... No issues!

Then did a full tech rehearsal for the nights show, Hitchless...

Then I left to do some other maintenance, have dinner, all that sort of stuff... Came back at 15 minutes to show, did not look at the Axon, just assuming that since I had done a pretty damn good load test all day it would be fine... Get to the first real use of the Axon... Nudda... Zip... Zilch. Looked at Axon - The Axon looked back, no lights, nothing... So I shrugged... Power outages are not uncommon on ships, maybe it just lost power and did not switch back on... Unusual, but not impossible. Hit the switch... Nudda. Zilch. :-/

So out with the screwdriver... Pulled it out of the rack and onto the bench - tried it there... Nothing... Cracked the case, checked all the connections were secure - Apart from a poor choice of HDD positions which was causing stress on the SATA cable, everything was fine... Unplugged all the power cables and jumped pin 3+4 on the MOBO connector and metered the PSU... All good there, the voltages all matched... Plugged everything back in. Accidently brushed my hand over the DMX card and my hand promptly burst into flames... Well, maybe not... But it was very hot...

SOoooo without being sure if this is the issue (Fried DMX card, and the DMX card having the power switch wired through it which means nothing will start up, because the card says not), and reaching about the end of my limited Axon knowledge I would like to ask for advice from the experts...

Now, if it is the DMX card, is there likely to be an issue somewhere above it as well (PSU, wiring loom, motherboard, bad power etc)...

Whilst I was fine with the purchase of a video card, if I need to purchase a DMX card and then the silent killer strikes again, I can quickly see my budget and my job disappearing

Thanks for all the help... I really do appreciate it, because otherwise, I am sure I would have practiced my diving from the top of the ship by now.

Rgds

Mac

ps... Sorry for the whole "stream of conciousness" thing... long hours, no rest... three different bosses on my back and high environmental stress... you get the picture
  • 0
    Next step would be to verify that your SATA & SATA power cables to the HDD are connected properly/seated well.

    There is a little adapter for the SATA power on the HDD to connect it to the rest of the power harness, so check there as well.

    The SATA cables, the BIOS Jumper, or the RAM are the only things I have ever personally seen that would prevent the unit from even posting to the BIOS on power-up.
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    Mac,

    Sounds like you might have a motherboard or possibly power supply failure there.

    I'm not sure if we currently have any of that model motherboard in used parts stock as I'm working from home today. The hardware (mobo, CPU, RAM) combination can always be replaced and upgraded to our current model here.

    Best thing might be for us to get it shipped back here for repair.
  • 0
    Hi Mac,

    I have seen some cases in the past where the relay on the DMX card fails in a closed position. This relay is wired to the soft power on/off circuit of the motherboard. When the failure occurred it would not allow the server to power up. If you haven't already, one thing you might try is disconnecting the harness that goes from the case power swith to the DMX card (2 wire harness, should have "pwr sw" printed on it) and then plug the server in and jump the power swith header on the motherboard.
  • 0
    I'm going to guess that the problem is somewhere in the motherboard then....or possibly the power supply.

    Your best bet is probably going to be sending the unit back to HES for a full diagnostic and repair.
  • 0
    Mac,

    Give the support guys here a call and they can probably give you a reasonable idea of what to expect cost-wise.

    Do you have any other Axons there? If so, what generation hardware do they have in them?

    The good news is that the current generation hardware will have a lot more horsepower than the D915GUX does.
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