Tascam MX2424 hard drive woes and weird output noise

[witzendoz]

I have started a new thread on Media too slow issues.

Alan.

 

[TMT]

I read that there is a direct connection for the power supply? Also for SATA drives is there a SATA drive bay with 68 pin out that will work or use an external one?

 

[witzendoz]

You need a "ACARD SCSI to SATA Adapter AEC-7730A", I have not had this working myself but there was instructions on the old Tascam Forums, now lost, and someone had it working great. There is a bit of setting up at first but it does work. I though I had printed a hard copy of the set up but can't find it in my rather large leaver arch folders I have regarding the MX. I will be setting this up in the future, eventually.

Alan.

 

[strados]

Yeah, that's me. I posted many, many details about these mods at the old forum.
Currently I mostly use Western Digital 80GB. But also some 400 und 500 GB WD drives which are all running very quiet ! and without any "medio too slow" issues.

Before starting this mod I undertook many tests with several scsi drives (9, 36, 73GB) and sata drives (40, 80, 400, 500GB) to messure the surface temperature of each drive and required power.
Second I placed an additional tiny switched power supply into the MX housing which is separate connected to the drives to ease the primary power supply.

 

[strados]

Additional of replacing the old scsi drive I added a big temperature controlled fan directly onto to power supplies cover.

Fresh air comes in at the front through the little fan built into the drive bay, the big fan is preventing any hotspot inside the power supply and the midle fan at right side is blowing the air out.

 

[witzendoz]

I could not remember who it was, I was sure I printed all the pages for my hard copy file but cold not find it. Glad to have you back.
Alan.

 

[mamorumohri]

Re: Tascam MX2424 hard drive woes and weird utput noise...

Hi it's me again. Just thought I'd use this thread to ask a few more questions. I haven't yet taken any action with regard to the power supply because I am still trying to find someone in my area that could work on these things. I have been able to record rehearsals with the MX and so far have been using it without any drive error messages. However, a few new little glitches have appeared. I tried recording at 96Khz and when I played back there was a lot of digital pops and distortion like when a DAW is running too much for a CPU to keep up. I haven't tried recording again at a sample rate higher than 48Khz since which has been working okay. However, I am also having an issue lately with drop outs. Periodically, All the audio output basically drops out for like a half second. It has happened with two different mixing boards so I am pretty sure it is an issue with the MX. Any thoughts on these two problems?

 

[witzendoz]

Re: Tascam MX2424 hard drive woes and weird utput noise...

What input are you using on the MX, Analog card, Adat card, TDIF card or AES/EBU card?

I am asking as if you are using a digital input it sounds like a word clock problem or incompatible sample rate problem. If it's an analog card you are using there could be a problem with the card.

Alan.

 

[mamorumohri]

Re: Tascam MX2424 hard drive woes and weird utput noise...

I am using the analog cards to record and send into the mixing boards however I realize that in both instances of the drop outs I have been listening through either the boards main outs through my firewire interface or the SPDIF out into my firewire interface, which recently began to have some power issues the other night. So I think there is a reasonable chance that the drop outs have something to do with the firewire interface rather than the MX. However, the problems with recording at 96Khz are definitely the MX. I thought perhaps that the problems with the 96Khz might have something to do with drive speed, operating system, settings and/or RAM etc. I noticed that there is a slot for two RAM cards. I only have one installed for about 253 MB or somesuch. How much RAM do you all have on yours?

 

[witzendoz]

Re: Tascam MX2424 hard drive woes and weird utput noise...

To be honest, I have never used my MX's in 96k mode. However if there was a drive problem I would expect you to get a "media too slow" message and the machine to freeze.

Ram: when the machine was released it came with a 128meg Ram, as Tascam developed the machine it was realised that more Ram was needed. They offered a free upgrade to a 256meg ram stick. I received this in a pack when I got the machine new. The second hand machine I bought a few years ago did not have the upgrade so I did that myself. Are you sure it has 256 and not 128 installed? 256 single stick is the max you can install. Also it has to be the correct specification Ram or it will not work. If you need to upgrade come back to me and I will find the specs for you.

I don't quite see how problems on your monitoring side via firewire can cause dropouts on the recording, are you sure there is no other wacky things going on with the way you have this set up.

Alan.

 

[mamorumohri]

Re: Tascam MX2424 hard drive woes and weird utput noise...

Hi. The dropouts are not recorded on the tracks. They happen randomly during playback, affect the entire stereo signal rather than individual tracks and aren't indicated by the MX's meters. During my last little mixing session everything was fine listening through the mixing board but when I ran the stereo mix off the board back into two tracks of the Tascam (Bypassing my interface's converters) and out through the SPDIF out into the firewire interface I was getting periodic crackling and loss of signal to either the left or right channel, then my firewire interface began shutting off and starting up at three or four second intervals. So I think that any loss of signal on playback through the interface could probably as likely be the interface as the Tascam. But I can't be sure until I have further examples with which to sort it all out. As for RAM, I have one stick installed at 256MB. I didn't know that was the max. Maybe I will post about the problem with 96Khz in the genral forum in case someone has had a similar experience.

 

[witzendoz]

Re: Tascam MX2424 hard drive woes and weird utput noise...

Sounds like word clock issues or sample rate not set correctly.

Alan.

 

[mamorumohri]

Re: Tascam MX2424 hard drive woes and weird utput noise...

Hi. I haven't replied to this thread in a while. However, I am finally about to do something about addressing the PSU issue with my machine. I have a tech that charges $75 hr that would be a logical candidate for fixing the power supply but I also see I guy on Ebay who has spare PSUs from a studio liquidation for $130 including shipping. I called Tascam and they said that they "probably" no longer stock replacement power supplies so it's either get it fixed or buy a new one from this person. At this point I think it would be quicker and cheaper to buy the replacement. However, I am hung up on the idea that the SE might have a different improved power supply (although apparently not improved enough!) and I'm not sure exactly what I would be getting wtih a mystery spare PSU. Right now I am assuming that there would be no compatability issues, or any installation complications, just the possibility of getting an older less reliable module. What do you think? Would PSU repair be more or less likely to run me up a bill larger than the cost of replacement? Is there harm in putting an older power supply in a newer machine?

 

[witzendoz]

Re: Tascam MX2424 hard drive woes and weird utput noise...

Hi, Tascam did improve the power supply, from memory they did this on all MX's before the SE came out so most MX's would have the improved supply. I also remember that Tascam changed a lot of the old power supplies out under warranty. Bottom line is that almost all MX's still running would have the new supply and the SE would defiantly have it. Don't forget that the SE did not replace the standard MX they were both being sold at the same time.

I have never had a power supply problem with my original MX and the second one I bought a couple of years ago seems to be fine as well. A lot of the problems were caused by the connections and one of the mods was to solder the wires directly to the terminals, I would try this first or at least clean the connections before doing anything else. Also they seem to have more problems when there is more then one drive fitted due to the extra loading, as I have discussed before I removed all the drives from my machines and I have them in a separate tower with its own power supply.

Alan

 

[mamorumohri]

Re: Tascam MX2424 hard drive woes and weird utput noise...

I can try opening up the power supply and cleaning all the connections. After my first posts the MX seemed to stabalize I continued to record for a month or more without issue. Then at a recent rehearsal I tried recording 12 tracks simultaneously and after about twenty minutes the drive shut down. I tried to power back up but nothing would go beyond the "mounting volumes" message. I went in and unplugged the HD and the machine started normally although with the display dimming more than usual. I thought then that maybe the drive had failed so I got an IBM Ultrastar 18 GB in a little server mount unit. But didn't realize that it was an 80 pin drive, so I got an adapter. The server unit was like a little tray (not like the hotswap tray on the MX) that the drive was screwed into and had 80 pin to 80 pin adapter on the rear. I took off the 80 pin adapter and attached the 68 pin adapter directly to the drive I tried to power up and....the MX wouldn't power up at all...zilch. I put the exterior 80 pin adapter back on the drive and connected to that and the drive booted up normally, I was able to format it and arm tracks...but it was too noisy so I returned it. I have another drive on the way, but in the meantime I have been using the MX for coversion. But recently I was smelling a slight burning smell around my gear....so I just figured...must address power supply and I figured it was probably bad caps etc. But again, I could try cleaning contacts, however the smell and the destroyed HD make me think its someting more and I am still a bit weirded out that the MX didn't power up at all when I was connected directly to the IBM Drive.

 

[strados]

I would strongly advice against IBM Ultrastar drives installed in MX. They are absolutly too hot and that is poison for the power supply.
I'm using WD SATA drives connected via SCSI - SATA bridge. (on the old TascamForum I posted many pics of my setup).
- These drives run very quite,
- produce very little heat and you can
- go up to 500GB and more.
- These drives are also much cheaper than SCSI drives.
- You can connect it without any additional SCSI adaptor on any notebook or PC.

I've modded both MX and they are running well.

 

[carausius]

Hi Strados, I'm installing the Acard SCSI SATA bridge card & caddy in my MX2424, thanks for your great advice on this mod. I'm just wondering what type of 4pin connector goes to the Acard SCSI card from the 4pin molex in the MX2424?

I don't have one such connector in my MX2424 nor one with my Acard.

 

[witzendoz]

You don't need to buy from this place, but their site may help you to select the right adaptor, http://www.applegate.co.uk/b2b-products-services/d4abbd6015735b46e043e064a8c02f26.html

Cheers
Alan.

 

[carausius]

I've bought a couple of molex 4pin power to 4pin floppy disk connectors like those in your link. I'm hoping they will be the right ones when they arrive, if not I'll have to rewire the FD connector with a proper small molex 4pin as the acard connector doesn't look like a FD type?

 

[carausius]

So far I've got the Acard fitted & a SATA hard disk formated FAT32, but I'm getting the message "mounting volumes" on the LCD screen & the machine just freezes.

I took my Western Digital 7200 80G SATA disk out & checked it & it has the TL Projects / MX Project folders with the audio folder inside so I assume that the machine is trying to use the disk.

I'm still not sure about the exact procedure of installing a new disk as when I switch the machine on it goes straight to "mounting volumes" so I can't access the low format / initialise the HD!

I've finally formated the WD drive FAT32 with Acronis disk director & I managed to get it all working & did a quick song test without any problems!