Troubleshooting a crash

[Bus Buster]

My DM4800 was lit up like a Christmas tree when I walked in on it this morning and the screen was a bunch of lines. I’ve been keeping it powered up lately to avoid wear and tear - I don’t know if that’s related or not.

I powered it down and removed the card and powered it up again and thankfully it looked normal. Is this a CompactFlash card corruption issue? I have a new one ordered which I’ll start using. I don’t know anything about the card that I had been using as it came with the used board when I bought it.

 

[mixerizer]

Yikes! NOT GOOD

Did the board start up normally when u first powered it on, but you came back to find the board in that state? Or did u boot it up and then go right into that state?

I’ve seen a Dm board boot improperly and show ‘Christmas lights’ as you describe. Powering it down, waiting a few seconds and powering it back up worked fine. In those cases, sometimes the memory card isn’t recognized or loaded properly, but the problem disappears on a subsequent reboot w the card recognized properly.

However, if the board booted properly and later freaked out, that suggests a different problem.

Please put the board on a STRONG power line conditioner, surge protector and power strip, and make sure that the power load for your whole studio is evenly divided between the circuit(s) feeding the studio. Some power conditioners have metering to help u assess the power distribution in the studio.

I have my favorites but there are many choices out there. Get all your gear on conditioned power sources - and if it recurs without similar issues affecting any other devices in the studio, you may have to start looking for power problems inside the board. My hunch is that the board is ok but you might have had some irregular power going thru it.

 

[Bus Buster]

It started up normally but I found it in that state later on. Everything is on a TrippLite Isolator.

I kept it powered off overnight and put the card back in and turned it on and everything appears to be normal. Thanks for the tips. I’ll cross my fingers and keep my eyes on it for anything unusual. I think I also need a conditioner with some monitoring to see what’s going on.

 

[Peter Batah]

This may be unrelated but I recall having a similar issue whereby the DM started up normally but later came back to find the DM to be unresponsive. It soon occurred to me that Windows had obtained and applied some updates followed by a reboot. I took care of that lickity split I tell you. No more updates and nothing on the PC goes into sleep mode. Just my two cents. Best of luck with your DM

 

[Bus Buster]

I do have my MacBook Pro connected to my interface via USB which in turn is connected to the DM via litepipe, but I’d be surprised if that was somehow the culprit. Glad yours is okay and thanks!