Help ! Has my old faithful Pulsar 2 finally died ?

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auntybiotic
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Help ! Has my old faithful Pulsar 2 finally died ?

Post by auntybiotic »

Greetings,
I have a feeling my Pulsar 2 may have finally died.
I have it cascaded with a luna 2 . A couple of weeks ago it started giving DSP and communication errors, and now will not load at all.

I have removed the pulsar and the luna is working fine.


I have also tested pulsar on it's own & it in a different pc ( a hp hw6400) but no matter what I try I keep seeing the following errors:

"System error
A communication error with Pulsar2 )brd 0' has occured.
Problem can normally be corrected by reloading DSP´s. Do you want to try that ?"

After selecting 'Yes'....

"Installation error.
Hardware cannot be set up properly."

After hitting OK I get this...

"Could not gain access to the SCOPE hardware

I have tried all the usual tricks of cleaning card connectors (99% isoprop), tried reinstalling scope and drivers, double checked all necessary bios / system tweaks......nada.

Does anyone else have experience of these errors?

Thanks if you can help.
Mark
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RA
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Re: Help ! Has my old faithful Pulsar 2 finally died ?

Post by RA »

Did you try it in the slot of the luna...pull the luna out?...just Pulsar.

no exclamation mark in device manager?

Visual inspection....burst caps or something.....does it feel hot?
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auntybiotic
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Re: Help ! Has my old faithful Pulsar 2 finally died ?

Post by auntybiotic »

RA - Thanks for your kind response.

Yep. Tried it as a single card in all pci slots of 2 machines which have worked perfectly with pci cards for many years.
I don't see any visual cues on the card that anything is burnt out or burst, but i did notice card was running hot.
All looks good in Device Manager as well.
Is there any way i can confirm a burst cap easily?
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RA
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Re: Help ! Has my old faithful Pulsar 2 finally died ?

Post by RA »

Yep...look like this...is on a gfx card, but this is how those bastards look.
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RA
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Re: Help ! Has my old faithful Pulsar 2 finally died ?

Post by RA »

also the problem when you let it cool, and with a "cold" system?

did you change anything in the system recently?

Edit:..well you tried in another pc....hmmm....could be hw yes...

Edit2: I recall a post or article somewhere on solder or resoldering/exchanging a sharc...think it was here.
Use search for that

Edit3: Dante and JHulk are the men:
http://www.hitfoundry.com/issue_25/pci_mast.htm
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auntybiotic
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Re: Help ! Has my old faithful Pulsar 2 finally died ?

Post by auntybiotic »

Same issue with cold systems and warm.
No messing around with system prior to failure. It just started to generate DSP / connection errors BUT with some jiggery pokery I could always get Scope to load.
Now however, no loading of scope possible and just the errors posted earlier.
Heres pics of the card ( i took the i/o off to check caps underneath)
No obvious explosions or anything which looks out of the ordinary...
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auntybiotic
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Re: Help ! Has my old faithful Pulsar 2 finally died ?

Post by auntybiotic »

ps - thanks, RA, I just saw your edits. nice plugins, btw !! :-)

i seem to remember jhulk does repairs?

i will investigate further but starting to think it has to be the card now.
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RA
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Re: Help ! Has my old faithful Pulsar 2 finally died ?

Post by RA »

How does the other side of the card look, does it have any strange things you see,

maybe cleaning a bit, and try after reassembling the io board, maybe it was in there...else....try jhulk,
he can and will probably help you further if he got experience with this.

Maybe there are some things which keep reoccuring.

Let us know your progress.

Thanks!

Grtz
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auntybiotic
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Re: Help ! Has my old faithful Pulsar 2 finally died ?

Post by auntybiotic »

uh oh......
some of those solders looking nasty...
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RA
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Re: Help ! Has my old faithful Pulsar 2 finally died ?

Post by RA »

that doesnt have to mean anything, but the residu from the solderstuff...the brown stuff can be removed with a cottonswab dipped in some aceton.
try it on a corner first, but that's what i use a lot for removing that stuff....but again, it doesnt have to mean anything, but can always try...
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RA
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Re: Help ! Has my old faithful Pulsar 2 finally died ?

Post by RA »

Aceton= often also nailpolish remover
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auntybiotic
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Re: Help ! Has my old faithful Pulsar 2 finally died ?

Post by auntybiotic »

just gave it a clean with 99% isopropyl.
the solder in the middle looks like it has spread and is now in contact with surrounding solders..
have followed your advice and sent a pm to jhulk and dante.
keep you posted and thanks so much for your help !
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Re: Help ! Has my old faithful Pulsar 2 finally died ?

Post by RA »

Ok...no prob. Youre welcome. Thing is on the pic it seems all those contacts are on one big copper plane...the light green plane...that could mean that the contacts are just dummies Or all connected to eachother..could also be a multi layered pcb...i dont know that kind of specs. You can measure that with an ohm meter. But jhulk will be of some assistance probably. Thanks dante for this interview on scoperise.

Sleep well :lol: ....1.51 am...ray out
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auntybiotic
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Re: Help ! Has my old faithful Pulsar 2 finally died ?

Post by auntybiotic »

RA - Didnt realise you were also in Holland. Me too :-)
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Re: Help ! Has my old faithful Pulsar 2 finally died ?

Post by garyb »

the solder looks normal.
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53E7
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Re: Help ! Has my old faithful Pulsar 2 finally died ?

Post by 53E7 »

I noticed there is a cracked chip. Perhaps it got knocked when you were switching things around inside your motherboard?

I do not have any idea whether this would cause a problem or how to fix it.

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