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Author Topic: Problems with DTS? Richard May Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1057 From: Floral Park, NY USA Registered: Aug 2004 posted 06-19-2007 05:45 PM                     Is anyone else having any problems getting DTS units repaired by DTS? I sent a unit out a year ago and got it back 3 months later. Now I have 2 more units to send in and it has taken 2 weeks already just to get an RA#. Asking around, I'm starting to hear the same problem, and not just with getting them fixed.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-19-2007 05:52 PM                     Overall DTS has been good at supplying us with units and parts as needed but there have been a couple times that they have taken longer than normal... but no where near a year. Perhaps they were in the middle of the move or something when we ordered. Which units are you having trouble getting repaired? They made more than 4 if U count the special venue stuff. Carl at Quality Presentation the DTS authorized factory guy in New York has been the best at keeping us supplied on parts for the older units. On the 6 and 6D I reccomend repairing them yourself. They are a cinch and I generally try to do them right in the theater! You can get refurbished boards from Carl on an R/A and they are pretty reasonable. The only part we can't get from DTS is the dc converter on the audio board of the 6D and we solved that by getting a small run of them made by the original manufacturer of the part. I've had two HD's die in XD-10's but thats an easy fix available at Wal-Mart then re-load the OS from the upgrade CD ROM. I also have a number of XD-10's that want to boot up and then re-boot again during initial power up. But once up run just fine. Perhaps some Linux experts here can give us some hints as to why these units want to re-boot. Mark  |  IP: Logged Richard May Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1057 From: Floral Park, NY USA Registered: Aug 2004 posted 06-19-2007 07:15 PM                     Mark, in that case, I have a DTS6D that has a new power supply but won't boot up. Bottom light stays steady. Drives open and close and load CD's but nothing happens. What board do you think it could be. I also have a DTS6 where no lights light up on the timecode board but the drives will load. Any ideas? Thanks  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-19-2007 08:06 PM                     I've had quite a number of the SCSI controler boards fail. I'd try that first, you can sub in the SCSI from the 6 if need be. Or just pull it out and then power up again to see if it begins to boot up, once the bios looks for that card and its missing it'll stop booting. A handy thig to have is an older ISA Bus video card generally available at a local used computer shop for less than 10 bucks... hook up a monitor to it and watch the boot up sequence happen.... Where it stops booting up may give you clues as to what the problem is. However, it does help to watch a known good 6D boot up so you know what to expect it to be doing. Beyond that I generally just sub parts in and out till it is working again... but we have a pretty good stock of DTS parts at CLACO to do this. Another 6D can also be used to do this. Just be sure you're not in a static generating area and end up killing the 2nd unit among other things!! Also... the ISA video card will work on the 6 as well. The XD-10 already has on board video built in if you ever run into the need to watch the boot up. None of the three boot up shows will ever win Emmys! If problems persist get ahold of Carl at Quality Presentations... Via Rt 27 you're very near him... in fact right down the street! I don't think he will mind me posting his number here. Quality Presentations 553 Rockne Avenue Massapequa Park, NY 11762 Phone: +1.516.799.5281 Mark  |  IP: Logged Chris Slycord Film God Posts: 2986 From: 퍼항시, 경상푹도, South Korea Registered: Mar 2007 posted 06-19-2007 10:03 PM                     quote: Mark Gulbrandsen I also have a number of XD-10's that want to boot up and then re-boot again during initial power up. But once up run just fine. Perhaps some Linux experts here can give us some hints as to why these units want to re-boot. I'm not an expert but have a look at here http://www.nslu2-linux.org/wiki/HowTo/AutoRebootOnPanic My guess is this is what's set up. You're probably doing a hard shutdown by just hitting the power button and the fact that it wasn't shut down properly is making a kernel panic. And since it panicked, it reboots.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-19-2007 10:35 PM                     Thanks for that link Chris that is helpful. Yep, they are completely powered down at night. I suspect you are right but why don't all the units do this? I also have one that does not do this upon a hard power down but when just using the front panel switch... Is it possible that something is set so its tricking it into thinking its seeing a hard power down? Mark  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-19-2007 10:55 PM                        How do you shut down an XD10 any other way than the panel switches? We had our XD10 plugged into a surge supressor (due to the wacky electrical system in this town) and we would turn it on and off with the switch on the supressor. No problems ever.  |  IP: Logged John Hawkinson Film God Posts: 2273 From: Cambridge, MA, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 06-19-2007 11:55 PM                     Mark, if you want to debug an XD10, step one is to plug in a monitor and see what it says. You should get lots of info. --jhawk  |  IP: Logged Chris Slycord Film God Posts: 2986 From: 퍼항시, 경상푹도, South Korea Registered: Mar 2007 posted 06-20-2007 01:26 AM                     If you want to figure out why it's doing it you'll have to use John's suggestion of putting in a monitor to the offending units and reproduce the problem. Obviously, check for if the kernel is crashing and what it's crashing on. Wouldn't hurt to check the error logs if you can. Most linux distros store logs in /var/log/messages. quote: Mike Blakesley How do you shut down an XD10 any other way than the panel switches? I wasn't meaning that he was shutting it down wrong or anything like that. I meant that the OS is being run then immediately shut down. Now, what would be nice is instead have the OS pick up the signal that the power button was pushed and go into shutdown mode. That way, you'd avoid some problems. Like instead of having programs in memory just end all of a sudden, the OS would start sending kill messages to them and clean everything up. In fact, I know you can set it up for linux to do this. Though I forget how plus it would probably be a bad idea to hack your cinema processor.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 06-20-2007 06:24 AM                     Like with any other software based system (or firmware) one should know the version number to see if it is unique to a version. I have seen the problem Mark describes in version 2.00.40. I upgraded the offending unit to 2.00.43 and have not seen it return...yet. I am awaiting the next update since it contains a long desired feature (for me)...the ability to have a 35mm and 70mm external switch to alter the lip-sync delay so the operator need not go into the menus to switch or or forget to switch it back. Note this feature could also be used to have two projectors of different types...say a Bauer U2 and and XL where the delays would be different due to physical differences in the machines.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-20-2007 07:57 AM                     All of the units I work with have 2.00.43 in them. Mark  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 06-20-2007 10:27 AM                     Fine...shoot my theory full of holes  |  IP: Logged Thomas Pitt Master Film Handler Posts: 266 From: Leeds, West Yorkshire, UK Registered: May 2007 posted 06-20-2007 03:30 PM                     Have you ever considered there may well be a hardware fault with the DTS systems that are playing up? One major candidate for failure is the capacitors on the board. If exposed to excessive heat, or large ripple current, the capacitors can actually dome up and eventually burst! Of course, once that's happened the board's not going to work like it's supposed to, and you can see any number of problems occurring at random points. The rebooting that Mark mentioned could well have something to do with blown capacitors, as could the DA converter issue I mentioned in the thread about IMAX sound problems. Some brands of capacitors are prone to premature failure, and can burst under normal usage! For more information on this, I recommend you check out www.badcaps.net - it's mainly focused on computer motherboards, but other devices with 'bad' brands of capacitors can fail as well.  |  IP: Logged Michael Schaffer "Where is the Boardwalk Hotel?" Posts: 4143 From: Boston, MA Registered: Apr 2002 posted 06-20-2007 05:08 PM                        Cool, a whole website just about bad capacitors, and it includes a world wide conspiracy theory as well! But interesting.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-21-2007 08:17 AM                     That site is absolutely hilarious! Indeed a conspiracy IS in there if you're dumb enough to believe it.... its time to revive the Warren Commission! I know they would find that it is just a Single Capacitor Failure. Mark  |  IP: Logged

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