Attic Heat Bad For Gear?

Polkie2009

Now that we can see the guts here, I notice the ribbon cables that are used. May be a long shot but I've heard that sometimes it's worth a try making sure the ends of the ribbon cable are secure in their connectors. EDIT: That smell you mentioned is perplexing, no signs of anything looking like it got hot?

msg

yeah, good point, and I was hoping to find something obviously out of the ordinary. I took my time going over everything and having a good look for the obvious stuff, and nothing jumped out at me, unfortunately.

re: burnt or damaged components, nah, really didn't see anything obviously unusual, and no smell when powered down. could be likely that that smell was coming from one of the components Westmass was talking about potentially failing due to attic heat and sitting unused. Would make sense if it were the caps in the power circuit, as that would fall in line with what the guy from L&M was speculating. The guy at L&M said it probably wasn't getting enough power through the circuit. Now that we're talking about it, I remember now reading something similar in the Owners Manual about how poor power can cause the lock ups - I imagine the same behavior that Emlyn is describing.

I'm kinda more curious now to get this over to Action Electronics, the shop I'm planning to take it to up in Williamsburg. It's about a 45 minute drive from me, but figure it'll be a nice little trip to meet the owner since I may have other equipment for him to check out from time to time, too. I've talked to him on the phone before about vintage electronics, and he's got a pretty casual demeanor and a not-overzealous-about-replacing-components-unless-necessary-where-vintage-gear-is-concerned kind of philosophy. I don't have enough experience yet to know whether that's good or bad. I imagine it would depend on the project, like, say, updating speaker crossovers being a good thing. Anyway, seems to take his time talking to you, as well, which I like. It's welcoming, you know?

bikerboy

Power supply capacitors are rated for 3000 hours at 85 or 105 degrees Celsius. So time x heat = diminished effectiveness. I did repair an old onkyo tuner that couldn't remember it's presets by replacing a special capacitor that served like a battery. Was easy once I knew the location. Good luck. Sounds like it's worth fixing.

msg

nice! thanks for that info!

[Deleted User]

Hello,
According to the DS80C323 data sheet that pin is the ground for the chip. It should be connected to it's socket, try lifting that end of the chip far enough so it could be tucked into it's position. Power off, of course.
Regards, Ken

msg

Hey Ken, thanks!
is that data sheet just for that particular chip, or do you have the whole schematic for the unit? I haven't been able to find it anywhere. Links come up dead. I have a message in to ATI to see if they have them.

[Deleted User]

Just that chip, sorry.

msg

no prob. on that pinout you have for that chip, does it show any other grounds anywhere at all? this is definitely odd. I've never seen anything like that before.

I did mess with it some yesterday, but don't have an IC puller that big, and it wasn't coming out very easily, and I was concerned for pulling something loose on the card.

I just spoke with the owner at Action Electronics. considering that the unit was functioning fine for a while there when I had it, except for the lockups, I'm going to reserve reseating that leg as a last resort, and drop the unit off at this shop to have it checked out. for the way it failed, I'm thinking (hoping) the power circuit may have been on its way out and that the intermittent issues I was seeing were indicating such. I'll post back with the news when I hear back on the evaluation.

Ken, in light of the info you provided, and to try to rule it out one way or another, I'm going to make a second post here on the forum to other Reference 50 S1/S2 owners to see whether they'd be willing to pop a cover and check that chip.

pitdogg2

would you be able to take say short piece of cat5-6 cable strip enough to get into socket and wrap around pin to trouble shoot?

[Deleted User]

Here's the link to the data sheet:

http://www.keil.com/dd/docs/datashts/dallas/ds80c32x.pdf

That chip won't behave as intended if that ground is open.

msg

pitdogg2 wrote: »

would you be able to take say short piece of cat5-6 cable strip enough to get into socket and wrap around pin to trouble shoot?

that's a good idea, and I probably could and get it seated into the socket.

Kenneth Swauger wrote: »

Here's the link to the data sheet:
http://www.keil.com/dd/docs/datashts/dallas/ds80c32x.pdf
That chip won't behave as intended if that ground is open.

thanks Ken, I'll save this to my B&K documentation.


man. this is really weird.
I don't want to risk damaging any components by reseating it if it's not supposed to be seated. I can't imagine this really being a common practice though. unfortunately, I haven't been able to speak with anyone with any experience with these units yet for more information. I'd be more inclined to reseat it if it weren't working at all before, you know?

It's not like that pin could come unseated due to vibration or anything. it would have to have been done deliberately, or through poor attention during assembly, but not sure how anyone could miss something like that?

what do you guys think?

[Deleted User]

Hello,
If it weren't intended to be connected it would have been trimmed off, or the signal trace interrupted on the board underneath.
Ken

msg

that's what I would think.
I was reviewing that pinout, too, and saw that that looks like the only ground?

re: were it done intentionally, I was thinking it somehow done to lock access or programming or something, kind of like a jumper? but since it's a ground leg, that doesn't really make sense.

msg

I was waiting to have all the business buttoned up with the seller before I started messing with the unit, repairs wise. Took a while to get the transaction finalized.

I was getting ready to take it up to the local shop I mentioned, but for giggles decided to remove the chip and reseat it with all the legs properly in place, like some of you recommended. As suspected by a few of you, this seemed to resolve the issue.

Once all back together, it powered up immediately and appeared responsive, no issues. I couldn't believe it at first. I did a factory reset, got a couple of inputs programmed, and let it run. It ran for four or five days straight with periodic testing for responsiveness throughout. sometime on the fourth or fifth day during a test for responsiveness, it worked briefly before locking up then throwing up a code briefly, and then entering a cycle of soft reboots - it would reboot, throw a code, reboot, throw a code, reboot, etc. I turned off the power switch, disconnected power, turned on the power switch to try to clear any residual on the boards, then turned it off. about 30 seconds later, I plugged it back in, powered up, and it was fine. It ran again like this for another 4-5 days before doing the same thing again. This time I let it run through a cycle of reboots and recorded the codes it threw. The codes seemed to be the same few, no particular order.

EE ERROR 1451
EE ERROR 1480
EE ERROR 1540
EE ERROR 1580
EE ERROR 1436
EE ERROR 1451
EE ERROR 1480
EE ERROR 14C1
EE ERROR 1500
EE ERROR 1540
EE ERROR 1580
EE ERROR 1436
EE ERROR 1451
EE ERROR 1480

There is mention of periodic lockups in the troubleshooting section of the owner's manual with the fix being to "reboot" or remove power and reset the unit, or ensure that the unit has proper power. given mention in the manual, it leads me to think that this is normal/expected behavior for these units. some sellers even mention this in their ads. sounds screwy, though, and I can't really see that being a regularly acceptable quirk in a piece of equipment like this.

Any of you guys with Reference 50's, either S1 or S2 - do your units behave similarly when left on over long periods of time? or all clear, no issues?

At any rate, I think I can live with that for the cost, overall. I usually do a soft shutdown when done listening each day, so we'll see whether it fails during shorter runtime periods of a day or two. certainly works much better than it did when I first got it, locking up in a matter of minutes at times, and then that complete power failure, rendering the unit completely unusable.

one other thing I noticed - that odd smell seems to be gone now, too.

thanks for all the input and feedback along the way. have to wonder whether that chip placement was a manufacturing error or just at the hands of someone who probably shouldn't have been poking around inside the case. There seem to be quite a few Ref 50's out there advertised for sale as broken/repair, described as not powering on, and briefly flash red lights. If you can get your hands on one cheaply, it may be a simple fix if this is a common error at build. when it works, it's a pretty nice unit to have in a system.