Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: DTS6-d intermittently not booting

This is topic DTS6-d intermittently not booting in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://ft-forum.com/ft/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=008253

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 09-18-2006, 04:52 PM:

Anyone heard of this? DTS6-d player will half of the time turn on and boot properly (and run the show fine), but the other half of the time it never reaches the status of the flashing system light indicating that it is ready to run a show (and if a show is ran, it doesn't work).

ALSO, sometimes the unit will boot up fine and run a show, but as soon as the movie is over it will freeze up and have to have a physical reboot of the power button...at which there is a 50% chance of the first paragraph above happening.

Does anyone know which card would be responsible for this? It's been a long time since I've worked with a dts and although I used to know, my memory is failing me on this. Firmware is v1.46 and the unit was in for servicing with new drives installed 60 days ago at dts.

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 09-18-2006, 06:53 PM:

probably the powersupply is getting flaky
or also we have had ram go bad as well

Posted by Bruce Hansen (Member # 281) on 09-18-2006, 07:15 PM:

You might try putting a VGA card into it (if you can find one), connect a monitor to it, and see what is going on.

Posted by Phil Blake (Member # 2012) on 09-18-2006, 08:47 PM:

Brad I had a issue with one of our DTS 6AD units not booting properly from time to time.

The cause was a faulty 740 board , after I replaced it no further problems.

One other issue I have discovered with the DTS units is the Main power switches they use are not all that good , I have had problems with arcing contacts in them , I have since replaced them with off the shelf electronics store ones and again no further problems.

Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 09-19-2006, 02:40 AM:

One of the DTS6D's at Boulevard does this. It's a crapshoot whether it will boot on the first powerup. [Roll Eyes]

-Aaron

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 09-19-2006, 02:42 AM:

Yea..I did have a 6D unit act up the same way..replaced the p/s with a 250w version (which it's an AT 486sx momboard..), reseated the cards, reseated the SCSI cables to trays and controller card (and making sure of the v.1.46 upgrade) and it's been behaving since.

Posted by Dustin Mitchell (Member # 372) on 09-19-2006, 02:49 AM:

Not likely but there could be a bad drive too. Of course this isn't likely given a) the intermittant nature of the problem (every bad drive I've had has locked up the player every time) and b) the fact that the drives were just replaced.

It could be worth checking out though, take the disks out of the drives one at a time and see if the problems stop.

Posted by Ian Bailey (Member # 1752) on 09-19-2006, 03:46 AM:

I had a DTS6-D causing all sorts of problems(not the same as yours Brad)but it would drop out at disc change and was very temporamental.It had been serviced by a DTS tech not that long ago.I just simply removed all the cards and reseated any removable chips and reseated all cards and the thing has not caused a problem yet.Not sure if reseating the chips or the cards did the trick!!
Cheers Ian

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 09-20-2006, 12:25 AM:

Yes, when the trays starts to act up, they do have a nasty tendancy to absorb more juice from the power supply, causing system to freeze in spurts.

The big culprits were the Toshiba 16 spin drives of the 1st generation 6D systems.

TEAC drives seems to behave a lot better. The newest batch of drives (in which they are hi-speed SCSI burner drives, but forget the brand name) is what you get now with the v.1.46 upgrade kits.

Posted by Mike B. Smith (Member # 2829) on 09-20-2006, 02:02 PM:

quote: Brad Miller
the unit was in for servicing with new drives installed 60 days ago at dts

60 days? And you’re having problems with it. This is not acceptable. You should not have to trouble shoot or repair this unit, if work was performed by DTS they should exchange, replace, or repair it, what ever you would like to do. From the description it may be a drive issue. Having a video card installed to see what is happening on boot up helps to narrow down the possible cause. Many times simply disconnecting all drives, then one at a time connecting them checking for proper boot up will help locate the bad one. But seriously 60 days! I thought they had them set for at least 90 days to failure. [Smile]

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 09-20-2006, 02:21 PM:

I wasn't the one who sent it in, but the person who did called DTS and was told "tough".

Posted by Mike B. Smith (Member # 2829) on 09-20-2006, 04:57 PM:

I’m very disappointed to hear that, Please have them contact me. As I said earlier this is unacceptable, and I will do my best to help them get it corrected.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 09-20-2006, 08:43 PM:

A side note to Mike S.: Thanks for posting here, it's good to see someone from DTS posting again.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 09-21-2006, 12:29 AM:

Thanks Mike. I will try and see if they know who they talked to. The dts unit is currently at my office, as it was brought over to me to see if I could fix it and burn in some time on it before it was returned to the theater (but I'm getting rusty on dts units since I only service a half dozen these days since my other accounts run SRD). I will contact you offline when I get back into town and see about sending it in and finding some paperwork on that last repair.