Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: DTS XD-10 Problem: "SIGNAL MISSING"

This is topic DTS XD-10 Problem: "SIGNAL MISSING" in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Jerry Axelsson (Member # 3175) on 07-08-2015, 12:07 PM:

I have an XD-10 which is about 7 years old.
It has been in storage for some time.
I fired it up some weeks ago, and all was fine.

When I was going to do the complete install today I started it up, the display suddenly says "Signal Missing".
From time to time, for a part of a second it switches between the message:" Signal missing to Audio Switching"?

I have tried the full recovery disc with the same result.
The player lets you work in the menues etc. When I play 35mm with timecode, the "Timecode lamp" lights up, but DTS does not kick-in?

Any ideas folks?
I can not find anything about this in the installation manual either.

I would really appreciate any tips to solve this.

Thank you in advance.

Jerry

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 07-08-2015, 10:00 PM:

Steve Guttag mentioned in another thread (sorry - can't find it) that a lot of XD-10s suffer from capacitor plague, because the motherboards of many were built using capacitors of the suspect recipe, and around the peak time for these bad capacitors being used in mass-production electronics.

It seems to me that you've already ruled out a software fault, so maybe it's worth opening up the unit and seeing if there any visibly bad caps?

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 07-09-2015, 07:59 AM:

In addition to the capacitor problem (and they would be easy to spot on the motherboard (look at the electrolytics) we have had partial power supply failures (only some rails power up so the player partially wakes up). Similarly, the player that most recently exhibited this was off for a period of time and then when called into duty, it was partially dead.

Posted by Jerry Axelsson (Member # 3175) on 07-09-2015, 05:27 PM:

Thank you guys, but this turned out to be a simple problem.

For some weird reason, the powercable within the XD-10 to the outboard audio-card had fallen out.
Plugged it back in, and it worked normal.

Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 07-09-2015, 10:04 PM:

quote: Jerry Axelsson
the powercable within the XD-10 to the outboard audio-card had fallen out.

My experience with the XD-10's is that for some strange reason, several of
the units I worked with were prone to connector issues, especially if they
had been shipped or had been in storage, as yours had.

Another issue I found on two of the units at one theater I worked at was
that the connector between the LCD panel on the front and the motherboard
were not exact mates for each other. They were close, but didn't mate exactly.

In later units, they put a blob of silicone or hot glue on the connector to
keep in in place. But not so on a couple of the other units I had.

So, if your front LCD display starts acting up, check the connection
between it and the board it's connected to. You can either bend the pins
a bit to make it more secure, or put a blob of hot glue or sliconestuff.

Posted by Jerry Axelsson (Member # 3175) on 08-01-2015, 05:37 PM:

Regarding the XD-10 player. In general, this is the type of DTS player which has caused me most problems over the years.
The DTS6, DTS6D and XD20 seem to be more reliable overall.

Jerry

Posted by Stephan Shelley (Member # 8587) on 08-01-2015, 06:26 PM:

Problem with the 6 and 6D is they play the cdrom disks directly and the drives go bad from the constant seeking. They are SCSI drives that are getting hard to get.

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 08-02-2015, 02:07 AM:

I actually have had pretty few problems with the XD10 and they are the majority ones that are now in use by our few film theatres. We have seen the capacitor thing in the early ones and a failed power supply in one of the later ones. But yes, no failures in the XD20s yet.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 08-06-2015, 05:20 PM:

Here is my write up from some years ago on the XD-10 using the A-Open mother board. Capacitor plague hit every single one that has an A-Open board in it. I probably recapped about 30 or 40 of these back then. Later XD-10's used an Asus board (I think) and they did not suffer from this issue. It's easy to see what board you have by pulling the top and looking next to the Northbridge chip. Carefully examine the tops of the capacitors for bulging and displacement.

http://www.film-tech.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=010701#000000

Mark