Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: High pitched tone coming from Doremi Showvault

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Posted by Yang Miller (Member # 8982) on 03-26-2019, 02:28 PM:

Having a high pitched tone coming from Doremi Showvault on one of our screens. It's noticeable from outside the booth. The sound stops when the server is shut down. I'm imagining it's possibly a fan that is causing the issue. We're not getting any error notices or warnings. Has anyone experienced this?

Posted by William Kucharski (Member # 7246) on 03-26-2019, 02:31 PM:

Very likely a fan; modern fans don’t last long.

Posted by Karl Belter (Member # 10813) on 03-26-2019, 03:08 PM:

Only a couple moving parts in a server anymore. Most likely fan, but could be a hard drive (if this is like a server and has them). The trick in a server is finding the guilty party.

Modern servers will give you means to see fan speeds so you can tell if a fan is not behaving like the others. I don't know if this system has that.

Assuming this box don't have "lid open" sensors, which some do, if your cables are long enough to pull out, you might start it up with top lid open and see if you can narrow it down. Other than than, your safest way would be to swap out each fan (remember power supplies frequently have fans) one at a time until you find which one did it.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 03-26-2019, 03:34 PM:

Gee, I never had any fans fail in a server or projector...Not even in a Dolby server.

Mark

Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 03-26-2019, 04:14 PM:

One of the power supplies is unplugged, dead, or otherwise not working. In the meantime, press the red button above the power supplies to stop the screaming.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 03-26-2019, 06:27 PM:

Jip, it will probably not be a fan, but simply the alert that one of the PSUs plugged into the machine isn't providing power to the backplane.

Usually, pulling the faulty PSU out of the machine will permanently stop the beeping tone. The faulty PSU should be the one with either no green LED or an amber LED indication.

Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 03-26-2019, 06:39 PM:

I second checking what Adam suggested. Especially if it's loud enough to
be heard outside the booth. I've one or two fans get a bit 'squeaky', but I
think the fan bearings would seize up before they got loud enough to be
heard in the auditorium.

Do you have another Doremi you can swap supplies with & see if the it
goes away, or follows the supplies you swap?

About a year ago I got a call from someone about a "high pitched noise"
coming from 'somewhere in the booth' (This guy couldn't even localize it)

It did turn out to be a failing power supply in their DCP-2000.
Of course ("Murphy's Law") this happened the night before a big festival.

Fortunately, I had an identical server at home I use for testing some of
my own projects or trouble-shooting defective festival DCP's, so I let them
borrow my power supplies till they got theirs replaced.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 03-26-2019, 07:12 PM:

Agreed with the above. If it's a beep, it's a dead or dying PSU. If it's a high pitched abrasion or contact type sound, something to do with a fan (which includes the fan in the PSUs) - either the bearing is shot, or a fan blade is hitting something (a dislodged bit of crud?) every revolution.

Posted by Yang Miller (Member # 8982) on 03-26-2019, 07:34 PM:

Adam is the winner!

Turns out what I mistook as a fan squeal was an alarm tone for a failed power supply. The red button did the trick. Looks like we're ordering a replacement power supply, unless I luck out and it's just a faulty power cable.

Thank you all for your input! I've very grateful for tremendous resource!

Posted by William Kucharski (Member # 7246) on 03-26-2019, 10:29 PM:

My apologies for being misleading; I thought the squeal was only being heard in close proximity to the unit and that’s usually a fan.

A loud beeping is usually an alarm.

Sorry for the misdirect.

(I am also good at picking out noises so I can hear a failing fan in an office of PCs, too. It’s scary when the owner sitting in front of it for eight hours daily can’t. 😄)

Posted by Ioannis Syrogiannis (Member # 3235) on 03-27-2019, 05:40 AM:

You might find it peculiar, but I would be glad if the failing-PSU-alarm of the doremi server was as loud as the Dolby's one.
I remember hearing the sound on one occasion and not being able to locate it in a rather noisy environment.
The amber LED did the trick really soon, but made me wonder if it would be easily noticeable in other cases.

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 03-27-2019, 07:27 AM:

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
Gee, I never had any fans fail in a server or projector

Actually, GDC is the winner (loser) on the server fan department. The original double fan on the mediablock for the 2100/2001 server would indeed fail and was a dumb design (mediablock stewed in its own juices). The modern mediablock fan with the air plenum has a better service record but it too can go noisy/fail. I've also had the rear fans (just one though) on the GDC fail.

As for projector fans, eventually, they all fail though it would appear that the ICP fans on NEC series 2 projectors are starting to be the first to drop.

I've had other odd fans in other brand projectors also fail (so far, one cathode fan in a Barco early into its life and, just recently, a radiator fan in a Barco also go...nothing approaching a trend.

Posted by Matt Fields (Member # 3211) on 03-27-2019, 11:02 AM:

For us the Card Cage fans on the CP2220 is the failure champ.