DMPort Error with Mojo on a PC

[Jokuh]

can you get into more detail?
– software version?
– hardware specifics (machine, pci-bus segmentation)?
– when does this error appear?

If this error appear on a PC platform it usually relates to problems with PCI-Bus segmentation…

Regards
Jokuh

[Mitchel]

XPress Pro 4.6 runs on a comp with a Pentium 4 3,2Ghz CPU, the motherboard is not one of Avid’s recommended dual processors E 7525. But from what I heard so far it is not absolutely necessary to use XEON CPUs and related parts?!

[Joe Womble]

I’m getting the error on a totally certified system. Xpress Pro 5.1.3.

See my post below.

Still waiting for someone to chime in on this one. Put this on the Avid-L and the Avid Xpress Pro and Studio forums, and Avid has not responded.

Tim?? Marianna??

Thanks,

Cre8tive

[Jokuh]

If it happens on a certified system: it might just be a software bug.
In case it isn’t a certified system it often CAN relate to pci bus segmentation. The mojo is extremely touchy when beeing used on the same pci bus segment as the hard disk drives. If you want to rule this out, check if your firewire card the mojo is connected to is on a different pci bus segment than the firewire card used for you hard disk drives.
To check you will need a good motherboard documentation. A good (visual) indicator would be if you had pci-x slots and the regular pci ones. those are different pci segments for sure.

Hth
Jokuh

[Joe Womble]

Yep, my Mojo is definitely seperate from my external hard drives (although the Digi 002 is on the same card as the hard drives). My project is a total of 5 – 6 hours, divided up among nine programs.

I have decided that I cannot use external firewire drives to suppliment storage on something so long and so critical. If I can limp through this one, I will go the route of internal/external SCSIs, unless the new SATA configurations prove reliable.

Thanks,

Cre8tive

[Joe Womble]

Well, I figured it out. Or, rather, my ACSR did. James Beattie at CTG. A really good guy who knows his stuff.

I have my Avid hooked up to my home network via ethernet on a router firewalled from the internet. Apparently, even though the Mojo exists on its own firewire bus (the internal one), this bus still competes with the Ethernet card for bandwidth/resources. Unplug the ethernet cable (or disable the network using My Computer) and, voila, no more DMPort Errors. Never happens again.

James went on to tell me that if I swap the hardware between firewire cards (Digi 002 and firewire drives on the internal card and Mojo on the installed card) all will be well, too. Even though Avid recommends Mojo on the internal, as long as they are seperate, no problems or conflicts.

Hope this helps anyone else who might be fighting this bug.

BTW, Avid never did speak up about this problem, even though I posted here, on the Avid-L, Avid Commuinty Forums, et al.

Cre8tive