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Smoked Card anyone?
Anyone experienced a fried Kona card before?
Was running a Kona LHe card on its 4th day of use when we heard a substantially audible “pop & crackle” sound, followed by a system crash, raging fans and the smell of burning silicon.
Shut the system down, unplugged power, removed AJA card and started the machine back up. Everything appears fine after few hours of regular use now without the AJA card.The back of the card smells and there are signs of heating on the shiny/ solder side of the board. All PCI-e pins are fine, showing good physical scoring on both sides of the contact points with no visible signs of overheating.
This is our 2nd replacement card. The first two would not allow a system start-up without adjusting and re-inserting the card inside the PCI-e slot until achieving start-up. This was sometimes a lengthy trial & error process. While working, without touching anything, the system would sometimes crash until again re-inserting/ positioning the card would result in a start. This card seemed to run fine for 4 days, with no abnormalities visible.
Anyone with any ideas? I’ve expressed interest in upgrading to the Kona 3 out of pure frustration.
Thanks,
Other PCI-e cards: High-point Technologies SATA RocketRAID 3220, Radeon X1900 16x Graphics
Software: OS 10.4.8, FCP 5.12, AJA Kona driver release 3.3
Machine Name: Mac Pro
Machine Model: MacPro1,1
Processor Name: Dual-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 2.66 GHz
Number Of Processors: 2
Total Number Of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per processor): 4 MB
Memory: 5 GB
Bus Speed: 1.33 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MP11.005C.B04
SMC Version: 1.7f8Jonathon Stanton
Producer/ Director
Starseed Media Inc. -
7 Replies
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I might think about the K3. The K2 is an amazing product, this is why I think I’d go K3. This said AJA is amazing about replacing cards, but it sounds like their might be a problem with the PCI bus.
Would that bus fry any other card?
What else is in the BOX?
Could the Graphics card and the SATA card be heating thigs up to much?
Is the machine well vented far enough away from the wall to promote airflow?
Is the room hot?
Is the machine on a regulated power source with surge supression?Just covering the bases, since there are variables to consider.
david
Peace and Love 🙂
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[Jahmedia] “Anyone with any ideas? I’ve expressed interest in upgrading to the Kona 3 out of pure frustration.”
I would seriously take the machine in and make sure nothing is wrong with that PCIe Slot. You didn’t have any sort of static electricity discharge when you installed either card, did you? I’ve honestly never heard of anything like this with any video card on a machine. Sounds like something is going wrong with the slot itself.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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Thanks guys.
It is well ventilated, no serious heat coming off the other two cards. On a battery backup system. I tried the previous LH’s unsuccessfully in slots 2,3,4 to check. Strangely, the SATA RAID controller works fine in all those slots. Slot Utility is in #2 setting. I was always careful to ground myself by touching the machine before touching the card. Pretty paranoid bout that.
Just took one more look at the card to find one little square jumper fried on the board – similar to a resister but not.
Was dreading taking it in again but you’re probably right.
Cheers,
JS
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[walter biscardi] “I would seriously take the machine in and make sure nothing is wrong with that PCIe Slot. You didn’t have any sort of static electricity discharge when you installed either card, did you? I’ve honestly never heard of anything like this with any video card on a machine. “
Ditto
I have had to send maybe 10 cards back to AJA over the years, and I have never heard nor seen one that smelled of smoke. I would take the machine in ASAP to make sure. Apple has had issues with cracked PCIe slots in the macpros but I though that was solved.gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows -
Ditto on that ditto –
I don’t care if you have a Cinewave card, Aurora Card, Blackmagic Card, Bluefish Card, Voodoo card, AJA card, ATTO card, or any other kind of card. If you had TWO cards fry, let me assure you that it ain’t the cards that are causing this problem. If you have bad power issues, you would fry the computer as well, or the SATA host card. You have a problem with your MAC, and I know exactly what will happen when you bring it in – “we checked it out, and it’s working just fine – we did not see any problems”.I don’t know how to advise you, other than to find someone OTHER than “the Apple Store” genius’ to look at your MAC.
Bob Zelin
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Thanks guys.
That is valuable info. Unfortunately, I think you’re both right. Machine has to go in on sick leave. Better it than me I guess…
JS
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[Bob Zelin] “If you have bad power issues, you would fry the computer as well, or the SATA host card.”
Just as a side note, I was on the set of a show yesterday and the D.P. and audio technician are both wearing static guards now because a few days ago the audio tech went to grab something near the tape machine and he got such a static charge that it blew out their power backup. That saved their 1200A deck and all the audio mixing gear.
So definitely be very aware of static electricity when installing anything in your machines or handing cables and drives around your machines.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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