A Problem with Pro Tools TDM with multiple Mix Cards

[d97]

Hi everybody - I am really hoping that somebody can help me out here.  I am new to Pro Tools TDM (this year, in fact) so I really know nothing about troubleshooting, etc..  My previous experience was with DP & Logic in my OS9 days.

I have two Mix Cards and two DSP farm cards and one five-connection ribbon cable.  Both Mix cards work and both mix cards can talk to my two DSP farm cards.  When I hook all four cards up together, Pro Tools refuses to launch.  It asks me to make sure my hardware is connected and ... well, whenever I hit continue, the message comes back up.  Cancelling is my only option.

This happens under OS9 and OSX.  What makes it a little more weird is that at one time, both OS9 and OSX asked me to configure the cards and explain how they were hooked up, etc.  I am using one 882/20 interface and mark it as connected to the first of my mix cards.  After I do the configuration, I get the "Please attach your Pro Tools Hardware" message. 

I feel like I must be missing something very straightforward because the configuration tells me that Pro Tools can "see" the cards.  I do have another 882/20 Interface and could connect it to the second mix card but I don't think that should be necessary.

I have them configured in PCI slots as Mix,Mix, Farm, Farm.  I have tried them in a 1 ghz DP mirror door and a 466mhz Digital audio.

Any advice would be really appreciated.

D.

[Syntho]

What revision are your DSP Farm cards? If you're running them in a G4 I bet the issue is that the DSP Farms aren't the DSP Farm II cards. Digitest will tell you if so. If you don't see the 'II' in Digitest by them, you'll need some new cards, or just take them out. That's pretty much why the II versions were released - to be compatible with G3 or G4 PCI slots.

[d97]

Thanks for the reply, Syntho ... They are both DSP II farm cards.  There is something strange going on - they work fine when I am only using one mix card but the minute I chain the second mix card in, Pro Tools fails to launch. 

I'm not terribly fussed about this but I would like to have the additional power.

D.

[Protools5LEGuy]

Send to Trash "Protools preferences"

[d97]

Syntho - your mention of digitest inspired me to run it again to see if there were any issues with my cards and it told me that it didn't like the positioning of my cards.  I shuffled them around a bit and now everything works!

Thanks for the help (and thanks for the other suggestion, ProToolsLE!).

I'm glad that things are working now.

D.

[Syntho]

Slot/Card order is probably the biggest issue with running TDM systems. I still can't figure out why some of my machines behave a certain way, especially combined with additional video cards. Sometimes the Mac just doesn't like certain things for whatever reason and we have to go against what the manual says sometimes.