k6ccc Posted December 3, 2016 Share Posted December 3, 2016 I almost had a dark show this evening - UGH! Fortunately I checked my work and averted the disaster. I tell this story here in hopes that just maybe one person will also avoid disaster by checking their work. So here is the story... Today I was doing several projects around the house. One of those resulted in killing AC power to my six arches of Cosmic Color Pixels. I later had the show computer opened up with the prospect of adding a second audio card to it. After finding that the spare audio card that I had would not fit in the computer, I closed the PC back up and powered it back up. The show player came up just like it should, and Zara Radio came up and after being told to start playing again, it was playing fine as monitored by an FM radio listening to my transmitter. I confirmed that both ethernet networks were alive by pinging various devices on both the LOR network and also my normal home LAN. Next was a check on my three LOR networks to make sure they were OK after the power outage to the CCPs and show computer being opened up. Unloaded LOR and started the Hardware Utility. Went to the dropdown to manually select the comm port, and the first surprise was that there was only Comm-1 (the physical serial port on the PC that is not used for the show), Comm-3 which is my "Regular" network, and Comm-4 which is my Aux-A network. Missing was Comm-5 which is my Aux-B network. Before worrying about the missing Comm-5,I scanned both Comm-3 and Comm-4. Comm-3 correctly found the InputPup which is the only device on that network. Comm-4 found nothing. Oh crap! So I went back out to the garage to look. When I looked at the back side of the computer, I found two issues. First was that the USB plug for Comm-5 had been pushed partially out of the connector on the PC. OK, that made sense as I was working right next to there when I was trying the audio card. Next was to look at the RS-485 adapters. The Cat-5 cable on the middle adapter had become disconnected from the adapter. Apparently when I set the audio card aside, the corner of the card had perfectly laid against the release tab of the RJ-45, and the connector backed out just enough. After plugging both connectors back in, I retested all three networks, and now Comm-3 had the InputPup, Comm-4 had the correct five controllers, and Comm-5 had the three CCP controllers. Yes, I then remembered to exit the HU,and start up the control panel. So the moral of the story is to always check your work when you are completed! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ItsMeBobO Posted December 3, 2016 Share Posted December 3, 2016 5 minutes ago, k6ccc said: <snip> After finding that the spare audio card that I had would not fit in the computer.</snip> Can you still get audio cards for PCs from the XP era? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilMassey Posted December 3, 2016 Share Posted December 3, 2016 NEVER ever put the cover back on before you check it's working.? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Need more lights Posted December 4, 2016 Share Posted December 4, 2016 That was one of those...Oh crap! what did I screw up??? moments that make your heart stop...Glad you were able to catch it and it was a simple fix! phew! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
k6ccc Posted December 4, 2016 Author Share Posted December 4, 2016 28 minutes ago, ItsMeBobO said: Can you still get audio cards for PCs from the XP era? OH yea. It's a PCI buss, and the card is likely as old as the computer. 14 minutes ago, Need more lights said: That was one of those...Oh crap! what did I screw up??? moments that make your heart stop...Glad you were able to catch it and it was a simple fix! phew! Yep! Just for good measure, I am not going to be home all evening tonight so I may not even know that it wasn't working... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wmilkie Posted December 4, 2016 Share Posted December 4, 2016 glad you figured it out; I usually forget to plug something back in, like power, lights, audio, etc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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