Batboard

I hope someone here has seen this before. My Centracom Gold Elite just had a heart attack. With no peticular provovation, the screen got all out of whack, the microphone was locked open but not trasmitting, and the PTT button was non-functional. The audio was still coming from the speakers. The PC was locked up. It was just sitting there looking stupid.

The PC was locked up so I had to force the power off and turn it back on. Upon booting, it came up with DISPATCH NOT READY, LINK IS DOWN and never completed loading the centracom software. I had to quit that and just shut down the PC. Oh yea, even with the PC off, the select and unselect audio was still coming from the speakers and the mic was still open and the VU meter moving.

I let it sit for a few minutes with the PC turned off. I powered it back on and everything loaded up just like normal. Upon the Centracom software loading, the mic & speakers returned to normal operation. Everything is working just fine now.

My concern is this is now the second time in 2 weeks that this has happened and I only picture it happening again. We were lucky that it is 03:30 and quiet tonight. If this happened at noon, it would be a nightmare.. I called the MSS and the tech I woke up out of bed had no idea what would cause that. I think he is going to ask some other people at the shop but I am hoping someone here has seen this before.

Try resetting the COIM board also.

To narrow it down you can swap PCs between op positions (if you have more than one op). This will narrow it down to a pc issue or something else.

If it is a pc issue then restore the workstation pc from the recovery cd and reinstall the Elite software. Make sure to follow the Elite software install procedure for your specific release as some releases have OS changes that need to be done.

If the problem stays with the op position and not the pc then try swapping the CIE and reprogram the COIM.

George

As another user pointed out, I've left off some important steps!

You will need to change to computer name to match the op position in the Elite server. If the server is configured as a domain controller then you will also need to remove the computer and add it back to the domain. This may be more work than you are bargaining for.

It may be easier to just use the restore cd on the workstation, reinstall the Elite software, then remove the computer from the domain and add it back in.

George

Almost guaranteed it was a computer glitch...after all, it's still a Windows program. It doesn't happen often, but every once in a while, our NT 4.0 Centracom consoles do exactly what you describe. A complete power down & reboot fixes it 99% of the time. Occasionally, it won't fix it...when that happens, I've found nothing short of a complete NT reload will work...and that can mean the hard drive is on it's way out. I know your console is probably used 24/7...but a good defrag & scandisk is in order to verify everything is ok on that end.

Todd

I too am leaning towards a PC glitch that just sent everything else haywire. I will run a scandisk and defrag this week, never even thought of that.

We had a similar problem. It turned out to be a bios problem of the OP PC. Updated the op computer and all is well.

tpg

We had the exact same problem here, Our PC's are on the floor under the Dispatch desk. The problem was the PC had soo much dust collected, it actually clogged the little cooling fan on the processor. Get a can of air, and blow all the dust out. We do this every 6 months, and haven't had a lock-up sence.

Larry

little bit of an overheating problem larry? for peace of mind, all of my mission critical pieces are spec'd and designed with passive cooling, so as to limit moving pieces....as long as it cools it within tolerances under load, it's not gonna fail THAT way.

I happen to like it cold, I'm a huge fan of the AC in here. I usually have it so freakin cold in this room that the fans on the CPU could all be clogged and they will still be fine.

I wish i could do both spec the equip, and cold room. unfortunally we are talking about a dispatch center, and Gold Elite consoles that use HP computers.

wouldn't take more than a couple of nice large Zalman passive heatsinks or heatpipes and some cleanup work inside the case to make any processor run within spec...with some careful work, and thermal considerations, you should be able to get them down to healthy running temps w/o any kind of active cooling.

Well guys, the local MSS had the PC in their shop for about two weeks...

COULD NOT REPLICATE PROBLEM

Hey guys. Guess what happnened again this morning. The night shift dispather called me franticly around 0615 this morning saying "the radio just froze". Exact same symptoms that Mother M claims doesn't exist. This is starting to get annoying.

I've hardly ever seen a Gold Elite CIE that DIDN'T do this at one time or another. The problem I've noticed is that a command is mis-interpreted by the CIE, or a static burst causes the CIE processor to freeze until it's reset by the PC.

So, in my experience the problem's not with the PC but the Console Interface Electronics. Check your grounds...

Hey, here's an even better one. The SERVER which is our secondary op position is having it's own problem. Do you think it is a bad sign when it freezes and upon re-boot, it just has that ominous blinking cursor next to

OPERATING SYSTEM NOT FOUND

Perhaps the server was on it's way out and was causing the errors on the other op postition?

nmfire10 wrote:Hey, here's an even better one. The SERVER which is our secondary op position is having it's own problem. Do you think it is a bad sign when it freezes and upon re-boot, it just has that ominous blinking cursor next to

OPERATING SYSTEM NOT FOUND

Perhaps the server was on it's way out and was causing the errors on the other op postition?

My vote: Bad hard drive.

I second Alex's vote. Either that, or something is preventing the computer from reading the HDD after POST.

Oh, I'm sure thats all it is. I've had that happen to many computers. Of course, this one happend to be the server for our entire radio system. Figures....

nmfire10 wrote: Perhaps the server was on it's way out and was causing the errors on the other op postition?

Not likely. The server has nothing to do with the console's normal operation beyond Centracom start-up, other than Alias updates and that's only if the ADM.mdb is located on the server (it doesn't have to be).

It doesn't surprise me that the shop couldn't replicate the problem, they would have to be able to interface it with your CEB & actually use it as a dispatcher would. I don't suppose they ran any hard drive tests? At the very least, I would have reloaded NT/Win2k/XP (whatever you're using), along with the applicable service pack & Centracom version. Generally if a hard drive can go through a format & reload, it's ok. It would eliminate any Windows bugs which tend to creep in over time as well. The few times I've seen your problem, it was a hard drive on it's way out.

Todd

I don't know what they did, although I would guess they just let it sit there an waited for it to show it's problem. Since we are now completely down on position due to the HDD failure on the other, I can't do any testing of my own on the PC with this other problem.

Once the server comes back, I will run HDD tests on the Op I am having this crashing problem with.

nmfire10 wrote:I don't know what they did, although I would guess they just let it sit there an waited for it to show it's problem. Since we are now completely down on position due to the HDD failure on the other, I can't do any testing of my own on the PC with this other problem.

Once the server comes back, I will run HDD tests on the Op I am having this crashing problem with.

I would listen to the drive when it does this for abnormal sounds...

They are making them with cheaper and cheaper bearings, and sometimes you can hear a click of death sound from the.

-alex