Old 828 intermittent spikes - eventually unusable

[resomedia]

I just had to replace my old 828 interface. It would just sit idle and intermittently spike on all channels and then on individual channels at random. No audio spiking, just electronically in the unit apparently. Not in any pattern either (i.e. not clock related). With nothing running, the orange lights would blink on and off on the front of the unit at random. When running Cubase, it would make the audio drop out and eventually take it out entirely. The only way to get it back would be to change/reset the buffer setting, but then the spikes would eventually return.

I should mention too that the problem came on slowly over several months. Every few days it would occur. The buffer reset would fix it. Then it started happening more frequently until one day it became unusable. I even tried the unit on another Mac and the problem was consistent there as well.

The unit has given me 8+ years of faithful service, so I'm not too surprised to see it go, but does anyone have a good reason what caused this? If it's worth a fix, I'll keep it.

[vspiegel]

Yes- same thing. The 828 started working intermittently and now the computer doesn't even see it. Tried everything and nothing seems to work. $800 is a lot of money for a new one... And I have heard nothing from the MOTU techs yet about what to do.

Any help would be appreciated.

Victor

I just had to replace my old 828 interface. It would just sit idle and intermittently spike on all channels and then on individual channels at random. No audio spiking, just electronically in the unit apparently. Not in any pattern either (i.e. not clock related). With nothing running, the orange lights would blink on and off on the front of the unit at random. When running Cubase, it would make the audio drop out and eventually take it out entirely. The only way to get it back would be to change/reset the buffer setting, but then the spikes would eventually return.

I should mention too that the problem came on slowly over several months. Every few days it would occur. The buffer reset would fix it. Then it started happening more frequently until one day it became unusable. I even tried the unit on another Mac and the problem was consistent there as well.

The unit has given me 8+ years of faithful service, so I'm not too surprised to see it go, but does anyone have a good reason what caused this? If it's worth a fix, I'll keep it.

[sustainiac]

Its a closed box. with microelectronics = heat over past 8 years.

Sounds like a classic case of surface mount electrolytic capacitor failure - these are the components which fail first on older systems.