PCI cards & mains power?

[eliteforce]

Hey folks,

I have an issue with a PCI-424 card (which I run 2 x MOTU 2408 soundcards from) that I have in my G5 (OS 10.4.10 / Dual 2Gb / 2.5Gb RAM). Recently the computer, on booting up in the morning, doesn't 'see' the PCI card as there, and the only way to get it to do so seems to be to take the tower apart, swap PCI slots and reboot from scratch.

This card's been working without any issues for several years now, and the problem has only recently surfaced. The only thing that's different from before is that the power supply to the G5 is now going through a power conditioner (Furman), so effectively every night the mains power is switched OFF to the G5.

Is this a possible cause for these problems with the PCI card?

Hope someone can help,
shack

[trevor]

I assume that these are actually PCI-424/G5 cards? The older PCI-424 cards are not compatible with the 3.3volt PCI slots on those PowerMac G5s that have PCI and/or PCI-X slots. But then, they never were, and you report that this was working fine for you before, so I assume that they are PCI-424/G5 cards.

What slot numbers have you plugged the PCI-424/G5 cards into? There are two different PCI busses on your computer, and you should separate the MOTU cards from the video card as much as possible.

I'm not sure why using the Power Conditioner would cause problems, but that's a really easy theory to test--bypass the Furman and see if the problem goes away.

I wouldn't recommend removing the mains power from the computer anyway--your PRAM battery will wear down more quickly. So I'd either
1. connect the PowerMac to a power conditioner that you don't turn off, or better yet a UPS that you don't turn off, or
2. plug it directly into power without the conditioner, if you need to turn off other equipment plugged into the conditioner.

Trevor