Panel Dead ?

Thomas Hayes

Hi everyone
Here is one of those really impossible troubleshooting problems. I have already been in touch with Tech support about this but I wanted to see if anyone else has seen this before. I have a NXD-CV7 that works perfect except for every Wednesday at 8:25-8:35 AM. When the client touches the panel it doesn't work. When I or any of our techs go onsite the panel is dead. No display, no lights, no activity at all. The only way to get it to work is unplug it and power it back up. The panel will then work fine till the next Wednesday. The log shows he panel dropping of line at the same time she touches it and coming back online once re-powered. The panel isn't just locking up and not responding but is for all intent DEAD . Any SWAG theories.

Stuart Beggs

seems very odd this one, it sounds like one of the boards freezing in my experience, it could be it reaches a temperature that causes this to happen over a set period of time. Have you a spare one that you can put in its place so you can soak test it? When you remove the NXD-CV7 bezel are any of the blue LED from the external buttons illuminated, do they not work either? another question is do you use the sleep function for the display? if you set this to zero does it stop this fault. (0 = off reason i ask this is i've seen NXD-CV7 got to a white display when then backlight goes to sleep, a known issue)

Thomas Hayes

No the whole panel is dead-no LED's no nothing. I do have a spare panel but I always like to troubleshoot the device in question onsite and under real world conditions. I do know about the sleep issue, the panel on my desk does it on occasion. Thx for the input.

Stuart Beggs

i know what your saying about testing on site, but i think we can agree this is a panel issue and doesn't seem to be caused by anything else in the system (spare panel would prove this)and once you've put the spare panel in end user will be happy and you won't have to keep going back to site. I personally would definately consider soak testing as from what you are saying this will definately happen in your office when testing too.
i would like to know the outcome of this one though if you manage to get to the bottom of it as not seen this fault before.
Always good to be in the know =

Spire_Jeff

Just a thought, but is there a generator onsite? I know that sometimes the generators can run a self test every week or so and maybe there is an issue being cause by the test?

Also, have you tried rebooting the panel on a Tuesday (before it locks up) and then see if it still fails on Wednesday.

Just a couple thoughts I decided to toss out.... see if anything sticks

Jeff

DHawthorne

I've had this happen with two or three panels, and replacing the panel fixed it every time. It's odd that it seems to happen at roughly the same time each day for you though.

Thomas Hayes

Yes, it is the timing issue that is odd, even Tech support thought that. ever wednesday at 8:25/8:35. This also happened to the same client each time which made me wonder if she was causing a static discharge that was killing the panel.

maxifox

I would also put the panel on a different subnet for next Wed. Or at least to unplug Ethernet during that hours to eliminate the cause coming from the net.

Stuart Beggs

Hi Thomas,

Did you ever find out the problem with your panel, i've just taken a similiar tech call to what you described, interestingly though they had G4 Web control enable and i was able to control the system via this but the panel was still locked, was G4 Webcontrol enable on yours and did it work?

Cheers

Thomas Hayes

No, the day that my boss showed up to help the client the panel worked fine. Perhaps this Wednesday it will die.

- the web-browser was also dead.

LegacyUser

just these last two days i have a cv7 that has lost touch control.

screen is blank due to time out.

but web control works. pinging the device over the network works. the screen wakes up if accessed from web control.

but, when i go to check the serial number of the panel, it's all zeros. from both the system controller and within the panel details, the serial number is zero.

i tried a firmware update online (it's 1000kms away from me). it crashed and is now totally inaccessible

oh, and i have another cv7 at another customer site who has also reported the WHITE screen. very annoying that i have to try and explain this to him. particularly when his other cv7, with same firmware, never does it.

by the way, are you running any video and/or audio to or from the panel ?

no great trouble shooting hints here, just trying to relate the product problems together.

jjames

Richard,

I was getting the white screen as well. I narrowed my problem down to the "Dim Mode Minimum Brightness" setting under Sensors in the proteted setup. I disabled it and they've worked ever since. I've got 4 NXD-CV7 and 2 NXT-CV7 in front of me right now and that was the problem on all of them. Which somewhat leads me to believe the white screen isn't a particular panel problem, but more widespread.

Just my observations . . .

LegacyUser

thanks for that on the WHITE screen. i'll try to get that checked sometime soon and make a note back here about the result.

Thomas Hayes

Okay, I replaced the panel Thursday and a new panel did the exact same thing. This new panel has been on my desk for 3 weeks running fine. I did noticed that the panel was warm and that the opening for it was a little tight. Monday I plan to enlarge the opening and make a temp reading. I'll keep everyone posted. BTW this is the same program for both the panel and controller as everyother one on campus.

Thomas Hayes

Okay, I installed an UPS last week and the new panel locked up today. The tech that did the call rebooted the system so I have no log info but plan on replacing the PS later today.
Things done so far:
1- replace panel
2- UPS
3- Resize hole-make sure there was no preasure points on panel.
4- Replace PS(later today)
5- Replace network switch(next step)
6- Replace controller(next next step)
7- Introduce panel to Mr Wall.
8- Buy a wig.

jodalo82

I have the exact same problem with 2 nxd-cv5's. It will not respond to any physical touch, yet g4 works as well as ping. Apparantly amx knows about the issue and is working on a solution

Thomas Hayes

I have a 5" on my desk doing the same thing, pls post what AMX solution is when you know.

alexanbo

I had a CV7 that stopped responding to touch but still worked with the G4 web control. What tech support had me do was reload the firmware and that fixed the problem. You can telnet into the panel and do a show log to see if there's any useful info there, when I did that I noticed the touch driver wasn't loading.

LegacyUser

i've also seen the CV5 behave the same way, a reboot fixed it.

Thomas Hayes

Okay, I've had 5 panels drop offline today alone. These panels are 'dead' to the world. Rebooting them fixes the problem for awhile. Has anyone come up with a solution as yet? I want my axlink back or better yet a panel that won't lock up. All the same program, all the same TP design, all the same settings. I have about 25+ more of these panels that work fine since they were installed. I have upgraded the firmware to the troublesome panel and there is still an issue.
okay I'm done ranting, sry.

alexanbo

Have you tried turning telnet off.

Our new network guy was trying to make heads and tails of our coporate network and was running a network probe over our network. I noticed it was trying to login to my masters via telnet and ssh every 30 seconds or so. After this probe was started I noticed the touch panels on the network were locking up. I figured I'd try to disable telnet on the touchpanels, as i figured it was trying to login to those as well, to see if that worked. Since disabling telnet I haven't had them lock up on me.

Thomas Hayes

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll try that. I'd also like to thank Jeff from AMX tech support and all the others tech guys who have put a lot of time into this issue. Jeff gave me an idea to try out as well. If it works than I'll post it.

LegacyUser

i've one house that is having similar problems. when i say house, it's a 43rd floor penthouse.

all panels are now running 2.70.x firmware.

sometimes i cannot do a TPD file transfer update without removing the existing panel file from setup.

speaking with support here in australia, the suggestion is that the wireless cards in the panels are first generation 802.11g instead of 802.11b (the later cards have a decimal point in the data rate display).

this is still just a maybe though. we are going to get some update of the wireless cards and see what happens.

i've also ordered a Wi-Spy device, so i can go to the home and do a visible scan of the wireless spectrum.

please let me know what you might find from that side.

vining

You could download Net Stumbler for free and do a wi-fi site survey. I don't know what the why spy is but that may give you a complete spectrum survey including 2.4 ghz cordless and other stuff too but if it doesn't running Net Stumbler on your laptop gives you alot of useful data. You'll be able to see all access points, channels, ssid's, dbmv levels, etc.

LegacyUser

yep, i agree, netstumbler is quite good for looking into wireless channels.

i've just received my Wi-Spy and run it up the flagpole.

what's nice about wi-spy is it's visual display of the 2.4g spectrum.

and you can select wi-fi channels, zigbee channels or frequencies.

so, where netstumbler is very much wi-fi centric and gives good information per wireless channel, wi-spy looks across the whole range.

with this visual information, you can soon see channels that are saturated or getting interference from other (maybe unknown) sources (eg. cordless phone, video senders, microwave ovens).

as wi-spy is new to me, i can't give a full review of it yet. but i've got to say that already i can see the clear spectrum around my office, and i may move wireless channels thanks to this insight.

hopefully, when i take this setup to the penthouse, i will soon know whether there is interference in the air or not.

vining

Just googled it and it looks interesting and for $99 buck to have the ability to do a full spectrum analysis of the wi-fi range ain't bad.

Thomas Hayes

okay, I removed the 'telnet' and touch wood all the panels have stayed on this week. looks like our IT guys were getting trigger happy. Hope the panels continue to remain on.