Keyboard Unresponsive Stopping D8B Boot Up

[SynthfulDwarphus]

Hi Guys,
I may be way off base here, (standard disclaimer), but I had a D8B with the old motherboard and I don't ever recall seeing "PM9800 American Megatrends" on the screen. Maybe someone had a problem with this unit and purchased a motherboard that does not have the Mackie bios chip in it. Just a thought.

Have a blessed day,
Mike

Thanks for the insight, Mike.

I'm fairly certain my D8B was not been touched from sometime in very early 2000s (based on original battery, tons of dust, the other gear I purchased it with in lot, and original user's labels still on d8B indicating hookup to early-2000s gear).

What's strange is that out of 15-20+ tries to boot, I ONLY ONCE got the "CMOS Checksum Bad" message somewhere between those attempts, with all other times showing "CMOS Settings Wrong", "CMOS Display Type Wrong" instead...

[SynthfulDwarphus]

I am not totaly sure of this, but, the older 133MHz MB do not accept USB interfaces. Or at least I could never get them to work. Same with CF harddrives. Could never get them to work either. When I aquired the 300MHz MB, both worked very easily.

Have you switched Keyboards? I have used a DIN (Male) to USB adaptor and it worked, Thus allowing me to use a USB keyboard. just in case you do not have another DIN Keyboard.

Goodluck
Bruce

Thanks, please see pic of Amptron PM9800 mainboard manual in OP showing it indeed has USB compatibility. Strangely, you'd think Amptron would tout the feature rather than bury it on one page in the manual, especially since USB was essentially brand new when this MB debuted (1996?).

Although Mackie used the Amptron in 1998 on debut of D8B (my unit was made in '99 according to serial number), I wonder whether the PM9800 has USB 1.1 or 1.0. I think 1.0 could be problematic, but not many products used USB 1.0, though apparently 1.1 wasn't available until August 1998.

Re keyboards, please see in OP that I tried two known-working oldskool DIN5/PC-XT/AT keyboards and two known-good PS/2 keyboards with a known-good DIN5 to PS/2 adapter (I have one BAD new adapter - that baffled and hindered me on another vintage piece for over a year - finally caught a few reviews complaining that seller must have had a bad batch. I also have one bad old DIN5 keyboard). So, unfortunately, it's definitely something on my D8B that's amiss...

[Y-my-R]

Sorry for not following up, sooner... I did stick my hand behind those old D8B rack units I have, to see if I currently have a slot cover with USB ports installed, and I do NOT, unfortunately.

So, it won't be an easy test for me, to see if I can get into the D8B's BIOS on an "old board" unit, since I don't have a USB breakout installed on any of them right now. Sorry!

I do remember that only ONE of my USB breakout adapters that attaches to the USB header on the old mainboard worked, even though I have a few of them. Probably because of the different pin-out on the board-header you mentioned. If I recall correctly, that USB adapter happened to be ASUS branded (probably came with a different computer... I have lots of loose parts like that).

...and I am POSITIVE, that I had USB working with an ASCII-Keyboard on a D8B with the Amptron PM9800 board (a mouse won't work, btw. - at least not directly connected. USB mouse over a KVM that connects to PS/2 on the D8B rack unit works, though). And I also had a CF drive running on an old board. I think I responded to Mike about that in a different thread, some time back. I don't know why this isn't working for Mike, but it's not a "general" incompatibility (could be an older BIOS version or similar, that gets in his way, though).

My "main" D8B rack unit used to be the old-mainboard type when I first started using a D8B, and I had upgraded all the obvious stuff on it back then (256 MB of RAM, CF card for OS, USB-port, quieter fans, etc.) and I had all of that working (but had issues with different stuff, which is why I moved to the "newest" rack unit I had, eventually).
Again, I wouldn't know first hand, if a unit that doesn't recognize a DIN-5 keyboard, would be able to recognize a USB-keyboard instead AND let you in the BIOS. Sounds like someone's got that working... but it will always depend on what the root cause is. My guess would be, if the keyboard controller chip on the mainboard is burned out, then the USB keyboard probably still wouldn't work... I'd at least "guess" that the ASCII data still gets routed to that chip in one way or another (but don't really KNOW about the data-flow and how it's processed when entering via USB).

I'm curious if your (and my) old PM9800 can be revived via a keyboard connected to USB, though. If I somehow find the time (and the right USB breakout adapter), then I'll try with the "bad keyboard" board on my end... but with everything going on right now, that would likely not be until a few months from now, sorry.

Best of luck with getting that to work in the meantime!

[SynthfulDwarphus]

Thanks for the reply. (I'm not getting notifications of new replies, so I manually check here every few days.)

I will order a USB board in hopes that it might work on the Amptron MB , as you believe yours did.

I haven't heard back from poster re testing the pins of DIN5 keyboard port, so this seems the best thing to try to resolve my problem .

I'll definitely let you know how it goes on the USB front , and keep checking for your (or other contributors') input.

Best ,
SynD

[Y-my-R]

I found/remembered the reason, why I don't have a USB breakout-cable installed in an "old" D8B rack unit.

I looked at the back of the two "new" type D8B rack units I have set up for use, and found that the USB ports on the rear slot cover, are installed in one of them, which I run Windows 98 on (long story). And when I saw it, I remembered that I ever only had a SINGLE one of those USB breakout cables/slot-covers that actually worked with the D8B.

I now also remember, that I even ordered two more at some point... I don't remember clearly, but I "think" that these other ones I had ordered, were still listed as USB 1.1... but they didn't end up working with the D8B. (And a few USB 2.0 breakout cables I have, didn't work in the first place... even when fudging with the pinout, as far as I recall).

That old "Asus" breakout cable I have, that is now in the D8B "Win98" box, DID work with the old "Amptron" board, when I still used that as my main D8B rack computer, and also worked with the new board type.

I didn't REALLY need USB on the computer that's running the Mackie OS (I got a KVM that can handle Din5 and PS/2), but am using that with USB sticks, etc. to copy data to/from that Windows 98 box, so I have a much more important use for it there.

I think the takeaway from this is, that I know that USB works with the old AMPTRON board, if you have a USB header/breakout cable, that actually works with it... but a lot of the ones you can buy now, will not work.

I never ended up buying a "new" breakout cable that worked with the D8B boards and just kinda gave up, since I didn't really "need" more than one working one. But I guess you probably really need to find a USB 1.0 (not 1.1) adapter for this to work out.... and least based on anecdotal evidence, from my experience here.

(And sorry... I don't want to take the Windows-D8B-Rack computer out of the rack and take it apart, just to try that adapter with the bad board. It's pretty hard to get to, just to satisfy my curiosity, if I could get a, in my case 5th, D8B motherboard to run).

Best of luck, though - I think if you can find an old USB 1.0 header/breakout cable, there may be a chance!

[SynthfulDwarphus]

Great to hear you're certain your OG Amptron MB worked with USB at one point. Also, I totally understand it's a pain to unrack your system to check on it.

What's strange is your success with only certain breakout cables, since I'm pretty sure they are purely passive, just simple cables to connect from the small headers on the MB to a full USB port form factor, so any breakout cable should work.

One issue I see is possibility the Amptron MB has very early USB 1.0 instead of much more common 1.1.

The other thing is the Amptron MB USB headers are configured differently than on the newer MB, so the breakout cables' pins need to be reconfigured (although it seems you did that with your breakout cables).

I've gone ahead and ordered the USB breakout bracket , but won't be back from out of town to try installing for a couple weeks. I'd also like to test the DIN5 port with a multimeter as suggested in above post, but unfortunately I don't know the exact steps to do so.

I'll be sure to let you know how it goes, and thanks again for your insight!

[SynthfulDwarphus]

Well, an UPDATE finally (some 4 months later!); better late than never.

PROGRESS, and good news, but not out of the woods yet!

I finally installed the USB x2 port breakout cable bracket in my AMPTRON PM9800 motherbaord based D8B, only AFTER rewiring in reverse the 2nd side of the USB header (the 1st side remains standard wired), as required by the PM9800 and instructed on motherboard user manual page 7, and refering to the pin numbers printed on the motherboard by the pins.

Pins 1(red) - 2(white) - 3(green) - 4(black)
4(black) - 3(green) - 2(white) - 1(red)
(See attached USB wiring colors photo.)

Upon startup with USB keyboard plugged into newly installed USB port, [F1] WORKED on keyboard and I was able to use [DELETE] brought me to BIOS setup screen. To reiterate, NO PRE-ADJUSTMENT OF ANY BIOS SETTINGS WERE NECESSARY WHATSOEVER to get the AMPTRON PM9800 to allow use of USB KEYBOARD in the BIOS screens!! USB keyboard worked IMMEDIATELY and AUTOMATICALLY.

HOWEVER, to be able to use USB keyboard beyond BIOS setup screens, you need to make sure that on the ADVANCED CHIPSET SETUP BIOS screen where the USB setup is located you MUST set ONLY "OnBoard USB Function" to ENABLED but leave "USB Function Support" DISABLED or else the SYSTEM HANGS with a blinking cursor at one of the boot screens when you reboot with the new BIOS settings.

The Amptron will show on the boot screens that the PCI USB is enabled, and also will affirmatively show that both USB mouse and USB keyboard devices are detected. In fact, it will even detect ONLY the mouse if you attach it by itself! (It was disputed whether a USB mouse was supported at all above and on posts years ago - especially on the old/original Amptron mb...)

UNFORTUNATELY, after a quick info screen flashed, and then the D8B logo splash screen displayed while loading the system, I eventually got a graphical slider screen (main screen) with an "Alert - Control Surface Card Did Not Respond" where I am STUCK with no response from keyboard, no mouse pointer (although mouse LED flashes with button clicks), and the D8B console returns System Error 43 and the Rude Solo Light LED is lit. (Most all console sliders return to zero position upon power up, too.)

Some notes: The USB keyboard LEDs (shift, numlock, caps lock) NEVER lit at any time, even though keyboard worked. The mouse optical LED lit quickly on powerup, constantly on BIOS screens, and flashed upon clicking thereafter. I used an old HP USB keyboard, and two different model Microsoft USB scrollwheel mice (ones originally packaged with USB-to-PS/2 adapters).

If anyone has initial quick tips on resolving the System Error 43 before I go through all 70 pages of the forum again , I'd appreciate it!

Glad I made some progress, though, by bypassing the keyboard DIN port, and others can hopefully benefit by using USB fully on Amptron mb systems.

Lots of photos attached.

[SynthfulDwarphus]

More photos attached.

[SynthfulDwarphus]

Another update: NO MORE Error 43 when my D8B now boots to the mixer screen, but both the mouse pointer and keyboard are still completely unresponsive.

The problem was actually just the DB25 cable I was using, as I was using one of the longer DB25 cables that came with the gear lot, and I didn't realize that was actually a special Tascam-protocol DB25 cable used for Tascam HDR 8-track digital decks, and the included cables happened to be of that type! Luckily, I thought to try a different DB25 cable that I already had (shorter than the few long ones in the gear lot, but it was standard DB25), and, yup, the D8B booted perfectly, just like that!

However, even though the USB keyboard worked just fine in the BIOS, and the startup screens now state that both the USB keyboard and USB mouse are affrimatively recognized, when I'm finally brought to the mixer screen on the monitor, the keyboard and mouse do absolutely nothing, although the D8B console boots perfectly with no errors on the console VFD display. D8B console physical hardware fader movements ARE immediately reflected in the graphics on the monitor, though.

At this point, in an effort to fix this unresponsive keyboard & mouse issue, I'd like to update the OS from v2 to v3 (since my CPU rack only has stock 16MB RAM, so OS v5 is not compatible until I buy and install more RAM) and see if the keyboard and mouse will work when running the newer OS v3.

BUT, it seems the entire D8B Database at http://www.sonido-7.com/d8b/index.html with the OS downloads, etc., I need is COMPLETELY DOWN NOW. Anyone have any idea when http://www.sonido-7.com will be back online, or else where I can get the OS v3 files, and any other utilities I may need to do the update? Thanks...

[Phil.c]

The Database working now?