Sunblade 2K - Audio Issue

Bart wrote:

> One other modification I made to this Sunblade that may be rare is
> that I've modified my XVR-1200 to use the bottom 66Mhz slot. I did
> that a couple of months ago and I know sound was working afterwards
> but just want to mention it in case anyone stumbles across this post
> years from now. The 66Mhz slot is shared with the disk controller and
> is isolated from the other PCI bus and the zBus so I can't image that
> had anything to do with it but who knows. It's definatley not
> supported by Sun so maybe for reasons other than the one they gave
> (physical limitation).


As a matter of interest, why did you do that? I don't know if the
XVR-1200 is like the XVR-1000, in that the thickness of the board means
that it effectively uses two slots. I can see that by moving the card to
the bottom slot in the Sun Blade, you could possibly gain an extra slot.

Many years ago I came to the conclusion the fan on an old SunPCi card
was annoyingly loud and effectively useless, so I removed it. That card
worked for several years without the fan. I pulled it out of the machine
when I got a newer card.

I'd be interested in why you made that change.

--
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On Aug 19, 11:36*pm, Dave <f...@coo.com> wrote:
> Bart wrote:
> > One other modification I made to this Sunblade that may be rare is
> > that I've modified my XVR-1200 to use the bottom 66Mhz slot. *I did
> > that a couple of months ago and I know sound was working afterwards
> > but just want to mention it in case anyone stumbles across this post
> > years from now. *The 66Mhz slot is shared with the disk controller and
> > is isolated from the other PCI bus and the zBus so I can't image that
> > had anything to do with it but who knows. *It's definatley not
> > supported by Sun so maybe for reasons other than the one they gave
> > (physical limitation).
>
> As a matter of interest, why did you do that? I don't know if the
> XVR-1200 is like the XVR-1000, in that the thickness of the board means
> that it effectively uses two slots. I can see that by moving the card to
> the bottom slot in the Sun Blade, you could possibly gain an extra slot.
>
> Many years ago I came to the conclusion the fan on an old SunPCi card
> was annoyingly loud and effectively useless, so I removed it. That card
> worked for several years without the fan. I pulled it out of the machine
> when I got a newer card.
>
> I'd be interested in why you made that change.
>
> --
> I respectfully request that this message is not archived by companies as
> unscrupulous as 'Experts Exchange' . In case you are unaware,
> 'Experts Exchange' *take questions posted on the web and try to find
> idiots stupid enough to pay for the answers, which were posted freely
> by others. They are leeches.


Sure,

The bottom slot in the sunblade 1000/2000 is 66Mhz vs 33Mhz for the
others. So double the bandwidth since the xvr-1200 and xvr-600 are
dual mode and will run at 66Mhz. Doubful I would ever do anything
with my sb that would saturate that much bandwidth, but it is the best
performance option.

To do this with the XVR-1200 requires that you cut the dual PCI card
brackets apart and remove the 3D stereo daughterboard. The board
works fine without it. Also you need to remove the cooling fan
assembly and the fans. They are worthless BTW and as you pointed out
annoyingly loud. The board runs surprisingly cool even under heavy 2D
or 3D load which is good because the bottom slot with a full size card
creates a closed box that impairs airflow. I probably didn't need it,
but I installed a small squirrel cage fan at the back of the card on
the backside to pull air out of that area and back into the main
case. And finally, as insurance, I have a spare xvr-1200 just in
case ;`)