[BC] Maintaining old transmitters (IT guys)

[Alex Hartman]

I would look at the model number of your ASI card. I've had no joy
installing drivers for 4xxx and 5xxx series cards under Win7. I got it
to partially work by using compatibility mode, but it'd go to pot
after a few days. ASI's answer was "buy a 6xxx card"...

Thus the reason for me to move to AoIP in the near future, to remove
the expense of sound cards.

To that end as well, i've also stopped buying "cheap" desktop/tower
PCs for my automation network and moved to Dell Rackmount
workstations. They're basically Poweredge servers that can run Win7
instead of Server OS's. Built like a tank, made to be on for the next
5-7 years, redundant power supplies, redundant disk, etc. Yes, they're
more expensive, but in the long run, it costs me the same if i were to
buy a cheap 800 dollar PC 3 times in the same time frame. My new air
workstations also come with PCoIP cards and clients. So the machine
itself lives in a datacenter in a controlled environment, while in the
studio is a little box no bigger than the Led Zepplin CD box set, with
no moving parts, does dual monitors, has 6 USB ports on it, and the
best part, no noise, no heat. That stays with the workstation in the
datacenter with it's own HVAC, full online UPS, and controlled access.

About $2800 street for one of these guys, but worth every penny to me,
to keep the machine in a very controlled environment to prolong it's
life.

--
Alex Hartman

On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 6:17 AM, Tom Taggart <tpt at literock93r.com> wrote:
> I second Mike's frustration...
>
> One other point of frustration and expense with the computer
> "upgrade cycle" is planned obsolescence. Am reluctantly
> replacing main air computer, but it is 5 years old.
>
> Anticipating this we upgraded Simian to a version that will
> work on Windows 7. Also so we could use a 32 line trigger
> device, (another sad story). But the big expense will be the
> sound cards--since the PCI slot has been banished from
> modern motherboards. Decision was made for us when the
> secondary Digigram card lost one channel. Luckily we've
> found a Dell with one PCI slot,allowing us to re-use the
> remaining ASI card. Though the new second sound card will
> have to use the PCI express slot, and will cost as much as
> the computer.
>
> Now returning to your original transmitter thread...
>