Just bringing up my STT-8300 after a 2 year layoff. Everything is working great except during about 3 hours of testing, I heard the fans drop out for, maybe, 1/2 Sec 3 times. Driver was still connected and I was able to download an image. No other funnies detected, but it was as though the power plug was pulled for a split second. Using the original firmware, but latest drivers as of today. Checked the power plug - spread the inner conductor, wire good, connections good. 12V, 35A supply. Only change from a couple years ago is that the camera is connected to a USB3 hub which then connects to the laptop on USB3. Any ideas? Thanks, George in Prineville OR
Tim, I've seen the dropout 3 times in about 3 hrs. of testing. Twice with the hub, once with a USB extension cable. I don't believe it is relevant in that as soon as power is connected, the fans start. If I pull the USB cable, the fans continue to run with no hesitation. In what way could the hub affect the fans? George
Ok. I can't think of much that would cause this symptom, so I thought we should eliminate some common causes of issues. Are you using the original power supply that came with the camera? Are you using the latest SBIG Driver Checker software? Can you provide a screenshot of the driver versions on the driver tab and the firmware versions on the firmware tab? What software are you using to connect to the camera? Are you doing anything in particular when the fan interruption occurs?
1) No. I'm using an Astron 35 A. supply. Of course everything else is attached, but draws nowhere near the maximum current. It has voltage and current meters on it and I'm running it at 13.5V. 2) All drivers updated as of a few days ago. The firmware is original from about 4 years ago. I did run it to see, there was 2 pieces of firmware? One up to date, the other not. I didn't chance an update because of the fan issue. 3) I'm using SGPro (latest). I did also use Maxim 6.0. I can't say the fans dropped with Maxim, but did fer sure with SGPro. I was doing nothing when the fans dropped. There was no downloads taking place, and I think the cooler was off once. It always happened while I was setting up a sequence of events. My concern is that the fans would drop off when running remotely and not come back on! #1 got me to thinking. I have an extra connector between the camera power and the supply. I will check that. Thanks, George
Funky things happen with long USB cables, extensions and hubs. It wouldn't hurt to eliminate those from the equation for troubleshooting purposes. -Bill
How does the USB connection effect the fans? They come on when powered up - USB or no USB. The fans run if the USB cable is pulled!? George
George - you might check that USB Selective Suspend in the power management is turned OFF, and also check the USB hubs and USB Root hub power management is off. What may be happening is Windows is trying to be helpful by powering down devices every so often, and then the camera connection drops briefly. Not sure this is what is happening to you, but its a possibility. I've had a similar issue in my setup with a different camera, and this cured it.
Ah, ha! ;-) Now that sounds possible. I'm using a laptop in the observatory. The power setting is to NEVER shut down, I didn't know about this specific USB parameter. I'll check that. Meantime, with fingers crossed, I updated the camera firmware. Adrenalin kicked in for about 30 Sec. as the DriverChecker went white and a "program not responding" error came up!?!? I though after updating drivers, this wasn't supposed to happen? Not good for the faint of heart! It was successful in the long run. I also noted that as soon as I confirmed "update", the fans sped up to their highest speed, until the update was over - they went off for a brief period, then came up at normal, cooler off, speed. George
Colin, thank you. I did indeed find that parameter enabled for battery and AC. Now time will tell if it was the culprit. George
