Water Jet PC is Failing - WinXP embedded

[EduCat]

Hi guys, so basically I am not getting a huge amount of help from our manufacturer and I figured I would come here and ask you guys real quick.

In a nutshell: We have a water jet cutting machine that has a failing PC. It is a 'solid state' PC that has a PMAC card in a PCI slot and runs off of an 'industrial' compact flash card. The card is 4gb and has WinXP embedded on it. Needless to say the card itself is still good and has the operating system intact. When I boot up the PC, I hear clicking noises even though I don't think there are moving parts besides fans.

The computer wont post at all. I get a power light but no HDD activity or anything else. So basically I remember these little hunks of junk costing around $3k and at this point they can't even give me a price because their part #'s are all off in their system. (It's an old WJ machine from 1999)

I see nothing special about this machine besides the form factor and the PMAC card.

My question is this. Is it possible to just clone the CF to an SSD? I can select it as a source with Acronis and basically just want to build a new PC myself instead of paying ridiculous prices for their proprietary stuff. I already asked them about the PMAC card, which is the most important/complex part, and they told they can have someone come out and deal with that if there's an issue.

What do you guys think? Im open to any suggestions. The water jet is down because of this and I need to get things moving ASAP.

 

[EduCat]

I hear a somewhat rapid clicking noise when I try to start the PC. The power supply is some janky off brand thing that looks like it was rigged together some time ago.

 

[mrblotto]

It looks pretty much like an older computer. I'm guessing it comes/came with an external power supply? The 24VDC input on the back has me wondering that.

As far as cloning the CF, that may be as simple as using Acronis, or may require more indepth methods shown by this url

http://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?t=23643&start=

seems like getting the drive to be recognized/bootable is the most common scenario. This may or may not be a problem if cloned to an SSD

I'd say if you have an older system laying around, try it on that first as not to waste your time/money if it does not work

Edit: oh, I see you already answered the power supply question lol

where is the noise coming from?

 

[sm625]

That gigantic PCI card is the part you want to preserve. Try sticking that card into another XP machine and see if you can install the driver for it. If you can then you should be all set. You would jsut have to dig out the software off the old drive and run it on the new system.

You should also try seeing if the original machine will POST without that card installed. It is at least possible that the PCI card is what has died. Not likely, but possible. If that is the case then you are obviously screwed.

 

[LTC8K6]

Is that white rectangular device on the card a relay? Right half, centered near the top.

If so, it may be making the clicking sound?

 

[daveybrat]

Hi guys, so basically I am not getting a huge amount of help from our manufacturer and I figured I would come here and ask you guys real quick.

In a nutshell: We have a water jet cutting machine that has a failing PC. It is a 'solid state' PC that has a PMAC card in a PCI slot and runs off of an 'industrial' compact flash card. The card is 4gb and has WinXP embedded on it. Needless to say the card itself is still good and has the operating system intact. When I boot up the PC, I hear clicking noises even though I don't think there are moving parts besides fans.

The computer wont post at all. I get a power light but no HDD activity or anything else. So basically I remember these little hunks of junk costing around $3k and at this point they can't even give me a price because their part #'s are all off in their system. (It's an old WJ machine from 1999)

I see nothing special about this machine besides the form factor and the PMAC card.

My question is this. Is it possible to just clone the CF to an SSD? I can select it as a source with Acronis and basically just want to build a new PC myself instead of paying ridiculous prices for their proprietary stuff. I already asked them about the PMAC card, which is the most important/complex part, and they told they can have someone come out and deal with that if there's an issue.

What do you guys think? Im open to any suggestions. The water jet is down because of this and I need to get things moving ASAP.

There's nothing in the pc that could make that clicking sound except the power supply. I just replaced a bad power supply recently in a pc that was also making a clicking noise. Turned out to be the power supply.

Can almost guarantee you that's what it is.

 

[mrblotto]

The power supply is outside of the machine. And it looks like about the size of a laptop power supply. I suppose it's possible, but highly unlikely it would be the power supply.

This post brought to you by the words Power & Supply lol

 

[Burpo]

That looks like an older version of a Delta Tau, but looks like they separated the daughter board..

http://www.deltatau.com/DT_Products/ProductDetailDescription.aspx?CatID=100-PMAC PCI

First thing I'd do is remove card & clean contacts with an eraser or something to remove any oxidation. Re-install & check.

 

[EduCat]

The PMAC card is a tricky beast, which is why I was just going to attempt to just clone the CF to an SSD if possible. Stick the pmac card into the same pci slot and hope for the best.

An update to the situation: Got a quote for a new Win7 unit. $4995 I absolutely love the technology they employ, but hot dayum. I think I may be looking into a new build altogether. Am going to run some more tests Monday to see if I can get the card to work with a different PC altogether.

The new PC build would have to be something to accommodate that big ass card but be small enough to fit inside the cabinet of the wj machine itself. May be able to fit a mid tower in there tbh. Full spectrum environment with an absolute boatload of dust.

 

[Ketchup]

Probably stupid question, but do you need something this proprietary to run the software/ hardware?

 

[EduCat]

That was really the main question that I asked the tech. Off the record, I don't think I need anything special. They told me one of their techs could come out and configure a different PC but that it could take a long time. (He said 'weeks'??)

The only thing proprietary I believe is the actual water jet cutting software, which we can easily install onto any computer. It's really just all about that PMAC card and getting it setup properly on a new PC.