Need help with a posibly failing Crystalio II 3300 unit

[Gekiohsan]

Hi. About two days ago my crystalio ii unit shut off with no warning mid ketsui run through and i noticed that the standby light was not lit and unit wasn't responding. I unplugged it for an hour and plugged it in and it worked fine. Today the same thing happens but this time the unit would freeze on the crystalio ii startup osd screen or when i plug it back in it would briefly show a picture then not respond. Ive read on fudoh's site that the psu could possibly be the culprit and it can be swapped out with a flex atx pc psu. If anyone knows exactly which model psu i need and how it needs to be rewired in order to work I can do the soldering/crimping neccessary. If there's any other crystalio users on the forum any help would be greatly appreciated

[Seraphic]

My CII 3800 unit has a noisy PSU (loud whispering) so I unplug the power cord when not using it.
Wish I didn't have to keep unplugging it, but it makes me wonder if the PSU is going as well.
As of right now though, it works fine and in the off chance my PSU was going bad I backed up a picture of the PSU that I found on the internet.

Hope it helps:

[Fudoh]

All the PSUs are failing. PMS never had any luck in sourcing better ones.

Replacing them is really easy. All you need a Flex-ATX power supply. Wattage really doesn't matter, the CII hardly draws power. You have to remove the large cable tree from the new PSU and re-attach the connector used right now inside the machine. You can go by the color coding. In addition you need to connect green to black to make the PSU power on once it's powered.

If you want it future-proof, you can add a male/female pair of connectors, so the mainboard cable doesn't have to be soldered off and on again for every PSU-exchange. You can use an active or a passive power supply. The passive ones are a little more expensive though.

As long as you leave the power cable plugged into the PSU, the PSU is always on, actually the whole CII stays on all the time. Flex ATX PSUs usually don't have a power switch on the back, but you can solder a switch between the green and black wire to basically add a "hard" power switch to the CII.

A noisy fan doesn't yet point at a failing PSU. You can pretty safely disable the fan. Heat should be no issue, since several CII units came with passive PSUs or just disabled fans already.

[Gekiohsan]

Thank you guys very much for the quick response . I will get to work finding a suitable replacement. I think the original model was channel well PSM200A 89 and i couldn't find another one sourced for under 300 in the us. I think i will go with the passive option as i am not a fan of noisy fans. I will update if i run into anymore hiccups.

[Fudoh]

The only passive one I found (and used myself) is the FSP Fortron/Source FSP150-50TNF (about $100 over here). There's also a 120W version (FSP120–50GNF), but I haven't seen it for sale anywhere.

There's nothing wrong with getting a $30 active one from ebay instead and just disabling the fan...

[Gekiohsan]

Ok a quick search got me this result that looks to be comparable to the one you mentioned above http://www.ebay.com/itm/FLEX-200W-200-W ... 2ecdc3aa2a Will this one work?

[Fudoh]

every Flex-ATX sized PSU will work.

[Seraphic]

A noisy fan doesn't yet point at a failing PSU. You can pretty safely disable the fan. Heat should be no issue, since several CII units came with passive PSUs or just disabled fans already.

I do not believe that the noise coming from my 3800 is from a fan.
Not sure if my PSU is passive or not, but doesn't sound like a fan I have ever heard.

[Fudoh]

could also be screeching coils - an aging PSU anyway.

[Seraphic]

could also be screeching coils - an aging PSU anyway.

That's just what it sounds like. Kinda of winds up and winds down over and over, loud too.
Gekiohsan, let me know how that PSU works out, might order one too.

[Gekiohsan]

It looks like it failed for good yesterday so i am just waiting for it to come in the mail now. Ive already taken apart the unit. Now i just need to get any male female connector for what looks to be 18awg wire. Its due on monday but i hope it comes this weekend as it was the central hub that everything in my entertainment center was connected to. I will be sure to post pics as well.

[Fudoh]

I would cut off everything you don't need. You should be able to work with 2 pairs of standard Molex connectors.

[Gekiohsan]

Update: The new power supply did the trick! Used a 9 pin connector (since radio shack didn't have a 6 pin) to connect the mainboard cable to the new power supply and had to immidiately disable the fan after testing as it was screaming loud even when in standby mode. It was an option to put a switch between green power on and one of the ground wires to have a hard power on added but i could not justify cutting into this unit just for that. Ill throw up a picture or two as soon as i get the chance. Thanks as always fudoh

[Seraphic]

Congratulations on getting your CII working again.
Is this the one you ordered then?: http://www.ebay.com/itm/FLEX-200W-200-W ... 2ecdc3aa2a

[Fudoh]

*EVERY* Flex ATX PSU works, don't worry about specs or anything.

And Gekiohsan, glad to hear that you could revive your CII.

[Kencol]

[*]Hi guys, new to the forum but wanted to ask some expert advice regarding the Crystalio vps-3800. Having found this thread I've managed to revive my dead crystalio by installing a new flex ATX psu! Many thanks to Fudoh for suggesting this.

My question is regarding the comb filter in the Crystalio and checker boarding. I'm using the unit primarily for Laserdiscs but also to upscale video games on occasion.

I'm finding I get a lot of checkerboarding Blocks unless the Luma and chroma gain are set around 10, in which case I lose a lot of detail in the picture.

Does anyone have any optimum settings for the comb filter?

I also notice that the 3D noise reduction settings have no effect at all on the picture which I find strange.

Any thoughts would be really appreciated.

[Gekiohsan]

Hello again. Resurrecting this old thread because i recently in addition to my 3300 unit have now acquired a 3800 unit which will go into the other living room. My question concerns the imbedded media player within the 3800. The unit came as is with a resetting problem which was immidiately rectified once i unplugged the hard drive within and it now works perfectly fine. Is there any way to restore media player functionallity in that drive or can the drive be replaced with any standard pata desktop drive and formatted with the media player info? I know that in this day and age its not necessary but i would like to be able to use it just the same. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[philexile]

Oh, you got that 3800 that was on eBay. I was looking at that. Congrats!

I'd try reformatting an old drive and try to get one that matches the size in case that matters. The supplemental media player manual says that it is 200GB. I've included a link below. Its your best bet since Pixel Magic is no longer servicing these units sadly.

http://www.pixelmagicsystems.com/suppor ... l_v0_4.pdf

I'm actually curious as to wether the only hardware difference between the 3300 and the 3800 is the hard drive. Here is a picture of the inside of the 3300. As you can see it has the hard drive hookups included:



If I cared about the media player I'd give it a try – bet it would work.

Good luck!

[Fudoh]

I'm actually curious as to wether the only hardware difference between the 3300 and the 3800 is the hard drive. Here is a picture of the inside of the 3300. As you can see it has the hard drive hookups included:

HD-SDI and a different audio circuit were other differences.

I was more than happy to learn that the media player could easily be disabled by just unplugging the HDD in the 3800. It delays booting a lot and from today's perspective its functionality is very limited. Or where did you plan to find MPEG2 HD files?

I don't think there's any problem with just inserting another (even bigger) drive. Maybe you have to match the file system the original one was using before connecting it....

[Gekiohsan]

Thank You both for the quick response Yea i was the one that got that 3800 unit just because i figured the seller didnt know the units fail because of power supply problems and was just trying to get rid of it. I have a couple of pata hdds laying around ill just try to write blank to see if the 3800 would reformat them using a firmware update. If not ill try to see if i can get into the original hdd using an old desktop i have laying around. To be honest i really wanted the 3800 because of the silver vs black plate on my 3300 but the media player does have my curiosity :3

[babayaga]

I actually got the other (vps3300) from the same ebay seller as the vps3800, it works, but fails after about 24 hours on (freezes), and have to be turned off for a few hours before it works again, i too think its the PSU, so just got my new PSU today and hope it fixes the problem