USB-UIRT Failing Intermittantly

[DFA]

Hi John:

I seems I have a USB-UIRT that is failing intermittantly. My system is a bit unusual in that I use an IRMan that is built into the HTPC for receiving all IR commands and use the USB-UIRT just for "blasting".

The problem started about 3 or 4 weeks ago. The wife was complaining about loss of channel change in Sage; she uses the system much more than myself. It had occurred for me several times as well but initially thought it things I was doing "under the hood" and the installation of a Sage beta release. I was gone on business for 2 weeks and she had lots of trouble while I was gone (been back about a week).

Thinking it was an issue with the Sage beta, I did not investigate further and rolled back to what I know was a stable build (4.1.3.67) that had not given us any trouble. Yet the problem has persisted.

My first clue that I was dealing with a hardware rather than software problem was when on three seperate occassions, I found that the PC would not wake from S3 sleep via the USB-UIRT (LED activity seen but no wake-up). It has never-ever failed to wake the system prior to this. A push of the front panel button needed to wake the PC but confirmed normal sleep. On further consideration, I decided Sage would have little to do with this.

This last Friday when the wife reported the loss of channel change again, I went to Girder and tried issueing direct commands (Girder "Test Command" and USB-UIRT "Test") for issueing discrete channel number commands that I have programmed in Girder that are used by a network encoder. There was no response. When trying to open the USB-UIRT "Configuration" dialog, it was reported "No response from USB-UIRT".

Now believeing to have an intermittant hardware failure of either USB-UIRT or USB port on MoBo (or still maybe a weird software problem), I broke out an earlier non-zone version USB-UIRT that I have had in retirement. No further problems have been encountered through the weekend after installing my older USB-UIRT.

I have concluded that my "zone" version is crapping out but doing so intermittantly. It may take up to 36 hours for the failure to show and requires a system restart to get return of function. No such problem with older USB-UIRT that is now in place.

I am not sure how long ago I purchased the "zone" version or what the length of warranty is. Can you look up my purchase date and advise my options? If you need e-mail address to look up record, I would rather not post full e-amil address here but it starts with "danderson@....." or "enfabwest@....."

Regards,
Dane Anderson

[DFA]

Additional info:

Although stated up to 36 hours to show fault, usually occurs within day of 8 to 12 hours.

When checking in Girder, plugin is highlighted "green" although "No response from USB-UIRT" is given when trying to open USB-UIRT "Configuration" dialog box when USB-UIRT is in fault state. "Configuration" dialog box then opens devoid of any data (blank).

Model No.: USBUIRT0056 z (56KHz option)
S/N: 104519

DFA

[jrhees]

DFA,

Let's get that unit replaced! Please contact support@usbuirt.com

-Jon