I recently installed a system in a customers house and have had some issues.


System is retrofitted with all new cabling run by myself and all install done by myself. Programming was carried out by an ICS programmer.

Most of these issues started from an electrician playing around with a cat5 wall-plate that was installed for the iRemote.

Due to the cat5 being 'fixed' by the electrician, when the system was programmed, bad data was sent to the iRemote.

According to Niles, this caused the entire system to be corrupted by dodgy firmware and other data.

Once we traced back the point and repaired it the system was reprogrammed and new firmware downloaded onto the system.

All Worked Perfect, for a couple of hours.

Two of the systems keypads drop out. The system has,

GXR2
Single
Contact
Display (x2)
iRemote

When the Display keypads drop out, the back of the GXR2 chassis has no 'connection' lights on the RJ sockets where the remotes connect the the main chassis.

The Customer turns the GXR2 chassis OFF, waits 10 seconds, then turns back ON and all works again.

between a couple of hours and the next day the keypads drop out again.

The cables have all been tested, all parts including chassis and keypads have been changed.

The only thing that has not been tried is a UPS/Conditioner. Has anyone had this sort of issue and if so how have you solved it?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Are you a ICS Programmer or Dealer? If so you can do some diagnostics using the programmer. I Would try sending a completely new program to the system plugging the Displays into different RJ45 Ports, Remove the Iremote from the system.
Also you should try taking the Displays that are having the problem and make a temp cable and hook up those keypads to them and see what happens.

i just installed a gxr2 system and right out of the box it had a dead network port. we were baffled by this for a minute, but just out of experience we thought " lets try another port". sure enough it was just flawed from the factory. i do believe this is a common problem. try changing the port you are using and see if that helps.

good luck
proaudio

Installer & Dealer

Are you suggesting permanently removing the iRemote or just while programming? why?

Have already shifted the Display cables to other RJ Ports a couple of times.

Would you suggest anything in place of the iRemote?

Thanks for the responses guys.

At this stage Im looking to go back to the customers house with two new Display Keypads and do a firmware upgrade. If still no love I will do a new program for it.

I cant understand why it works after a reset then dies after a few hours or overnight?

I am suggesting to temporarily remove the Iremote. The reason why is you say the problems happen after the "electrician" messed with the cat-5 wiring. Also the reason why is process of elimination. Work backwards to try and figure out what the problem is.


Sounds weird that that happens. It sounds like something happen when the electrician was working on the Cat-5 cable. When he was working on the cable, was it disconnected from the GXR? What did Tech support say?

Since we found the Cat5 with the electricians 'fix' done to it, we have replaced the iRemote with a new one, both Display with new ones.

Yes, the 'fix' was done after GXR2 was connected. The install was final fixed and the electrician took the wall plate off and reconfigured the connections on the back of the socket.

The iRemote works as do the Contact and Single in the other zones.

When it first happened everything dropped out except for the Single.

When we located the 'fix' we wiped the firmware and updated with the latest version.

Everything has been working since. Just these two Display keypads that inconsistantly drop out. After a GXR2 'OFF and ON' reset everything works again.

Have had the Niles ICS Tech on-site for a firmware update and system check. Of course everything worked while we were there, only to stop a couple of hours later....only the Display Keypads though.

Thanks for all of your input guys, still trying for a solution.

Going back Thursday with new Display Keypads, network tester and another firmware update.

I'll bet the network tester will tell you alot.

Just by chance, is thee alot of other data wiring near your ICS control wire? I would look for alien cross-talk. Use a good meter.

Mike

how did this turn out?

Still working it out.

We went back and fitted a Good quality UPS....and so far so good.

I wont jinx myself, but the system usually shuts down the Display keypads within 24hours and I fitted the UPS on Saturday.

We were unable to get back any sooner due to customer being away.

Hope this sorts it out as I don't know what else it could be.

To clarify, the entire system works. Only the Display Keypads drop out. The zones that they control still work by using the Walk-about remote.

Absolutely love the system, fantastic features all around.

Escient control is brilliant!

Will update when I know more. Thanks for all the responses.

Dan

Remember thath the GXR2 uses PoE so if there is no activitey fron the lan LED then it might be possible that the lines 7 and 8 (used for power) on the GXR2 might have been terminated improperly at the keypad location burning it out, which is one posibility of the inactivity... also check to makes sure the keypad and the GXR2 all have the latest firmware... does the mac address of all hardware show up?...

I'm also curious about whether or not the Display mac addresses show up in the software after they seem to have gome offline.

What exactly was the electricians "fix" changing the plate from T568A to T568B?

Are you using the included Ferrite Cores on the CAT5 lines? (This one is a real long shot but it's worth a try)

I was one of the first to install a GXR2 right after product roll out. It worked fine a year and a half. Then it locked up. I have been told by the rep that if the power drops down to 107 volts, things can get wonkey. I put it on a UPS and it has been smooth sailing since.

All Cat5 terminations have been checked as perfect.

All firmware is the latest and greatest direct from the boys at Niles.
All Keypads were updated at the same time the Chassis was ^^.

Yes all MAC address are displayed properly.

I don't expect the Electrician to have understood what we were doing, they were just fairly basic sparkies. All of their cables were chased into the wall with no conduits. All power and unfortunately my Cat5 were all just plastered over. No way of ever running new cables without another chase.

The electrician was changing the Cat5 Data point (wall plate with RJ sockets) to be a 6 wire socket for the other wired LAN system, I wish that I had found it sooner. Everything was Mickey Mouse and when the issues begun, I assumed (ASS out of U and ME) that all my cabling would be as terminated. When I removed the wall plate I found two wires had been removed and twisted back around the sleeve. The other colours were terminated incorrectly for the Niles.

Ferrite cores.....

The APC UPS that I fitted was installed over a week ago and all is running perfect.

The customer is finally happy.

Our power supply is 240 volt and it makes it hard to find a good regulated supply, you guys are spoiled for great conditioners and UPS on 110.

I have also been told that the UPS is not a permanent fix to my problem. Apparently the UPS is covering up the mains supply being crap by covering any drops in power.

Niles has recommended that I fit a proper power conditioner to the system to regulate the incoming power properly.

The Phonic or Furman 240 volt models seen ok at this point...any reccomendations?

The problem has been recognised by the Local boys who will be reccomending that all systems have a power conditioner in-line from now on.

Apparently some end users in South Africa have had similar issues with GXR2/ICS and the mains power.

Thanks for all the suggestions along the way.

I would suggest to anyone fitting one of these that for a small investment that they fit a power conditioner/voltage regulator as it will save many wasted hours of fault finding and hair pulling.