atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems NEC Telephones & Systems NEC Elite IPK System Serious Problems

Yeah, I am starting to think CPU (hardware) as well. Thanks to all for the replies. This has been a bit stressful. :-)

Our tech is planning on replacing the CPU card, but hasn't got a late enough version of SAT to do it yet. He ordered it, but apparently was sent version 3.5 and we need 4.72 so he is in the process of reordering it.

Hmm. The techs from our carrier bypassed the channel-bank (Adtran Total Access 608) and the problems have been absent now for almost 3 hours.

That could very well be your problem, if the DS0's are not mapped correctly in the adtran then you would get problems like you are saying. To change out a SLI card no one should have done anything in the adtran program to mess it up though. Did you try just rebooting the adtran before unhooking it? If not then I would hook it back up after a nice reboot and see if your problem comes back. Also is the tech who is working on your system an NEC tech?, If he is certified from NEC he could download the SAT program from NEC's website and would not have to wait for it be sent to him.

I had actually already rebooted the adtran twice in the past few days to try to clear this up, and it never helped.

Yesterday at 1:30PM, they came by and bypassed it. For the rest of the day, until 5PM, we had no problems whatsoever. It was like night and day, as the phones were almost like, "close your eyes, dial a number and see who answers." It was happening quite frequently. On the order of every 5-10 minutes, people's lines were crossing.

After it was bypassed, everything just began working normally after 5 days of this.

So the carrier techs and our NEC tech (who is NEC certified, and was able to get the new company he works for to get him the correct version of SAT, as it happened) came back at 5PM, and I explained that everything had been smooth.

So they installed a different channel bank, replacing the old one with a Total Access 624, and we left it at that.

This morning an hour and a half into the day, so far, so good, no problems.

I'm about ready to say that this was a hardware failure in the old AdTran TA608 channel bank, even though the techs from our carrier said that is an exceedingly rare thing to have happen.

I hesitate to celebrate too much at this point, but I think we're fixed, finally.
I say this whilst knocking and tapping on every wooden surface within arm's reach. :-)

Thanks Smoom and everyone for the suggestions and helpful replies!

Great to know that its working now, Adtran is usually a strong product, how long had the 608 been installed?

Actually it hasn't been all that long. Perhaps a year or so?

The 608 was a replacement for a much older model we were using. They switched it out for no other reason than they had the 608 with them the last time the carrier was here to add modem lines.

I agree, it's odd for an AdTran to fail. I have to wonder if the 608 didn't just need to be re-programmed, perhaps the owner from our old vendor (who somehow caused the problem in the first place) somehow fiddled with it when I wasn't watching him? I have no idea.

I'm not gonna worry about it at this point though. I'm simply elated that things are running smoothly once again.

Ok here's a quick question, if you don't mind helping me a bit.

I am already familiar with programming some blocks and what the keys on the phone do, and how to get into programming mode. I'm just not sure where this particular memory block is located.

How do I set up a station number to auto dial 9 for an outside line whenever it goes off hook, so the user (a modem in this case) need not dial "9" for the outside line?

Never mind.

I waded through the manual long enough and found what I wanted at block 4-23. :-)

Here's a trick I learned...

First of all, I only use SAT as a database back-up tool. That being said, the CPU seems to like being up-loaded in a "dumb" state.

With a de-faulted CPU, power up with just the MIF-M, connect & upload your database, then slot your cards one at a time, just an IPK II.

This seems to alleviate database "bugs".