atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems Vodavi Telephones & Systems Vodavi STS No Sync

Hello,

Looking for a hint or two.

I have(had) a Vodavi STS system with fourteen(14) 24 button phones that (had) been working just fine for about 14 years.
Then all of a sudden all phones went dead with the start up screen on the phones displayed with "NO SYNC".
I first powered down the system and disconnected all phones, pulled and reinserted all cards. VM, Station, Trunk
Powered up and waited about 2 minutes and then started to re-connect each phone one at a time. System
came back up except for one(1). Figured that it was the problem so I took it out of the system. All back to normal!!

Then 3 hours later it happened again. This time did the same as the first but nothing helped.

My question is which board would be the most likely to cause a NO SYNC??

Mother Board??

Voice Mail board??

Station Card (2 ea.)??

Trunk Card??

I am thinking the Mother Board, but then again???

Thanks for any input!!!

Have a good day.

Les

Trunks or T1?
If T1 look for led on T1 Card LD 6 is Out of Frame sync

If Trunks can you do an Event Trace?

Hopefully someone with more knowledge of the STS has an immediate answer for you.

Thanks Professor,

The Trunks are POTS CO Trunk Lines 4 in total.

System has already been removed from service, so no testing possible at this time.

Yes, I am hoping that someone can quickly say which board is the problem.

Thanks and have a good day.

Les

It's often a bad memory battery. If that's not it, it's probably the power supply which is intergrated to the STS KSU. 14 years was a good run. Time to upgrade.

Thanks phoneman,

Are you thinking the coin battery or the other soldered in CR123??

Needless to say when I get around to working on it I will change them both, but just courious.

BTW the upgrade is presently in the works!!

Thanks,

Les

The CR123.

Hi phoneman,

Thank you very much for the tip!!

Hope you had a good HUMP day!!

Les

I live in south central Pa, with many sts parts. contact me .
thanks gary s.

Ok, so on the off chance the battery was the issue I ordered a fresh Lithium Battery
with tabs. It arrived yesterday and today I decided to install on the mother board.
Removed old and soldered in new. Also replaced the CR2032 battery on the
Voice Mail card. Connected a phone for Ext 100. Moment of truth!!

Flipped the on switch!!! ............................

System powers up, all blinky lights.

Display on phone>>>> NO SYNC

Nothing has changed. I am thinking that the problem is greater than the battery.

Removed all cards and powered up. No change!! (Expected)

Swapped the Station cards. No Change!!

Tried to do a system reset by holding SW1 on power up!! No Change!!

Tried to do a Default to Factory with Switch 8 on SW5!! No Change!!

Ok, So I am tapped out on what would be next to try.

Any extra thoughts out there?? Mother Board??

Thanks for any input!!

Les

Have you tried just installing one card at a time: test; another card: test... ?

Hi Dean,

Well I thought I did when I was swapping cards previously. But, just in case
I just went and and removed the station cards and inserted them one at a time
into slot 1 and then powered up. Same thing. NO SYNC

What seems odd is that when I power up with no station cards or even with no
cards at all installed the same thing is displayed on the the phone.

It would seem that the mother board is not seeing the cards at all.
But, I am really not sure if that is normal or not.

Needless to say when I installed the system 14 years ago all worked as it should and has been
flawlessly since then. Which is like anything that works till it don't!!

Any additional thoughts would be nice.

Thanks,

Les

The STSe KSU (3501-00 or -01) has a well-known power supply issue that causes this exact scenario. On the older 3500-00 or -01, the memory battery was the problem like clockwork and wasn't too difficult to accommodate in the field with a soldering iron. Not so with the STSe. Because the power supply components are part of the motherboard itself, it's not an easy fix, especially in the field. Your best bet is to send it in for repair to SoTel, Vertical's authorized factory service center in CT. Of course, you'll need to buy or have a replacement KSU while waiting for the repair turnaround. At least you'll get it back with all of the most current updates and ECOs.

Thanks Ed.

My customer now has a new NEC SL2100 system installed and working quite well.
They were down for about 5 days with a 2 line business phone in order to answer
customer calls. This STSe is presently in my storage shed. I was hoping or considering
that if it was a rather easy fix, such as a battery, I would swap out the DHS system in my
office that has been working for a whole lot longer than this STSe. It would seem that
will not be the case.

Again, thanks for the input and have a good week!!

Les

The power supply has a certain capacitor that historically goes bad with age, it was time for an upgrade.

Just to throw in my 2 cents... After you replaced the battery, did you reprogram the slots to recognize the cards? If not, the phones/ lines attached will not function and will display the "no sync" thing, because it is in default mode. Maybe I overlooked this in the post somewhere, but not sure.

Hi adteldon,

The simple answer is "no" I did not. Actually do not know how to do that function.

So would you mind (re)educating me on what is needed to be done in order to give it a try??

Thanks!!

Les

Flash 24 is where you assign cards to the slots. Flex key 4 represents the first station card slot, 5 for the second station card slot, flex key 6 for the first CO line card slot, etc. Press the key that represents the appropriate slot, then enter 02 for a digital station card + hold. Be sure to reboot the system using flash 80, button 20 for this change to take effect.

Hi Ed,

I do appreciate the assist. However, I am a bit mystified. If I power up with Ext.100 connected to the system
and I have the display showing the model and version info for the phone data and NO SYNC being displayed
and pressing any key does not change anything, how to I get in to programming??

Honesty, I don't have it powered up at the moment but when I did a couple of weeks ago I pressed some keys
and nothing happened on the display. Maybe I hit the wrong keys, I don't know. From what I was seeing the
display was just a dumb display and nothing more. Should have taken a picture at the time, but didn't.

Anyhow, given the parameters is there someway to maneuver through the Flex or Flash Keys as you describe
from Ext. 100 that will break the "NO SYNC"?? Or possibly, as I suspect I am beating a dead horse??

Thanks,

Les

Les, you can try initializing the system while it is powered up by switching DIP switch #8 to the on position, pressing the reset button, waiting for the system to start and then switching #8 back off. The system might come up then, but honestly, it will only last until the next power outage.

Hi Ed,

I already tried something like that?? But, I may have did it out of sequence.
I will give it another shot.

Are you saying that even with a fresh battery the initializing will only hold for
one power cycle??

Thanks,

Les

Ok Ed,

So I did the procedure you described and still have the NO SYNC.
I tried a number of other variations but the NO SYNC doesn't change.

What does change is the LED blinking sequence of various boards.
Some is a steady pulse blink at one point. Then another is a very rapid
blink that just continues until power is removed. Also at one point they
were just full steady on.

The only thing that is consistent is the NO SYNC.

Please correct me if I am wrong. This NO SYNC would be there because there
is no synchronization with the timing cycle of the motherboard?? Or would be
be with the extension board??

What would be great, would be to know for sure if it was the mother board.
If I was assured that it was the mother board I would not be totally opposed
to acquiring a replacement board. Then I would replace my office DHS system
with this system.

So are there any thoughts as to if this NO SYNC is a problem with the motherboard??

Thanks in advance.

Les

Check all of the DIP switches on the mother board to ensure that #8 is turned off. Also, ensure that the single DIP switch near the battery is turned on. If these switches are in their correct positions, then it's likely that the power supply capacitors that were previously mentioned have failed and will require replacement. The information on those is top secret, so you might want to consider sending the KSU to SoTel for repair. The price isn't bad and their turnaround time is pretty good.

Thanks Ed,

Yes, I have concluded based on all current input that the issue is with the caps.
It will be shipped out for a repair in the next few weeks.

Thanks for all the insight.

Les