I figured out yesterday - Oli had blown up 11 cards ( out of 5 systems with 2 in each ) - thats a 110% failure rate-
No wonder he is upset- i have every sympathy for him-

But this is completely unprecedented - and means something else must be wrong with the touring system-
it just cannot be the cards with this failure rate - it has to be something electrical or physical or something in the rest of the system-

sdi cards - because they connect to outside systems which can be on a separate power supply -are uniquely vulnerable to power and electrical spiking-
sdi is not isolated by default- and as we all know there are many many power things going on in shows - surges - noise - spikes- ground differences - which can cause problems.
And also lighting video and sound power usually run off different phases - or different generators...

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AJM- I dont think its heat either - otherwise the failure rate would be high for everyone - and it isnt.
Touring in the USA is a very hot environment - and there are a lot of tours out there.

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We work in an exceptionally tough environment for electronics.
Constant shipping constant unplugging-
And equipment does fail- every component-
Macs graphics cards etc etc
I dont think AS has any higher failure rate in general than any other part of the electronics
The failure modes are all accelerated due to usage patterns etc.

my own macs are vulnerable to failure because im constantly putting different sets of pci cards inside the machines.