Axe II issues - Blank screen, audio crackles.

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Inspired
So picked up my Axe II yesterday afternoon, patiently left it boxed up and went to my bass gig last night. When I got home at 2:30 am, I thought I'd better not start on a full night of endless new-axe-tweekery, so I left my guitar to the side and just loaded the OSX (I'm running 10.7.3) usb drivers and installed a fresh copy of Axe Edit for the II. I fired up the Axe and saw firmware 5.01 was already installed, so I transferred the new V5 presets just in case only the firmware had been updated, then synched the banks with Axe Edit. So far so good.

In Axe Edit, I clicked on the amp cab in the first preset (59 bass guy) and was checking out the parameters when I noticed the screen on the Axe FX was completely blank. This kind of startled me, so I turned the unit off and on again and all was fine. I called it a night and got some sleep.

I finally just got a chance to actually plug my guitar (strat, passive pickups) in this afternoon. I set my input level correctly and turned up the volume and there was horrible crackling noise all over the sound. Not just the occasional digital pop or something, but constant crackle. No clipping output lights, very first stock patch, so no CPU overload. I was monitoring through the analog outs, but I still had the USB cable plugged in, so I unplugged that to no avail. I plugged in some headphones to make sure it wasn't cabling or clipping my Presonus Firestudio Mobile, but it was still crackle city in there. More so in the left channel, but definitely (and VERY obviously) in both channels at any dynamic level.

By this stage I was starting to panic, so rather than recording a sample to help troubleshoot, I switched the unit off and on again and now the signal is clean. I gather this may be the Mac usb bug that a lot of people are battling with??

Hmm... not sure what to do at this point. I will be trawling the forum and contacting support, but in the meantime I figured I'd post here just to document the first two times I switched this thing on!
 
Not an auspicious start, but welcome aboard anyway!
Hopefully, these issues iron themselves out, but meanwhile...
Have you tried a different USB port or cable?
Does the crackling occur when BYPASS button is engaged?
 
Sounds like CPU overload to me just reading your description.

What does the CPU meter say? (Utility button, page over to screen)
 
My natural assumption (based on what the Ultra does when pushed) was CPU overload as well, but this was literally the first time I had tried to play through the unit, on the very first factory preset - 59 Bassguy which sits at about 73%.

I will remember to check the bypass situation if it does it again.
 
Well after that bumpy start, I used the Axe II with no problems for the rest of Saturday, all day Sunday and today... until tonight.

I fired it up at rehearsal (no computer involved) and the crackle was back. Changed all leads, guitar, tried both outputs, no luck.

Restarted the unit and signal was back to normal. This is getting annoying. :)

I've just sent a support request to the Aussie distributor. I'll update this thread as things progress.

EDIT: On first startup back at home, it did it again. The crackle is still there on bypass. Clean on restart.
 
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Andrew from IMA called me within an hour of buisness hours opening this morning and he loaned me another unit while mine gets looked at. Great service!

He explained that the loaner unit has a "warning - presets not loaded correctly" error on startup, but otherwise it works fine. I've loaded my backups onto it and that does seem to be the only issue. It's nice to not be Axe-less. :)
 
Update: After a day of troubleshooting last week IMA were able to reproduce the crackling problem a few times so I have had the loaner unit for the last week.

Other than the "presets not loaded correctly" error, unfortunately the unit did lock up out of the blue the day after I got it. After playing for a bit I happened to glance at the screen and it was frozen with all the input 1 LEDs pegged at clipping. Completely unresponsive to any button presses or knob tweaks. I restarted and it worked again. I informed IMA and went about my week.

I didn't get a lot of playing time in since then, but yesterday I loaded Firmware 5.04b. I fired it up tonight to check out the new Legacy model only find no audio AT ALL coming out. I figured it must be my monitors, so I plugged in a pair of headphones, and no sound in there either. I restarted it, and... well, all it does now is freeze on the snow/static screen that flashes up before the Axe II logo normally appears. The LED's do the same flashing startup sequence and then turn off as per usual, but the screen always locks up. No audio. No power to the MFC. Restarting doesn't help.

Yikes. :(

There is no computer plugged in to the USB port.

Being a loaner unit that already had a known issue, I'm not entirely surprised by this turn of events... but it's quite frustrating, nonetheless.

The REAL bummer to the story is that literally half an hour before the 2nd Axe II seized up and took a vow of silence I FINALIZED THE SALE OF MY ULTRA AND IT SHIPS TOMORROW. :? :shock :roll
 
UPDATE: So the Ultra was shipped off to it's new owner, the 2nd Axe II was returned and I have been Axeless for the last 5 weeks. I finally picked up a new replacement Axe II on Saturday and it seems to be working fine. (Touch wood!) The fan is significantly louder than either of the first 2 units and I will probably look into replacing it at some stage, but for now I'm just happy to be back in functional Fractal land!
 
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