x12 fiery help

[photographerphil]

We have a x12 rip that has been acting odd lately & now its just plain BAD... solid colors & graphic seem fine but gradations look posterized- almost like were not raserizing at a high enough bit rate.

Im unsure if this is a function of the rip board or sofware- calibration output does not exhibit this problem. - NO problem off the glass

Attached file ( while taken with an iPhone ) shows the problem

has any one come across this or have any suggestions?

thanks

 

[Bo3b]

looks like a calibration issue - when you calibrate, click on expert mode and view the measurements vs target - the measurements should be a sweeping curve that is above the target in all but the lowest numbers (~<10) - if the measurment curve(s) are wobbly or not high enough then the printer needs some work (possibly drum(s) and or Max setup )
If that doesn't help then a software re-install would be the next best thing to do - very rarely the colour tables in the software do get corrupted - a re-install is the quickest and easiest way to fix that.

 

[photographerphil]

Thank you for your time and advise - I will try those steps...sadly I no longer have the install cd set but perhaps I will have luck getting them from EFI . I will update my progress.
I guess ive been lucky 10 + years with no rip issues - of course this kinda crap happens when I have a full plate of due jobs..ugg
thank you again.
-p

 

[k_graham]

You might also inquire on the EFI forum. EFI Fiery Forums

I have heard of complaints caused by poor connections to the video board so with power and cables unplugged you might try reseating the external connections, then the board that the EFI cables are attached to within the RIP. We had a problem on our Fiery epx250 that appeared to be software but I had a previously used good clone backup of the disk and new it was not software. The Xerox tech removed the battery that retains the CMOS settings and re-installed it a minute later, the problems went away.

If you resolve your problem you might want to try doing a clone backup with www.clonzilla.org cloning software - you must make a CD to run the software not a DVD as your unit won't support a dvd. Also I think EFI disabled the USB ports on the X12 and XP12 so you must select a backup over network. There is a much easier gui clone backup program at Bare Metal Restore Solution GUI Backup Open Source GPL Recovery but you would have to boost your RAM to 512 megs for it to function. If you do find RAM to upgrade your system I believe you have to again remove the CMOS battery as Fiery will only check the RAM after a battery removal. On the other hand I doubt the Fiery will use the extra RAM so it would only be useful for backups.

Ken

 

[photographerphil]

I discovered the efi forum right after I found this one - awaiting the green light to post there.
Great advise Ken, thank you...we're a mac shop so Im really unaware of pc apps so those are great pointers ( I live by carbon copy cloner-so I fully understand the value of a well cloned drive ) I will be back in the shop tomorrow- Ill be connecting our only pc to the network, uploading command station , checking cables and calibration...update to follow.

thanks again for the help and for the 17 or so who took the time to look at the file in the off chance that they may be able to help out too...

 

[Bo3b]

You can make the earlier fiery (NT based) systems see more ram.
Easiest if you have the FACI kit installed but still possible if not.
The fiery hard drive is partitioned into 3 partitions (C D and E) If I recall correctly the C is a primary boot that then boots off the D - might be wrong. Anyway, on either the C or D drive is a boot.ini file which contains the line maxram=128 or similar. It doesn't matter how much RAM you put in the RIP the NT software will only 'see' what ever the maxram setting is. I believe the rest is used by the fiery software - up to a point.
I wouldn't bother going past 1G, I tried many different sizes over the years and found 512 to 1G about the best. Not much point in setting the maxram too high either. Look at the ratio that efi have used and use a similar setting.
If you're a Mac only house and don't have the FACI kit or a PC to put the fiery drive into for editing the boot.ini file. I have managed to mount the fiery drive in a (older) mac ie one that used to have IDE drives in it - or have also used an external drive case that supports the older IDE drives - you can edit the boot.ini file with any text editor (just ensure you save the file as plain text)
I've probably still got install disks for X12 somewhere - which version software do you have?

 

[photographerphil]

thanks again for the help-what a great source of info!
So I tried resetting all cables/ re-seating the 2 cards - no luck.

- I wanted to try each approach, one step at a time so I havent tried the cmos battery removal yet - tomorrow I will.

Speaking of no luck, I cannot get colortools pro to run on the pc even though command station does ( it downloaded from the rip but it doesnt run) we have 1 mac that still runs IE so I will try to run colortools on the mac in the am ( ive never been ble to get webtools to run on anyother mac browser besides IE)
...Im embarrassed to admit we only do calibration from the ft panel of the feiry - its been fine for our needs till now.
the x12 is version 1.5 - the config report does not mention if its service pack 2 or not.
-p

 

[photographerphil]

as the worm turns...

So I did a rebuild from back up today ( start while holding rt lower button on face of the x12)

I did the whole config thing and the same results BUT the interesting thing ...

When I did the advance calibration and the rip printed the simulated calibration print the print was PERFECT...sadly not my files though (is it me or is that weird?)

cmos battery tomorrow then I guess im off to shop for a replacement

ugg

 

[tiger_scout]

If the internal Fiery prints are good then it is most likely something before the dfe. File, driver, pc.