[Hai-users] Eratic Aegis behavior

[RB Warren]

My aegis system is acting up. I can't seem to pinpoint exactly what is
happening and thought someone on the Newsgroup would be able to give
me some insight as to what is going on.

I will give you some background on when it happened and what I have
done so far to troubleshoot.

The Storm
----------------------
Back around the 1rst week of June we had a bad storm which brought
down my 70ft self support tower due to damaging winds. All the feed
lines from the antennas share an underground wire raceway with some of
the home automation wires exiting to the outside for motion detectors,
outdoor temp, and various sensors / underground sprinklers.
When the tower went down it pulled some of the antenna feed lines 
along with wires from aegis that were wrapped around these feeds.
some of the wires that got pulled apart sent ac/dc power back into the
mainboard. During the storm we lost power several times.

The Result
----------------

Right after the storm we noticed trouble on a number of security zones
and the sprinklers kept turning on. Over the next several days we
noticed the following happening.
1-Trouble on random Security Zones
2-False Alarms on random zones.
3-Random generated X-10 codes on random housecodes, but usually unit
#12, but not always. When this happens the system gets pounded with
continuous X-10 code for minutes at a time. Even though the attacks
are on random housecodes, what ever housecode is selected, it stays
the same throughout the attack before moving to a different housecode
a few minutes later.
If I go down in the basement, I see my Act-CR234 repeater showing
error transmissions.
4-Lag time in voice messages. I have seven MS-13 X-10 wireless motion
sensors around the perimeter of the house and when I walk around to
each one in order, Aegis will sometimes not report back with a voice
message for sometimes minutes and will miss some. I see the LED on my
PLC switches blinking a normal transmission and the CR-234 repeater in
the basement shows a successful event.

The Setup:
----------------
-Original Aegis motherboard rom 1.7
-RC-80 thermostat
-Voice board
-2 flush mount keypads
-External thermostat
-External enclosure
-WGL V572 whole house code/units transceiver
-Act CR-234 repeater
-7 PCS light switches (none 2 way)
-various Leviton switches/modules
-several MS 13 motion sensors
-IR to X-10 interface
-other sensors / relays I have ruled out as the cause.
-All 32zones / 16 relays on both boards are being used.
-TM-751s

Trouble Shooting I have done so far to try to isolate the problem:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-Did a complete shutdown without batteries and restarted.
-Uploaded new code to the system
-Removed the Act -CR234 repeater
-Unplugged the WGL V572 whole house transceiver
-Removed all wires from boards
-Checked for noise in the house on all possible areas and shut down
suspected areas by  means of turning off breakers.
-Changed the PS CO5 powerline interfaces.
-Changed capacitors  on a zone that showed random trouble.
-Both batteries check withing normal parameters.
-I found 2 X-10 TM-751 transceivers outside I was using to extend
range not functioning

None of the things done above isolated any problems. 
I'm suspecting either damage from a power surge or from the power
being fed back into the mainboard.
I have talked to my Home Automation Tech and he thinks a mainboard
change may be in order but it is very hard to isolate this problem as
it happens at random times so I am looking to this knowledgeable group
for your comments and suggestions for my next move before I make a
motherboard change.


Thanks for reading

...Randy