Donnie,

My first ZDAC had a quirk that appears to have had to do with warming up....maybe as Dan suggested...a weak solder connection or cap or resistor or something where warming up fully made it work. Anyway, the way I saw it develop was weird and Steve never figured it out, probably because it was not worth running down. At first the DAC worked fine. Turn it on and it worked. Then it started taking 10-12 minutes after turning it on until it would make sound. The light was on, and you could feel warmth, but no sound, presumably until something got fully warm???

This got worse taking more time to warm up....like 40-50 minutes if my memory is correct. So I just left it on. When I got time to have it gone, I sent it back and Steve replaced the output stage. Worked fine at first, but slowly ended up the same...fine if left on, but eventually taking a long time after turning it on to make sound. And it was not audibly fuzzy as it came to life....it just got to a point where it sounded great from no sound at all.

So though it worked as long as I kept it powered up, I finally I sent it back and Steve sent me a new unit that has worked fine for a long time now.

Don't know if this is related, but maybe.

Have you tried leaving it on for a long time?

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Yes I know the feeling. For me it is motivated by the sound the thing is capable of, and not wanting to lose it. But alas, yours unfortunately needs to go to the mother ship for repairs!

Fingers crossed Donnie. Hope it works!

So, I got the "free" ZDAC (see "a contest of sorts" started 10-7-12 in the General Discussion and Support forum) and I'm digging into it and I could use some help.  I think I found Donnie's problem as the select lines to the CS8416 receiver chip were low at 1.8v.  Removal of 2 small surface mount resistors and the addition of a 1k brought the selects up to a logic compatible 2.5v and I'm now getting signals out of the CS8416 (OLRCLK, OSCLK, SDOUT when I play a song over the USB.  

However, the up-sampler daughter card was plugged in 1 row off (did you do this Donnie?) and it appears to be dead (although the oscillator and 3.3v regulator are working).  Does anyone know if the up-sampler board can be bypassed?  It looks like it can be with just 3 or 4 of the two pin jumpers you see on disk drives.

Also, does anyone know what the dip switches should be set to on the little CS4398 board?  Mine are set to on, off, off, off reading from pin 14 to pin 1 (left to right if the USB connector is in the upper right corner).

Thanks

Dan

Dan,
I just remembered that I gave the DAC to my brother who said he would look at it. Mystery solved! I blame Dale. He always was a little undependable.