Alright guys I'm at my wit's end here trying to get this build up and running, so any ideas are very appreciated. This is a brand new buf-III and 'dents that I CANNOT get to lock. I have read the guide front to back many times.

1. Can someone with buffalo-III 8-channel used in stereo with the NEW firmware PLEASE post your working DIP switch settings, the guide is just not doing it for me.

2. I have my Placid HD set to 5.23V. It is supposed to power the Buf, sidecar, spdif4, and toslink module. After trying several things to get lock, I have stripped it down to just power the buf. Well, I've got ~55mA shunted and about 630mA total supply, that seems WAY too high. Shouldn't the buf draw no more than about 450? I dunno, when i set the placid current with no load to about 500, the LED on AVCC dims. Also, one of the 220s on the Placid is getting warm much quicker than it was with my old buf board, and that one probably had a bad sabre!

3. I've gone from ribbon cable to direct block, to individual jumper wires for the spdif4 and sidecar. nothing. tried removing the sidecar, nothing.

4. I have a scope, but it is a DSO Quad which is a small handheld scope with iffy UI, which makes it frustrating to use. I can see jumps in voltage when i connect to my source with the probe but I can't for the life of me get a good solid trace. Can someone who has scoped spdif signals please suggest what trigger/other settings i might use to suss out my input signal?

Update:

I again tried scoping my toslink output, power from bench supply at 5.25V, optical input from sony CD player. I'm definitely getting a quick, time varying signal, but i can't get a good trigger so it's jumpy, and I can only see a trace when i connect only the positive probe side and leave ground floating; otherwise there's just low level noise. Any ideas? I want to say the toslink is working fine, I'm just hesitant to keep flipping around resistors to try TTL direct to the DAC, I've already switched and then went back.

BUT THE BIG PROBLEM:

I went to check my trident outputs. All LEDs are lit while installed on the DAC. HOWEVER, the 1.2V trident is reading about 2.3V onboard! Upon closer inspection, I can see that R9 is MISSING from the trident (it is present on the trident set I ordered for my fried DAC a few weeks ago). Also, when I try to test it in isolation with a 5.25V input, only one of the LEDs is lighting up, which is confounding cuz it is the same supply and voltage setup that lights BOTH 1.2V LEDS when it is installed????

I dunno, I'm thinking maybe a new 1.2V trident will do it?