emusonacid!

I?ve recently bought an E5000 ultra. Shortly after picking it up, it started freezing on occasions. Mostly after a while of use, but sometimes almost instantly. Rebooting wouldn?t help, it would halt at the ?checking the flash? part (without displaying the result of the check).
The only thing I could do was wait for half an hour, and try again. Mostly it would function again by then.

I?ve contacted the previous owner, and he didn?t recognize the behavior.

Yesterday, after trying to access a CD-ROM I just ejected (I got a SCSI gentrap error, so I had to reboot), rebooting also didn?t work. Even without a system freeze! The error was my doing, not the system failing me. The freeze now occurred right after the ?checking the flash?, I had the three dashes on screen indicating that the Emu system is loading, but that was as far as it got.

I?ve tried several things to assure it wasn?t loose cables, corroded memory pins, or whatnot. Every connector and memory module has been unplugged and reinserted several times. But the freezing still happens! I want to use the machine on live gigs, so this is quite unwanted behaviour as you can imagine.

Long story, short question: what the heck is going on? Have I bought a dying Emu? Is there anything I could do to fix the behaviour, or should I have it repaired?

E-5000 Ultra
64 MB RAM
EOS 4.61
10 GB internal IDE

you might try disconnecting any and all SCSI devices. The problem could be SCSI related. (non terminated chain). Basically this process is about eliminating unknowns

om wrote:you might try disconnecting any and all SCSI devices. The problem could be SCSI related. (non terminated chain). Basically this process is about eliminating unknowns

Thanks for your quick reply. The problem exists without having any SCSI hardware attached, however. Last time it happened with the CD-ROM connected via SCSI, but all the times before, it was just the Emu.

But you're right, it is all about eliminating the unknowns. I've tested all possible causes I could think of and tried a fix for the things I dared handle. But I'm starting to run out of ideas.

Or could this be a matter of reinstalling EOS? I've focussed solely on hardware so far, but in the end the OS makes it tick... I'm just guessing, because in my opinion the problem has 'hardware' written all over it, since a reboot doesn't fix things immediately. Software and memory don't survive reboots and the Emu should start afresh without any remnants of the previous system freeze, shouldn't it.

The fact that (most of the times) I have to wait before the system works again feels like a thermal problem or something similar. But as I said, I'm running out of ideas...

anyone?

Well, it does not hurt to try to reinstall the os, you can find some files at emusonacid.co.uk, but it can sound like the os-rom might have recived a bump during shipping or something, and then you're out of my range of knowledge...

First, I don't actually have extensive expertise to draw on in suggesting a solution. Sorry.

But I might suggest a problem: the flash RAM.

No, I'm not saying "hey, it's your flash RAM". I'm just saying it might be. Flash RAM only has a limited life span. It can only take a certain number of write operations before it just goes bad (or so says both the E-mu PX-7 manual and an article I read online on Flash technologies).

Hopefully, it's not the flash RAM, and it's just some simple thing like voodoo or evil pixies. Because it's a lot easier to deal with evil pixies than it is to get a hold of that format Flash RAM these days.

You might want to check that all of the internal connectors are correctly seated. It is possible that one may have become slightly dislodged during transit.

Cheers,
Adam-V

Actually, that's a really good idea. I thought my e6400-ultra was dead when it arrived, but it turned out one of the data connectors for the front panel had come unhooked (somehow) during transit.

It's been a while now, since the problems have occurred, so I guess it's all good now. I've seated an extra 64MB RAM in the EMU and the sampler hasn't crashed on me since.

It's not a really satisfactory outcome, since nothing was really 'fixed'. But then again, maybe nothing was broken to begin with. It could have been the RAM distribution for the samples and the system that were not correct for a 64MB unit. I don't know...

Anyhow the problem dissapeared. I wanted to report back and thank you all for your help.

...guess I spoke too early (or did I forget to knock on wood ;-)). Last sunday the unit decided to freeze on me during an intro. Luckily the rest of the band picked up and played on as if this was planned, but you can imagine how I felt.

Maybe the RAM distribution is something I could dive in to, but I don't know how to set them. For a 128 MB system, how would you set the sizes?

try plugging it in to a power conditioner.


my e5000 was acting weird.

when i plugged it in to my furman, it stopped acting weird.