Dead Sampler?

Any problems with your Ultra sampler should be reported here, hopefully someone might know what's wrong.

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Dead Sampler?

Postby Underground_Wisdom » Wed Jul 02, 2003 1:26 am

Hello folks!

I hate for my first post to be a cry for help, but I think you might be the only people who can help me!

I recently purchased an E6400 Ultra in beautiful shape.

128MB, 2GB SCSI internal, Flash upgrade, dual MIDI, E-synth ROM...still had the cellophane over the screen and everything!

Running great, SMDI working wonderfully, then I decided to upgrade the OS...shoulda left it alone, as 4.10 was working fine.

I ran the Flash Prep that is required to upgrade to 4.6...burned the image
to floppy OK, inserted into the sampler and was asked if I wanted to update
from floppy. I gave it an enthusiastic "enter for yes", and the machine
hung for like an hour. So, I powered it off, and re-booted.

At this point, it just hung on the boot screen...says: "Checking flash..."
then "Initializing..." then some stuff flashes by too fast to read. So, I
tried booting off the backup that I had made of my old OS. No luck--keeps
doing the same thing...hanging at the boot screen.

E-mu tech support asked my to make sure that the machine was actually an
ULTRA (--lol), and when i replied that, yes indeed it was, they told me to
send it to one of thier service centers. This guy, unfortunately did not
seem any more knowledgeable than myself! So, I've had a dead sampler for about a week now...

Maybe you could offer further insights?

Please advise...

UW
Underground_Wisdom
 
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Postby sampleandhold » Wed Jul 02, 2003 4:03 am

lets see what the emu bible says... i am figuring you don't have this?

well, here is one idea, if this works to update the os, then this should work to get it back...

1.)turn power off. i figure you have it off, whatever

2.)insert the floppy disc into drive. this should be your back up of the old eos, if you don't have it you should be able to download off there site.

3.) turn on the power

4.)press enter to update, or exit to cancel, i figure you would want to update...

5.) then you get to wait for the emu to update it's firmware

6.)re-initialize eeprom. (this should be done after a software update to "clean the slate". it resets the master menu preferences and the other bits.)
a. press master
b. press utils
c. press tests
d.enter the secret password, 1-3-5-8 then press ok.. this should be the same i would think.
e. press more
f. press initee, the display reads "initialize ee?"
g. press ok. the display reads, "saving system"
h... well the manual says f but i think they mean h... press master to exit diagnostcs mode.

7.recalibrate the emulator controls.

so that is one idea, it looks to me that you didn't get that far when you did the update, but i would think that you should be able to reverse the process. let me check something really fast.

yeah that is all i have gotten so far... i hope this helps... good luck man, if it does work, you owe us tips :mrgreen:
"{jU$t-n3Rv0U$-N-+h3-@Ll3y-W@y}"
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Postby Underground_Wisdom » Wed Jul 02, 2003 3:07 pm

Thanks so much for the quick reply!

I have already tried loading from the backup of my old OS, and to no avail. it just hangs at the boot screen. Also tried to load a fresh copy of OS 4.10 recently downloaded from the E-mu website...same results.

My guess is that when trying to run flash prep, something went wrong in the sampler, and now will not get past the "Checking Flash..." portion of the boot sequence.

I even tried to use E-loader, but the final step says "Waiting for download request fomr sampler..." which isn't gonna happen because it never gets past the Flash check in the boot cycle.

I've resolved to just follow E-mu's advice and send it into a service center and hope for the best, unless anyone has further ideas?

Thanks for looking!

UW
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Posts: 2
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Location: Colorado

Postby sampleandhold » Fri Jul 04, 2003 3:29 am

write down the serial number... perhaps get it insured, and hope they fix it and it survives the trip back. i sent a mixer one time to get repaired.... got it back.. not fixed, and also dented on the face plate that would mount on a coffin... have never sent off electronics again to get repaired. i do it my self now if i can... my cdj 500 had a button go out.. had the service manual and ordered the part for my self... and fixed it... cost me only 20 dollars i think... hee hee.... still thinking about getting a dual oscillscope...

of course the horror that happened to me shouldn't happen to you. i would think emu is a good company and would take care of the unit for you and get it sorted. but i hope that some one has an idea.. i still hate to see you have your emu gone for so long.

good luck with it though, and i hope you get it going again.
"{jU$t-n3Rv0U$-N-+h3-@Ll3y-W@y}"
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Postby Brian » Wed Sep 24, 2003 9:57 am

Hi

What happened to you is the worst possible case.

The flashes which contain the EOS got erased and hung up before your sampler had a chance of reprogramming the flashes. This makes your machine not knowing what to do. Without a programmed flash the machine can't do anything (including accessing the floppy and hd-drive) and you cannot solve this problem unless you get the source code for the flashes and reprogram it with a flash burner.

Another alternative is to let Emu-systems repair it.

I've had a similar problem with an E4K which you can read about under the headline "E4K went dead during flash upgrade". But I have to do this myself because it's not an Ultra (I'm not happy with Emu-systems service level).

Best regards

Brian :???:
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