The flash looks fine -- it's unlikely to just have a single location fault, but more likely to lose a whole address/data line perhaps. I have near-zero faith in any DRAM test that runs in under 10 minutes (my own included), so I'm still betting on bad DRAM.

genixia is the best bet here.

Cheers

OK, Tried reflashing on a different computer but nothing new happened.

What next?

-Chris

Should I be sending in my empeg for service at this point or is there something else I can try on my own to determine what the problem may be?

I've lost the use of this empeg for two weeks and it's killing me that I have to actually listen to CDs again - ARRRRGGGHHHHHHH.

-Chris

I got an email from Stuart at eutronix so hopefullly he will be able to do something for me. He suggested that it could be bad RAM so perhaps I could try swapping out the RAM first.

Does this sound like a reasonable thing to do?

-Chris

The RAM is soldered directly to the motherboard, so no.

There are some RAM tests, but they're not very complete. Try hooking up the player via the serial port again and press Ctrl-T during startup to get to one of them. (This is in the FAQ somewhere -- too lazy to look.) If it says that it's bad, it's bad. If it doesn't, it might still be.

I've done the start up test every time I try to re-flash the player but to no avail - ARRRRRGGGHHHHHH

Amazing how much you miss something when you can't use it any more. Sucks having two cars and only one empeg player.

Well, it sounded like he wanted to try it himself and I got the impression that he thought he could just swap some DIMMs or something, and I (mis)remembered that he seemed hardware hesitant. So I meant "no" to him just giving it a shot.

I'm only hardware hesitant when it requires a soldering iron

So, does anybody else have ANY ideas what could be wrong with my player. The initial replies I received made me hopefull but I haven't heard anything back from anybody and I still have a non-functioning empeg sitting next to my desk.

-Chris

I just heard back from Stuart at Eutronix and he suggested that I send it out to Rob Schofield for repair.

So, if Rob is out there reading this then are you taking any units for repair and how do I send it out to you? Also, is the cost for shipping prohibitive enough where I would be better off buying a new player and using this one for parts? (Assuming of course I could find another one!)

-Chris

Shipping should be cheap.. Airmail for JUST THE MAINBOARD should be about US$25 one-way.

But if genixia could look at it first (he's in Boston area), then it might get fixed (or not) sooner.

Cheers

Yup, I'm here. Email me on carsupport@xs4all.nl

No-where on this thread do I see that you have attempted to re-flash the player using V2 Final using the serial cable and the updater to get the player back to a known state using standard software. Also, I don't know which version of the player software you were using prior to this problem. Were you using V3.xxB releases, by any chance?

Have you done anything recently to the player, ie. open it, install a new disk, try a memory upgrade, anything else?

I was using V2 before the failure. I first tried to re-install 2.0 using emplode but emplode did not find a player on the serial port. That is when I tried to connect using terminal.

I haven't done anything to the empeg prior to failure. In fact, my empeg is the only computer I owned that I DIDN'T have to tinker with constantly!

I contacted genixia and I will most likely send the empeg to him after Thanksgiving and see if he can repair it.

-Chris

The player takes a kernel flash from logoedit. Logoedit recognises the player and completes successfully, but the player still won't boot.

Ethernet activity LED and internal red LED are stuck on. Bus transceivers appear to be in HiZ. It's not the memory. Flash?