I just got my 10gb rio car and it looks like it might be broken. The buttons on the face don't work and the remote doesn't seem to work either. I have tried upgrading the kernel and that didn't seem to help either. Does anybody have any ideas on why the buttons and the remote wouldn't work? My friend said that it might be a good idea to include what the empeg is doing upon boot so here is the output from that:

empeg-car bootstrap v1.02 20001106 (hugo@empeg.com)
If there is anyone present who wants to upgrade the flash, let them speak now,
or forever hold their peace...it seems not. Let fly the Penguins of Linux!

e000 v1.03
Copying kernel...
Calling linux kernel...
Uncompressing Linux.................................... done, booting the kernel
.
Linux version 2.2.14-rmk5-np17-empeg41 (mac@aphex.internal.empeg.com) (gcc versi
on 2.95.2 19991024 (release)) #135 Wed Jan 10 17:16:23 GMT 2001
Processor: Intel StrongARM-1100 revision 11
NetWinder Floating Point Emulator V0.94.1 (c) 1998 Corel Computer Corp.
empeg-car player (hardware revision 9, serial number 40103713)
Command line: mem=16m temp=36
Calibrating delay loop... 207.67 BogoMIPS
Memory: 15048k/16M available (972k code, 20k reserved, 336k data, 8k init)
Dentry hash table entries: 2048 (order 2, 16k)
Buffer cache hash table entries: 16384 (order 4, 64k)
Page cache hash table entries: 4096 (order 2, 16k)
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.2
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP
TCP: Hash tables configured (ehash 16384 bhash 16384)
IrDA (tm) Protocols for Linux-2.2 (Dag Brattli)
Linux-IrDA: IrCOMM protocol ( revision:Tue May 18 03:11:39 1999 )
ircomm_tty: virtual tty driver for IrCOMM ( revision:Wed May 26 00:49:11 1999 )
Starting kswapd v 1.5
SA1100 serial driver version 4.27 with no serial options enabled
ttyS00 at 0xf8010000 (irq = 15) is a SA1100 UART
ttyS01 at 0xf8050000 (irq = 17) is a SA1100 UART
ttyS02 at 0xf8030000 (irq = 16) is a SA1100 UART
Signature is 206f6972 'rio '
Logo type is 1
empeg display initialised.
empeg dspaudio driver initialized
empeg audio-in initialised, CS4231A revision a0
empeg infra-red support initialised.
empeg usb initialised, PDIUSBD12 id 1012
empeg state support initialised 0089/88c1 (save to d0004d80).
empeg power-pic driver initialised (first boot)
RAM disk driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 4096K size
empeg single channel IDE
Probing primary interface...
hda: FUJITSU MHM2100AT, ATA DISK drive
hda: FUJITSU MHM2100AT, ATA DISK drive
hda: FUJITSU MHM2100AT, ATA DISK drive
hda: FUJITSU MHM2100AT, ATA DISK drive
hda: FUJITSU MHM2100AT, ATA DISK drive
hda: FUJITSU MHM2100AT, ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0x000-0x007,0x038 on irq 6
hda: FUJITSU MHM2100AT, 9590MB w/2048kB Cache, CHS=19485/16/63
empeg-flash driver initialized
smc chip id/revision 0x3349
smc9194.c:v0.12 03/06/96 by Erik Stahlman (erik@vt.edu)

SMC9194: SMC91C94(r:9) at 0x4008000 IRQ:7 INTF:TP MEM:6144b MAC 00:02:d7:28:0e:8
1
Partition check:
hda: hda1 < hda5 hda6 > hda2 hda3 hda4
RAMDISK: ext2 filesystem found at block 0
RAMDISK: Loading 320 blocks [1 disk] into ram disk... done.
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem).
empeg-pump v0.03 (19980601)
Press Ctrl-A to enter pump...VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly.
change_root: old root has d_count=1
Trying to unmount old root ... okay
Freeing unused kernel memory: 8k initI see this is a developer image!
Mounting proc
Mounting first music partition
Mounting second music partition
Tried to mount /dev/hdc4 but got error 6
Error mounting partitions (possibly already mounted)
Remounting first music partition read-only
Remounting second music partition read-only
No secondary hard disk
Press 'q' now to go into development mode. You Have Zero Seconds To ComðStarting
player
empeg-car 1.02.
00001b04 DHCP Our mac is 00:02:d7:28:0e:81
00001b04 DHCP Our address is 255.255.255.255
00001b04 DHCP Broadcast address is 255.255.255.255
00001b04 DHCP Current IP address is 255.255.255.255
00001b04 DHCP Sending DHCP discover

this actually looks fine to me.

Is any information going by on the VFD screen? If it does, then is simply blank ... the unit ships with info turned off. ... try hitting the downward facing triangle button, and scrolling to the info menu.

If the buttons feel strange ... pull the hex screws off the front and carefully remove the fascia ... see if anything is smashed. Then put the buttons back on the empeg, and reattach the fascia carefully. Don't screw the screws in all the way, so that the buttons will have some play with the fascia. My old one shipped with the fascia on pretty tight and the buttons wouldn't come unpressed due to friction with the tight fascia.

g

(I have access to the machine in question here)

The symptoms are that the buttons don't work at all. None of them. The unit comes up in standby mode (usually), and at that point, again, the buttons do nothing. Pressing, turning, or otherwise.

I got a bash prompt on it, and things look reasonable in there. Only /drive0 is being mounted, to /dev/hda4, which has some 9Gig assigned to it. There are a couple of little partitions, /dev/hda2, 3, and 5 if I remember, which have 2-3 megs assigned, and are not mounted. hd6 is the swap and looks good.
Note that when the unit boots, you see the RIO logo and the 'initializing' stuff flash by, then the screen goes blank and it's in no buttons work mode.

Also, it seems like each time the unit boots, the screen is a different brightness level, from very dim to normal. The owner feels it might be associated with monkeying around with the power connection on the back of the unit?

rjf&

It does sound like the drive and the display are working fine. How do the buttons feel when pushed? Are they a little squishy or crisp full motion with clicking?

Greg

Can you upload anything? Does the player respont to serial commands?

The buttons have a crisp full motion with a clicking.

I can upload mp3s and start them up on the empeg from emplode.

Ah, could just be the cable between the motherboard and the display, then.

Contact support for help. They will either take the unit in for repair, or authorize you to open the unit to poke around.

Would that cable also effect the buttons and the remote?

Yes, it would because the buttons and remote sensors are on the display board, and go through the same cable(at least that's what I've seen from taking the top off.

So while plugging in the power I pressed the volume knob in which provided a little pressure to the front. This got the empeg to boot up in full brightness and it allows me to use the buttons for a few seconds, before they stop working. I have gotten this to work numerous times, and it does seem to be pressure related, and not just related to pushing the volume knob in.

Would sticking displayserver 1.1 onto the unit help in this case allowing you to see what is happening

P.S. tony e-mail us as every time i send an e-mail to you it gets bounced back i have a FAQ for you

thinfourth@yahoo.co.uk

My new 10GB backup unit has a similar problem, except the display is flaky also. I contacted support@empeg.com and David seems to think it's a display board problem. Maybe they had a bad batch of boards(?). I'm sending it back for repair tomorrow...

It's the same batch as all the other Rio players - we haven't made any since January. Since the number of players in circulation has suddenly tripled in the space of a week, I'm sure support will be relatively busy with DOA's purely because of the volume.

I strongly advise contacting car support (carsupport@riohome.com) about any DOA problem that anyone might have, rather than returning the product to the store. The store will NOT have a replacement for you - whereas support will have you up and running in no time.

Rob

I sent email to carsupport@riohome.com. I am just waiting for a reply. Thanks for all the help. I will keep you all up to date on the status of my empeg.

Well, sonicblue says that the will have to replace the display board, which requires me to ship it to Cambridge (I think). There goes a lot of cash (for shipping) for something that has never worked.

If its brand new, you won't pay for anything. Give support an email and wait a few days for them to work the backlog of emails out and get back to you. You will just be without your player for a few days.

Sean

We pay for express shipping both ways.

Usually we would suggest that you return it DOA to the US store, but if you were to do so I doubt they would have a replacement and you would just get a refund. Instead, we will repair and return the player to you within a few days.

Rob

That is so cool that you guys pay for express shipping both ways. Now that is customer support! The email from David Moss at carsupport@riohome.com says that he has already booked my player in for service, and he asked me for all the important info.