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Pooched XW-P1


Jokeyman123
Go to solution Solved by Brad Saucier,

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Groan.........I just pooched my XW by trying to upgrade the newest firmware, I had success with the first upgrade, but newest one.........weep.........I did it by not turning off antivirus on my Windoodoo XP laptop-which apparently interrupted the transfer despite my having everything connected properly. I understand this is unrecoverable unless it is returned to the factory. This seems unbelievable to me as anything that can be user "flashed" should be user recoverable. I haven't seen this problem since early computers. Has anyone come across any other solution for restoring?  Mine is not under warranty (I think) as I bought it from someone else. A real shame that an instrument this advanced can be so easily pooched and not user restorable. What a mistake.

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Aside from scrapping it or selling it on eBay for parts, you could try finding out how much your local authorized Casio Repair Center charges for an out of warranty repair?

 

It may not be as costly as you think.  If it's only $100 or less it would be worthwhile fixing.

 

Gary

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Otherwise, if you had the tech knowhow and an EEPROM programmer, and a good working machine, you could pull the chip (if it's socketed) and reprogram it from scratch.

 

If you know any really gutsy techs who are capable of that kind of operation you could always try that option.

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Groan.........I just pooched my XW by trying to upgrade the newest firmware, I had success with the first upgrade, but newest one.........weep.........I did it by not turning off antivirus on my Windoodoo XP laptop-which apparently interrupted the transfer despite my having everything connected properly. I understand this is unrecoverable unless it is returned to the factory. This seems unbelievable to me as anything that can be user "flashed" should be user recoverable. I haven't seen this problem since early computers. Has anyone come across any other solution for restoring?  Mine is not under warranty (I think) as I bought it from someone else. A real shame that an instrument this advanced can be so easily pooched and not user restorable. What a mistake.

 

 

 

Man, sorry to hear that! That really sucks!

 

Sure makes one want to upgrade their firmware doesn't it?

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No not yet. I'm still kind of immobile with crappy crutches so wouldn't be able to ship it back for roughly a month. Of course I agree it's worth restoring. I boggles my mind this is so easily pooched. Would be nice if the eeprom (if that's what's holding firmware were socketed and replaceable. I've had mine apart to modify the keybed a little, I'll nose around and see what I can find and i will contact Casio. D^^^^. grrrrr""""!!!! My bad as they say. Had no idea an antivirus would cr** this installation. Went to the 7th bargraph, stopped. I waited for 10-15 minutes no movement on the screen, tried to start the routine again by running the .exe file but nothing. If I find out anything helpful I will post. I'm pretty stubborn usually and have solved worse problems.  I was finally getting to grips with the XW, poo.

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An update about Casio service. Have to sign in, fill in some info, logs you into their automated system. I am supposed to ship keyboard to their service center first in order to get an estimate. How about giving me an estimate first, then I'll decide whether I want to ship it before I spend the money to ship it. The problem seems fairly obvious. Corrupt firmware, needs to be restored. Again, a flashable ROM should becapable of re-installation by the user if the user can flash upgrades. It's a flashable ROM. I've flashed a half-dozen smartphones with and without bootloaders, completely restoring their OS........hhmmmm.....

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Wow! Jokeyman123,  I like casio, but that is a really crappy way to run a business. ship the xw and only then can you get an estimate. They should at least tell you the cost to repair the firmware, then if they found something additional wrong with it they could  charge you for it if you wanted the xw fixed. At least that would be a heck of a lot better than the crappy way their doing it now. but then again maybe there's more than one way to fix a firmware,(I don't know if there is) and different way's may have different price's, maybe that's why they do it that way. Still there has to be a better way for casio to handle these type of thing's.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have (since I'm sure there is no warranty since I bought second-hand) taken the XW apart to check motherboard and related components (I had previously added some piano felt under keys for lessing jarring feel at bottom of key travel so knew how to do this without damaging anything). I found 1) no socketed chips, everything is surface-mount and 2) hoping to find some type of back-up battery for memory circuits which are common in many keyboards- there isn't any. I was hoping i could somehow "hard-reset" the XW by disconnecting any battery. No criticism of the design, it is well-assembled, simple and solid. I am guessing the entire motherboard must be accessed somehow for reflashing. I don't mind sending it back but this is definitely a deficiency IMO in this otherwise well-designed instrument.  I find it hard to believe that something with computer circuitry that can be updated with binary files by the "end-user" cannot be restored the same way. Mike, I think we need your help addressing this. Anyone else that is not aware of the potential for ruining your XW because anitvirus could possibly interrupt the flashing process should be informed by someone other than me especially since many users have antivirus running and are using some form of W****dows OS to flash. Make me (and potentially many othe XW users) happy by making available a flash routine that will restore this the same way it disabled everything without having to return an otherwise perfectly functioning instrument and taking the risk it will be lost or smashed in transit on the way back to Casio. PX5s users, is there a comparable problem with PX5s firmware? Thanks again for a great forum that allows for addressing these issues.

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 PX5s users, is there a comparable problem with PX5s firmware? 

 

Hi JM.. the PX-5S updates via a USB thumbdrive so this eliminates the anti-virus or other computer issues, but I believe if you turn off or otherwise interrupt the update when it's in progress you are in the same boat. I always make sure the PX-5S has fresh batteries and the cats are shut in a room before beginning a firmware update. 

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I also have to take my cat's out of my studio when I do any kind of firmware update's. I  started out with just one black female cat, then she got pregnant, now I have five cat's in my house . I couldn't go through with taking them to an animal shelter. In my area it seem's no one is adopting kitten's, and I just couldn't bare the thought of them being put down, so now I guess i have become the crazy cat lady, er um, crazy cat man.             P.S.   the cat's are almost as   obsessed with my XW-P1 as I am. it is difficult to write song's with cat's laying on my xw.

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There's nothing to replace easily. Here's main board (I think) because it has chip and 3 memory chips (I think it's a static RAM chip and 2 dynamic RAM chips). All soldered and the only thing smart user can do is to replace (by soldering) the whole board. But it's the worst case. I'll call local Casio service tomorrow to investigate what they can do and what money I've lost because of nice and save flashing process :)

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post-2096-0-77366900-1384890164_thumb.jp

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Cool. Chip-on-board technology (under that big dollop of hardened goo). Besides that chip, which is likely Casio's custom LSI, there is an SRAM as you guessed (4 Mbit) and two Flash memories (128Mbit each), not DRAM. 

 

Almost certainly the Casio service folk will have to reprogram the Flash memory chips while they are on the board. That's why the whole thing has to be sent back to the factory (or perhaps only to the nearest Casio service depot).

 

The days of user-replaceable chips on today's electronics are long, long behind us.

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An Issue like this could be the death knell for an electronic instrument. This issue will spread through the net. People will not want to incur the expense and hassle of sending an instrument back because the firmware update didn't take and killed their XW.

 

I know I'm not going to try to update mine, I'll just use as is and not get the benefit from any updates; even though it is in warranty. What about after warranty?

 

Why have firmware updates if users can't be positive about it going well.

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An Issue like this could be the death knell for an electronic instrument. This issue will spread through the net. People will not want to incur the expense and hassle of sending an instrument back because the firmware update didn't take and killed their XW.

 

I know I'm not going to try to update mine, I'll just use as is and not get the benefit from any updates; even though it is in warranty. What about after warranty?

 

Why have firmware updates if users can't be positive about it going well.

 

I agree.

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