bwmetz

If my SMPS conjecture is confirmed by anyone from Casio on this thread, a much more thorough look at SMPS damage vs. repair can be found here in case anyone else is interested: https://www.repairfaq.org/sam/smpsfaq.htm

My PX-S3000 has had one "frozen" event similar to the one that @shep first described. It reset pretty quickly and it hasn't occurred again. I was concerned at the time that perhaps my foot had accidentally pulled on the power cable while using my pedal, but the cable was safely out of the way. This is a "stay-at-home" piano, so spotty power is less likely for me; however, I cannot rule out a short brownout other than to say that I didn't notice anything else react. For example, my nearby PC runs 24x7 and it wasn't connected to a UPS at the time. It should have rebooted if anything but a very short brownout occurred, yet it didn't. So if my issue was a brownout then it must have been either exceedingly small & short or else the Casio is extremely sensitive to even the slightest variation. Following that train of thought, it does appear that switch-mode power supplies (SMPS) are much more susceptible to brownouts than the older linear regulated supplies that many older piano's may use. While I cannot determine if the PX-S3000 power supply is in fact an SMPS or not, I am fairly certain that it is based on its 1.5A output vs. how much it weighs. Read the first two complete paragraphs on page three of the PDF linked below for a summary of general brownout impacts on SMPS. It recommends the use of a UPS/Regulator to deal with brownouts, same as the earlier commenters, in order to prevent damage to the transistors that make up the switch in any SMPS. By regulator I presume they mean a line conditioner, which is a bit different than a UPS but close enough for the purposes of this discussion. https://www.cpaltd.net/media/downloads/ECS/How-Do-I-Explain-Power-Supply-Failures.pdf Sorry if that isn't very helpful. I still consider my incident to have been a one-time fluke, but I wanted to convey that @shep isn't the only owner of a PX-S3000 that has encountered the phantom freeze and restart.

That is not a good answer to customer questions or generally how software updates work. If the changes are simply to fix variable names to meet Casio's software standards, then you may be correct; however, that would suggest that Casio doesn't have a strong CI/CD pipeline which should concern users just as much as updates not being made available as such "minor" changes could induce unintended bugs if a strong process isn't in place. But that is a poor reason and definitely not something that one would reasonably expect to drive four revisions to fix, that is if there are no functional changes in piano operation. The example above in no way justifies what appears to be four versions of firmware in the wild not justify why Casio won't make them available to their users for peace of mind. Even if the effect is negligible, it should be the owner's choice on whether they need to upgrade or not; not Casio's. For example, my PX-S3000 exhibits strange issues when certain combinations of tones, rhythms and auto accompaniments are used, but they are inconsistent and thus hard to repeat at will. As such, it is unclear if it is due to a software glitch; a processing power issue; or simply that the combination is sometimes exceeding the max polyphony. Users experiencing this would be remiss to open a support issue with Casio if they cannot reproduce the issue at will but would likely be open to updating the firmware....and let's be honest, Casio, like most other companies, would likely insist users do this for weird random issues anyway. This brings me to my final point. If anyone has been tracking the user guide's for the PX-S3000, then you might have noticed that revision "B" has been published since the piano was released. Most of the changes are superficial but there were two references to the "depth of the hall simulator/reverb effect" settings that were changed, with a "set separately" on pg 22 of the original being removed and a new "not set separately" on pg 23 of the one now on Casio's website. This could be explained as a simple documentation error in the original or it could be that a bug was found that couldn't be corrected, or that Casio chose not to correct, and the user guide was updated to match. I am that guy as well. If I knew how to check, my comments above could carry even more weight. In summary, Casio should provide firmware images and instructions for upgrading to its customers, just like it does for other models and like many of its competitors do. Give us a reasonable estimate on availability and deliver on it. If not, Casio needs to be open and honest with us that firmware updates are never going to happen for the PX-S3000, e.g. there's no mention of upgrading within the user guide and no separate guide either. I abandoned Yamaha for Casio two piano's ago. While something as silly as providing updated firmware or Casio clearly communicating its intent around the same wouldn't be a reason enough to switch to another brand in the future, it would definitely be a tie breaker if my next piano purchase was otherwise even between Casio and one its competitors.