PX-S3000 Failed again!

[shep]

Hi All, after months of complaining regarding the intermittent failure of my first PX-S3000 keyboard I received a new replacement  on 03/11/2020. I use it regularly and yesterday at a gig I was between sets and changing registration settings. The keyboard froze again then turned off! On start up it was OK. This is akin to a midi panic button whereby I think that when the CPU is "confused" the keyboard turns off to reset? 

Can lightning strike twice, it seems so. I have had electronic keyboards for 50 years. This is the best keyboard I've ever had for my requirements , however, this failure problem is frustrating to say the least. Surely I'm not the only one in the world with this occurrence. I'd love to hear from other users who have experienced this failure. My biggest worry is that it will fail when I'm in concert backing a vocalist, which I do on a regular basis. I also have a PX560M which I also use nearly every day ( mainly for solo work) and have not had a single problem .

 

Edited January 23, 2021 by shep
spelling mistake

[Brad Saucier]

Well, I constantly monitor this forum and the Casio Facebook group that covers the PX-S series.  You are the only person I've seen report a freezing S3000.  Are you connected to anything other than the original power supply and audio jacks?  Are you using USB MIDI? or a flash drive connected when this happens?  

[shep]

Hi Brad, thanks for the reply. No to all of your questions. The keyboard and power supply were all brand new. The power supply downunder in  NSW, Australia  is 230V 50 Hertz but this shouldn't make any difference. The previous faults occurred in various locations including may own home. Yesterday I played in a large sports club with other musicians but I was on a separate circuit. Maybe we will  get some feedback from other members of the forum.

[Joe Muscara]

Even though you've had this occur in different locations, it could still be power related. Do you have batteries in the unit? On one hand, the keyboard should switch to batteries if the power goes out, but I can't say for sure it would smooth out a brownout. OTOH, it might react weirdly by having the batteries in there (I seem to recall some reports of this but I could be wrong, like someone was reporting that their keyboard worked better by not having the batteries in there. It doesn't seem right to me but it's worth being open to). I would suggest that trying the opposite of whatever you currently are doing with the batteries to see if the problem persists.

 

The other thing I would try is to recreate the steps that led to the fault you saw. If you could consistently do it, you could report it and others users could confirm if they can do it as well. Then we could report it to Casio (they would see it here) and they could hopefully fix the bug.

[Casiofun]

Wow this is strange. I would suspect a power issue as well. Definately try batteries and see if it happens.

[casio_style]

Poor electrical contact, short-term, unnoticeable power outages or impulse noise in the electrical network may well cause a failure in the operation of any synthesizer. Use uninterruptible power supplies to power your synthesizer, especially at concerts.

[shep]

Thanks members for replies. This is a brand new unit , I don't use batteries. At the time I was tweaking the split point and it just froze. With my previous keyboard it died many times in a variety of situations. I will try some of your suggestions and hopefully it won't happen again.

[Bobbo]

I'm not sure what you mean by "froze," but I'm sorry to report that tonight my PX-S3000, not quite a year old, suffered several sudden anomalies:  first, the sound was momentarily interrupted, then it came back, then the volume dropped by about 80%, etc.  I did a factory reset and it worked again, but not for long.  The sound disappeared again.  I turned the power off and back on, and the sound returned, but who knows for how long.  The only thing different tonight from usual was that I was playing an organ tone when the anomalies first occurred, which I rarely do.  But the loss of sound, etc., was general, not limited to a specific tone.

[Jokeyman123]

These problems are all with the original Casio power supplies looks like. These are pretty "beefy" for a wall-wart-better quality than most except my huge older Yamaha supplies and never use the smaller, cheaper Chinese knock-offs, are terrible for the Privias. That doesn't seem like it is the problem here. I have been "inside" most of these Privias-the wiring harnesses, IC boards, all the construction is pretty solid-looks like it would take alot to damage anything internally-but in my (limited) professional repair/troubleshooting experience, almost always-these seeming software/OS glitches are power related, and some are due to defective memory chips which is also pretty rare. Almost always due to insufficient power, a power glitch in the AC line, or some defect in the power supply which is not throwing out good, regulated power, which these Casio supplies are usually pretty reliable in providing. Now given that your PX has had this problem in various venues-all it takes is one bad power venue-and something could have been damaged, unfortunately. Even with the wall-warts which are supplying some filtering and a cleaner DC signal-a momentary brownout or surge could have damaged something-in the supply or less likely in you PX-if it got through the supply. And since many of the newer keyboards are coming with plastic cases-for pro venues-with light dimmers, spots, wireless mikes and many times crappy AC-chances are good that something will interfere with the operating system-which hopefully would be temporary, even a microwave oven stops my wi-fi network depending on my computer! I could not play certain gigs even with steel-cased keyboards-if i did not have a huge Tripplite AC filter surge protector between the house AC and my equipment-I found that out the hard way in one venue-the house lights rendered my SY77 completely inoperative-and it had never failed before. Nasty stuff. I also began to bring a multimeter to gigs! I would test the AC voltages before I plugged in anything-I was surprised to find some house AC as low as 80-90 volts US-why I couldn't say. And many venues had such poor fluctuations in power-i had to use heavy line conditioning to prevent keyboard damage to what apparently becomes very delicate equipment in the wrong environments. 

[shep]

Hi Bobbo, "froze" means loss of all function i.e no buttons would work , no sound, then after a few seconds it  turned off completely. Your problem sounds, excuse the pun, different, possibly as Jokeyman123  says an electrical anomaly? Good luck.

[Bobbo]

Thanks, Shep.  Whatever is causing my problem, it is highly intermittent.  It hasn't happened again since the event I mentioned.

[Random_Vibration]

I keep my keyboards on a UPS since they have such a long firmware update process.

 

Actually, I keep all my home theater, PCs and audio equipment on UPS.  Some on simulated AC, others on pure sine wave units primarily to protect firmware updates, NAS, and hard drives.  

 

My measures are extreme and I generally can't claim it is necessary or even doing something for me personally.  Its just something I do for my own satisfaction (and extra expense).  I can say during the peak of summer and winter power demands, they trip quite often.  You often can seen the dimming of lights momentarily.  No, I don't live in a third world country.  I average about 4 events a month.

 

I will say what you described sounds like a potential power issue (transients).  Just an opinion.

[Jokeyman123]

Just to reinforce the likelihood of power problems..

 

.I have 2 pellet stoves to heat my house-each have motherboards-for turning fans on/off-temperature switching and other timing cycles for releasing pellets in the right amount and timing. 2 things I had to learn----

 

1) These will not run without "filtered" AC power-which means a clean AC voltage from the plug-and not with my regular "unfiltered" generator-I learned this the hard way when we had a catastrophic snow cyclone here in the Poconos 2 years ago. My pellet stoves would not run, wouldn't even power on with my unfiltered generator supply. I had no heat for almost 3 weeks-and electric. I now have 2 marine 12V batteries hooked to 2 1200W power inverters-filtered power inverters, and I can now run both stoves-until the batteries discharge-can get 2-3 days of noncontinuous service-but better than nothing, A good filtered AC generator is around 1000 US dollars, probably still worth it had I not already spent 600 on an unfiltered one. I almost froze to death-had to sleep/wash in the firehouse-and ran an electric heater in one room with our pets from my unfiltered generator-so we wouldn't die-I'm not joking, people here did die from exposure as everything was cut off from everything else. You can read about that storm-it was historic. Over 100 utility poles went down, in one area alone. AND

 

2) The fluctuations in my regular household AC current-which is consistent-consistently poor-has damaged both pellet stoves. They work, but not well-timing is off, don't always fire up properly-I will in all probability have to get both motherboards replaced, costly venture for something that should never have happened in the first place.

 

What has this to do with our Casios? Our Casios (and all my other electronics) are likely at least as delicate as my stoves, especially if i take these out and hook up to unknown AC sources. I have battery powered rechargeable AC portable packs now-with AC inverters built-in. If I am not sure what I'm plugging into-I will use these for my keyboards, and the crappy mains for my powered mixers/amps whatever else I might need.  I learned training as a tech-damage when it occurs may not be noticeable, especially with microprocessors, memory chips and other controller IC's-this is called "parasitic damage" and it may take awhile for whatever was damaged to show up-which makes it so difficult for a tech to decide how the damage occurred, since it might show up a month or so later. The lesson here-if in doubt, have some form of power that you know is "clean" and safe for your expensive music equipment-and why using computers and software in a live venue have always been nerve-wracking for me anyway. I am considering-at not too much extra expense-a "whole-house" electric filter/grounding system-so that even if your utility company is failing to deliver consistent power-as mine does-and for my whole-house generator which is connected to mains panel now-your musical equipment-and everything else, will still have a level of protection.  

[kybdsammer]

@Shep, I'm curious if your issue has improved at all or if you are still having the problem. I've had my PX-S3000 for almost two years and don't recall having this issue.  I've used AC, AA batteries, and an external battery (by the way this is a great option as I can run outdoors for more than 6 hours) and never had a problem. 

[shep]

Hi kybdsammer,my new PX-S3000 keyboard has only failed once and as I said in a PX-560M  post ( my PX-560M has failed once), I think the CPU gets overloaded if you manage to exceed the processing power and then the thing shuts down. I wonder if Casio uses the same computer chip? I also note that another user some time ago had a similar problem. I use both keyboard regularly but for different gigs depending on the situation.

[bwmetz]

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.

[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

[Bobbo]

I have had several recent recurrences of my problem:  i.e., while I am playing the keyboard, the sound level suddenly drops to a very low level, probably less than 10 percent of normal.  But in exploring this anomaly I found that the playback of a recorded song continues to be at normal sound level, as do rhythm accompaniment and auto accompaniment with chords.  So far I am able to restore normal operation by turning off the power and turning it back on again.  Does anyone have an idea of what might be causing this problem?  I speculate it might be a fault in how the system is reading key velocity.

[Casiofun]

I have a CTX-5000 that has froze up twice when playing with auto accompaniment and a single voice in the right hand. This was on AC power with original Casio power adapter with headphones and sustain pedal plugged into the keyboard. A powercycle was needed to restore functionality. Had no loss of sound volume before it froze.

[genesis1]

I'm now getting similar. Midi keeps freezing notes and going dead. I've had the px s3000 for 13 months that's all. If this is a major fault I'm threw buying casio.

[Brad Saucier]

23 minutes ago, genesis1 said:

I'm now getting similar. Midi keeps freezing notes and going dead. I've had the px s3000 for 13 months that's all. If this is a major fault I'm threw buying casio.

 

The issue you reported in the Facebook group is not the same as what this topic is about.  This topic is about the keyboard itself freezing, which is extremely rare.  You reported that the MIDI software on your computer freezing.  That does not mean your PX-S3000 is freezing.  You report that the internal sounds on your PX-S3000 are playing normally, which indicates no internal malfunction with MIDI or the sustain pedal. 

 

The next step is checking your USB cable and any USB interface you may be using.  Confirm everything is functional with other devices before connecting the piano.  Any of this intermediate equipment can introduce communication errors which could lead to MIDI software dropping notes and freezing.  

[genesis1]

Unfortunately it is the px 3000 itself. It had been working fine for some time after a factory reset. Tonight I was playing just the keyboard no midi, just onboard piano itself and suddenly the sustain stuck on again. I removed the sustain pedal, that did nothing. I pressed other keys  that did nothing but add to the sustain.

I had to turn it off and back on again to cure it.

Casio have said as its under warranty they will collect for repair, but as its an intermittent problem and can go for days or weeks before it happening again, it could be difficult to solve. They may say they cannot find the problem. So I may have to wait until either it happens more often before returning it for repair, or get shot of it and buy another brand to replace it.

My sustain pedal btw is a casio.

 

[Brad Saucier]

Thanks for updating us.  That's definitely frustrating and hopefully it can be solved.  Keep us updated.  

[genesis1]

I did another factory reset which cured it again. Not sure for how long. Seems an intermittent problem. It will work fine for ages and then will happen out of the blue. I don't think it's possible like other keyboards to download any updates as maybe it's a little software bug. My version says 0105.

[Brad Saucier]

Correct, unfortunately no updates are available for that model.  It's frustrating that it's such a random issue which can't be replicated.  If it could, a fix could definitely be found.