Dimmer prob on my backup RIO

Yesterday, I noticed that the temp wasn't working on my primary player so I broke out the backup. When I got it, I did the boot test and it was fine so I've just left it in the box and never messed with it. Well, last night was the first time its really gotten any use.

First, I verified that the temp sensor works fine in it. Then I thought I'd use this one and keep my original for a backup so I put 2.0b11 on it and let it copy my music overnight. This morning is where I noticed the wierdness with the dimmer.

The dimmer is very eratic. It will start out at 100 and then get dimmer at 90, 80, turn OFF at 70 (black screen), come on a little brighter at 60, full bright at 50, etc. Also, if I set it to 100 and keep turning the knob to the right, the display will change brightness while all the while saying 100%.

I thought maybe it is a bad connection because it's my old sled but a new player but when I brought it into my office, I used Hijack to force it to car mode while on AC power and I can reproduce the problem. Is this a hardware problem or a software bug? My other player never did this.

I've seen the exact same thing happen with my backup unit. I've only ever ran it on AC power though. I just chalked it up to beta software, after all, beta means beta. :-)

BTW: The temp sensor quit working on my main unit also...

I've put 1.03 back on the player and the problem is still there. The dimmer is unusalbe. I'll have to send it in for repair. Does anyone know the procedures for this? I called sonic blue and the message says to email [email protected]. I guess I'll try this first.

I have very similar symptoms on my Empeg. I just sent them an E-mail as well. The dimmer seems to have a mind of its own, focused on making the display hard to read in the car!

Lynn

Exactly the same with my MK2a. I don't think its a software thing as both units were running b7 and the Mk2 was fine.

I think it may be a hardware thing that only affects the RIOs. Whether its ALL Rios or just a batch/few etc. I don't know.

Anyone else??

It's not specific to the Mk.2A (the dimmer circuitry is identical to the Mk.2) and we've only heard of three cases. No need to panic.

Rob

Panic mode off (as instructed)

Is it a repair job?

Probably, if you have the specific fault that David told me about (something up with the power supply on the display board).

Rob

I will contact David. Thanks.

Mine does the exact same thing. I thought it was the beta 7 software though. I also noticed that sometimes when I start my truck, the display is very bright and sometime when I start it the display is very dim. If I cycle the power to my headlights a few times, this usually clears it up.

Well, I heard back from support. This is what they told me:



Hi,

I've come across this a couple of times before - I believe it was an issue with the power supply circuit on the display board. I'll book your player in for service.

We'll pay for FedEx express shipping to and from the UK. Turnaround is usually within a week.

Let me know your address, telephone number plus a fax number that I can send a customs invoice and shipping instructions to.

Mine is doing the same thing. I thought it was software related until I got my second unit and it doesn't exhibit the problem regardless of what version of code I'm running. I'm currently running v2.0b11 and Hijack v200 on both.

I've emailed support and they have responded and it looks like I'll be sending in my unit for repair. What I'm amazed at is how quick support repsonded and that they pay for shipping BOTH WAYS. You guys are great!

I wish all other customer support was just as repsonsive.

I've only used mine on AC and sometimes it boots up dim, and sometimes it boots up bright. I don't know if I'll be able to survive a whole week without it....

Yes I hear ya on the week deal Im thinkin I might find some time when I wont be using it for a while then send it in.

I just updated to 2.0 beta 11. I used the hi-jack kernal to "force dc power" while I have it inside and plugged into AC. So far, inside on ac power, its not having problems with the dimmer setting (the dimmer adjustment is even working correctly). I can't wait to go try it in my truck!!!

I got 2.0b11 loaded,
Am I supposed to have a dimmer setting on AC power in the settings menu? Cause I don't!!
Ok own up who stole it!?...

cheers,
Jaidev

nope. Dimmer is DC only.

Since I have installed 2.0 Beta 11. My dimmer is now 100% functional! I DON'T KNOW IF IT WAS JUST BECAUSE I INSTALLED BETA 11 OR IF IT WAS BECAUSE OF THE STEPS I FOLLOWED. For those interested, here is what I did.

1. Installed 2.0 beta 11.
2. Installed Hi-Jack beta 11 release with Tony Fabris logo edit software (very very cool).
3. Used hijack kernal to "force dc power mode upon reboot".
4. Went into dimmer setting while connected to AC power, and reset dimmer to 100%.
5. Used hijack-kernal to return boot select to auto (not force dc power up).
6. Installed player back into my truck.
7. No more problems with the Dimmer setting at all!!! I would go as far as saying, this is the best my display has ever looked!

JaBZ,

You can use the Hijack kernal to "force player to boot to DC power" while you have it in the house connected to AC. That will allow you access to the dimmer menu...

Good luck!

Ohhhhhh, yea thats right, DUH...
sorry for my momentary brain lapse

Jaidev

Rez, I'm not clear on one thing here.

Are you saying that the dimmer did not work properly and did not go to 100 percent even when in the car? Even if you had it in the car and played with the dimmer settings there in the car?

But the act of adjusting the dimmer when on AC power (forcing it), then putting it back in the car, fixed the bug?

I am astounded by this if it's the case. I don't see why the dimmer would malfunction in the car, but function in the home when forced. And why that would correct a problem when it was put back into the car, I would think whatever problem it had in the car would simply come back.

If what I'm interpreting here is true, the empeg guys need to hear about it, because that description makes it sound like some kind of extremely odd software bug.

I get a little confusing when I post things on here.

I got my 60 gig player brand new from Sonic Blue. Before I ever put it in my truck, I put 2.0 Beta 7 on it. I installed it into my truck and noticed the dimmer varied basically every time I started my truck. When I would go in to the dimmer setting while my headlights were off, adjusting the dimmer setting up or down basically made the dimmer vary all sorts of different brightnesses. Even if you turned it to 100% and kept pushing the right arrow button, it would keep changing to all different brightness levels from 100% to basically off even though it still stated it was at 100%. If I would turn my headlights on, it would sometimes dim the display and sometimes make it brighter. The dimmer just did whatever the heck it wanted.

I installed 2.0 Beta 11 at work and the beta 11 hi-jack kernal.

I don't know if just updating to 2.0 Beta 11 fixed my player or if forcing the player into DC mode while pluged in the wall and readjusting it to 100% brightness fixed the problem. It was probly the firmware update, but I just wanted to list what I did in case it wasn't the firmware update and other people wanted to try to reproduce what I did on mine. I think there were a few people having the same problem as me. I am just happy that my dimmer is working and was hoping that I could help some other people out. Sorry if it caused any confusion.

Can anyone else who was having dimmer problems duplicate this behavior, or narrow down whether it was simply fixed in Beta11 or if this unusual procedure is needed to correct it?

I've got 2 units, and both have the dimmer problem. I've tried as suggested above with forcing power mode using hijack, but it did not fix it for me. I've also tried removing hijack so we can rule that out. In fact, I've tried everything!

I emailed support, and David Moss is arranging collection for a look (again he suggested the power supply on the display) but this is before I found out my backup unit had the problem. Maybe he will want both.

I just can't see how it's a hardware fault as it's not as if the dimmer can't achieve 100% brightness, it just seems confused If somebody can give an explanation of the fault on the power supply, that would help us understand.

I have seen it in Beta 11 on my unit, and Beta 3/7 on my old Mark 2. I ran the Mark 2 with 1.02/3 from when I bought it in March 2000, to when Beta 3 came out and never saw the problem.

Once I get my 10 gb unit, I am going to upgrade it to the beta and see if I can get the problem. If I do, I'll back it down to 1.03 and see if I get it there.

Last time it happened, I posted a detailed post on it in the bugs fourm. I'll have to check and see if anyone followed up on it.

I'm sorry what I did doesn't seem to be working for anyone else. The ONLY other thing that might be different is when I put 2.0 beta 7 on I was using windows XP and when I put 2.0 beta 11 on, I was using windows nt 4.0. I hope it isn't an XP bug!!!!

I can't see how it's a hardware fault either because it went away on my unit after I upgraded to beta 11 and messed with the dimmer settings while on ac power. I really hope someone figures out what is going on. I am worried about updating my 10 gig player to the 2.0 beta software. I still have 1.02 on my 10 gig player.

Does anyone know if the 2.0 versions of clone software will be able to clone players independant of serial number? As of 2.0 beta 7 I think you could only clone your players from lower to higher serial.

Well I’m more confused than ever…
I thought I would try and narrow down the problem, so here is what I’ve tried:

I have 3 players (2 are mine, 1 a friends) to test this with, lets call them player A, B and C, and 2 cars to test with. All players are Rio Car versions.

Player A: Dated 15.05.01 on the inspected sticker. SN 030102882
Player B: Dated 15.05.01 on the inspected sticker. SN 030102939
Player C: Dated 26.03.01 on the inspected sticker. SN 010101885

Player C does not suffer from the dimmer problem with ANY version of the player software. We also tried it in 2 cars. Works great, never seen the problem.

Player A and B both have suffered with the dimmer problem running any beta 2 version, so I flashed player A back to v1.03. It seemed to fix it! (Keep reading) Great I thought (even if it was a bit odd that player C seemed happy with any version software)

Thinking that was that, and that it must be a combination of hardware and software(?), I went back out to my car a couple of hours later to see if player A with 1.03 was still happy. Aaaaagh! Nope, it was playing up again. I restarted it a few times with no luck. The only thing I can think of is that it was either a coincidence or that the problem is temperature related as it had been outside a while (When it worked it had just come from indoors, but then again player B came from indoors with b11 and showed the fault!)

Other points: I’ve seen the fault with and without hijack installed, so we can rule that out. We got the same results in either car (Thought it could be voltage related or something), and finally Player A and B both have working temp sensors, but player C’s does not work (hijack reads 4 deg c permanently)

Hope this helps track it down….

Well, so much for my magical dimmer fix...

I just went out to my truck (at 6 PM) and noticed my display was a bit dim. I tried re-adjusting the display brightness and NOW ITS DOING THE SAME FRIGGIN' THING IT WAS DOING LAST WEEK. I thought it was fixed, but now it right back to the way it was... maybe it had a Gremlin in it and it went on vacation for a week...

I hope someone finds out what the problem is so I can see if I have to send my empeg in for service....

Oh well, we thought we had something.

Do you think it's possible that after you update or flash the player it is ok for a little while, then one or more files gets corrupted or overwritten or something? Mine was okay for about a week after my ridiculously long post where I documented what I did to "fix" mine. A week later, same crap. I am very angry at my player right now...

Nah, I've flashed mine up and down, and the problem almost seems random. I wonder if this temperature thing is worth looking into? Perhaps a component on the display (or display power) is sensitive to change? I am very angry at 2 players right now...

I just brought mine in from outside. I didn't flash the firmware or anything. I was playing around with the dimmer in "forced dc mode". I was having the problem with the dimmer not working correctly, and my friend started pulling on the AC cord. Now, for some reason, the dimmer is working again. I guess we can hopefully narrow this down to EITHER the temperature causing the problem, or maybe the AC plug, or the sensor that realized the unit is plugged into AC. I heard there is a switch that can tell if the unit has the AC power supply plugged into it. Maybe if this switch is in an intermediate position instead of fully off or on, it is causing problems intermitantly with the dimmer setting when the player if is DC mode...

I don't know...

Temperature could be causing it too...

I JUST DON'T KNOW!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm gonna go on record here officially guessing that the main cause of the dimmer problem is due to the AC adapter plug insertion. I think it keeps reporting either a one or zero to the player, but I'm not sure how often the player polls the switch. If I had to guess, from the way my dimmer screws up all the time, I would guess it polls the switch about every second or so!?!?!? Does this sound like it could cause the problem!?!?!?!

I have an MK2a. Never installed Hijack. Only used in the home on AC. I have seen the problem in 1.03, beta 7, and beta 11. Sometimes it boots up dim, sometimes bright. The only pattern that I think I've seen is that if the player has been running for quite a while, it seems that it is more likely to boot up dim, which seems to support the temperature theory.

Once again, I put it into my truck this morning and it having the same problem again. I guess that blows the temperature theory out of the water. It was in warm house all night and it was warm out today. I thought maybe it was doing it because it was so cold outside. I didn't have time to mess with it today. I really hope someone finds out what is causing it so I know if I should send it in to get it fixed or not...

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The dimmer is very eratic. It will start out at 100 and then get dimmer at 90, 80, turn OFF at 70 (black screen), come on a little brighter at 60, full bright at 50, etc. Also, if I set it to 100 and keep turning the knob to the right, the display will change brightness while all the while saying 100%.
------------------------------

Ruffles gave a very good description of this problem...

Am I correct in assuming only about 7 or 8 people have this problem, or is it more widespread then that...???

Does anyone notice that it doesn't happen all the time? My player was fine for about a week, then it happened again. Then I messed around wiggling the ac connector and plugged it back into my truck and it was fine for a day, now it's messed up again. Everytime I think I figured out what it is, reproducing those same steps again to fix it doesn't work.

Add me to the body count. My unit has the same problem. I also believe that it is present on all software revisions back to and including 1.03

i know i've posted about this problem before, but i have the same problem with my units. in my case there is no correlation between temperature and the dimmer problem.

--dan.

I tried the same thing and it did NOT fix my player. I sent it in for service today.

For what it's worth, the player that I just sent back to empeg has a working temp sensor where my original player with out the dimmer problems temp sensor has stopped working.

I have exactly that problem right down to the temperature thing as well as what was described by Rezolution. David (Moss) seems to think it could be software (the dimming) but I am fairly convinced it's hardware.

I have also found that the knob control is very erratic when adjusting.

This sounds stupid, but every day I take it inside to try to figure out what the hell is wrong with it. After I leave it pluged in for like 5 minutes on AC power (and adjust the dimmer about 100 times to see if its working right or not )with it forced to DC mode, the dimmer clears up and starts working, then the next morning it just gets screwed up again. Maybe my car stereo only likes the AC adapter or something.... I tire of this!

You gentlemen will all be very happy to know that I have found the CAUSE OF THIS PROBLEM. I read through the entire thread AGAIN and noticed a few people kept mentioning temperature, so I figured what the hell, and hooked up my empeg inside of one of our thermonics units at work...

Guess what happened...

From 5 degrees C till about 24 degrees C (thanks to mark lords kernal hack - using both his force dc power mode to get the dimmer adjustment menu and his vital signs screen to get the temp) my dimmer does not function correctly. From about 25 degrees C to about 35 degrees C it works just fine. I didn't want to go above 35 for fear of wrecking something...

I will be emailing these results to David Moss tomorrow asking him what might be causing this and what he can do to fix this problem...

I cycled the temperature four times, and each time it reproduced the same results with a variation of about 3 degrees. 23 Degrees C to 26 Degrees C is about the range the dimmer goes from nonfunctional to functional...(on my player anyway.)

I don't know if anyone else (who is having the same dimmer problem I am) could verify this by maybe leaving it in their car overnight in the cold and trying it in the morning, then leaving the heat on full blast for a few minutes and watching mark lords "vital signs" with his kernal hack and see if your dimmer is fixed around 28 degrees C or so...Please don't wreck your EMPEGS though!!!!!

This would explain in part why every time I brought the empeg inside to play with it, I thought that it was fixed...

Right now I have my empeg sitting on top of my computer monitor to heat it up Ill let you know if it works out.

You can also put a piece of paper over the little air vent holes on top to help warm it up, that will recirculate the heat inside. Don't cook your EMPEG okay??? I can't have the death of an EMPEG on my conscience...

Well I wasnt paying attention but when I looked it was at 29 deg and guess what you are right no more dim screen. You rock this is definately hardware sadly.

I'm just sorry I posted sooooooooooo many things that I thought were a fix before I actually found what the real problem was. I feel like I junked up the thread with a bunch of crap. I wonder if someone like Tony emailed my results to David Moss, if it would "carry a little more weight", and get looked at sooner by the tech guys....

Test number 2 in progress

How are you cooling it? Dont tell me in the refrigerator!!!

Also please remember that sometimes you have to adjust the dimmer before it will glitch out, just another thing I noticed...

Ill tell you though, once you get the temperature up around 28, the display really looks beautiful at 100% brightness! Around 22 or below, it just doesnt glow nicely.

Haha no not the refridgerator my roommate likes to have the AC on at night so I just put it in front of the vent. Since Im in AC mode I had to reboot this time to get the brightness to change but it did looks like we have a cause now we need a solution.

I don't have the schematics, or the resources, or the patience to figure out the rest of the problem, thats what the techs at customer service are for. I can tell them, hey look my dimmer doesnt work from 0-24 deg c, but it works from 24-35 deg c. Then they can get their digital multimeters out and their oscilliscopes and stuff and tell me that the tri-molecular discombobulater is broken and its going to cost 8000 dollars to fix. Oh wait, thats my local dodge dealer. The empeg guys will tell me its just a temp sensative capacitor and that they are gonna fix it for free cause its under warrantee and even if it wasnt they would fix it for free cause they are cool like that. I am going to bed!

Night Acura, and thanks for further reinforcing my test results. Please, I beg all of you, don't preheat your EMPEGS so that your dimmers will work, just wait for the tech fix!!!!

*Don't* use the rotary control when in the dimmer menu. The same PIC on the display board deals with buttons, rotary control *and* receiving dimmer commands from the host. It doesn't have any interrupts, and some of this stuff is in tight loops.

Using the buttons to knock the brightness up/down a notch is more reliable.

The rotary control/dimmer interaction is just a design issue, there's nothing we can do about it.

Also, players can boot up dim but then have correct brightness restored as the player runs - this is a hardware issue that I've never been able to track down. It appears to maybe be noise on the dimmer control line before the CPU boots; I have tried sending new dimmer commands earlier in the kernel bootup but I couldn't get any conclusive results.

As far as I can see here, there are 3 categories of problem:

- Boots up dim, but fine when the player runs: known issue with the hardware, not classified as a serious problem as it doesn't affect player operation.

- Rotary control / dimmer interactions: known issue with the hardware. Use the buttons instead.

- Player thinking lights are on/off randomly and setting dimmer to suit. This is probably over-sensitive detection of the glitches on the headlight sense line and we can probably do something about it in the player. Can people suffering from this please describe their setups?

Hugo

I think this is a common problem. Hugo mentioned to me that communication between the player software and the display PIC is 1-wire serial with software timing (i.e. asynchronous), and sometimes the data get slightly out of time during sending. I wonder if instruction cache issues affect the timing loop?

I don't think the player ought to be sending any dimmer commands in home mode, but I do sometimes see reduced brightness after boot-up, so I guess it does.

In reply to:

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*Don't* use the rotary control when in the dimmer menu. The same PIC on the display board deals with buttons, rotary control *and* receiving dimmer commands from the host. It doesn't have any interrupts, and some of this stuff is in tight loops.

---

Is the remote handled in the same PIC, or is that the best bet for making adjustments?

I don't believe it's temperature related; I think you're just seeing an interaction between the rate of commands being sent to the display board (accurate timing from CPU crystal) and the rate the display board PIC is running at (circa 20MHz, but uses a ceramic oscillator and so is pretty vague).

There may be something we can do about this in the kernel, possibly the bit send times is display_sendcontrol can be tweaked (shorter/longer low time - see line 1015 in empeg_display.c - if anyone has any conclusive results, please let us know and we'll roll the change into the next release).

However, sending it back won't help - there is no fault as such with the display board. Anything we replace it with is just as likely to behave in the same way, as it will have identical circuitry on it.

There have been *genuine* display faults in the past (on mk2s, not mk2a's) where the 60v display PSU becomes unstable due to capacitor breakdown on the feedback line; the symptom of this is that the display is just *very* dim, even at 100% brightness

To check for this if you're electrically savvy, measure the voltage between the case and TP1 on the back of the display board - this should be between 54 and 60v. Note that this involves opening your player and poking around a high voltage line, so don't do it unless you suspect a fault (ie, very dim at 100%) and are confident about measuring such things.

Hugo

The remote is handled by the same PIC, yes, but only on a pass-through basis. The remote is the safest option for dimmer adjustments as it doesn't tie the PIC in a busy loop to send info back to the host.

When we signal to the display PIC, we pull the comms line high for 100ms to let it finish what it's currently doing and sync up with the main board - then we clock in 8 bits. When the PIC is "synced up" (ie, displaycontrol line high) it is doing nothing else - not processing IR, buttons, or rotary events. It's in a busy loop looking for a short (<2us) low or a long (>5us) low of the first bit.

The short low has to be long enough for the PIC to notice it; this shouldn't be an issue really, as the PIC runs at 20MHz (hence 5 mips) and the loop is only a few instructions. Maybe the delay is currently too short in kernel and it misses a bit. If the line stays low for too long (like milliseconds), the PICs watchdog kicks in; this way we can force a pic reboot if we need to.

Ah, this might be the problem actually - looking at the pic code, there should have been a watchdog reset in the code that waits for the first low. Maybe setting the kernel /* Wait 100ms */ delay a bit shorter will help, as I suspect the pic is rebooting several times whilst waiting for the first bit.

Hugo

Hows this for an issue Im in the car. Lights off. Display Dim(may or may not have a bright boot sequence). Go to dimmer control. Shows display is at 100%. Using remote go to 90% gets brighter. Go back to 100%(it may take a couple times back and forth) and its bright. Of course if you are in AC mode you cannot adjust the brightness if it is dim, but I will admit as soon as the temp reaches 25 C the display is fine.

Count me in on the list.....

Hugo,

I've had a bit of play with these numbers but given I don't really know exactly what they are doing, I haven't been real successful.

I have tried the 100ms delay as both shorter (50ms) and longer (166 and 200ms) and the problem only seems to get worse either way. I tried changing the length of the for (a=0;a<50;a++) loop to 25 on line 1016 for a worse result. I also replaced the for loop with the original udelay(1), which seemed to really slow things down.

You say you think it's not temperature related - however if you are only using a ceramic resonator for the PIC then surely that could/would affect the frequency that it's operating at. Mine definitely gets much much worse when it's "warmed up" (40C according to hijack) as compared with cold (about 25C) here in Oz.

If there's anything you think I should try let me know. As I said, I'm guessing big time from what you have recently said so I'm probably wasting my time.

What do you mean by "seemed to really slow things down"? At the most it should be about 7us difference - there should be no noticable effect.

I suspect it may be a combination of shorter initial delay plus playing with the bit timings. I've no idea how much the frequency varies on a ceramic oscillator with temperature, but it's not going to be more than maybe 5-10% (which shouldn't make a difference, really).

Hugo

There is a 4th problem that I see:

Player boots, display is fine, player program starts, dimmer drops low and becomes erratic when adjusted with either the knob or buttons. Usually occurs when I have my headlights on (may be due to it trying to change, I'll set the daytime to 90% and see what happens). Seems to have started with either 2.0 or the colder part of the year. Has happened on both a MK2 and MK2a.

Maybe I'm not explaining this properly.

There are about 10 of us on here that I can see that are having a common problem.

When I first turn my player on and the Unit is in the range of 5 Deg C to about 24 Deg C, the dimmer function does not work correctly when it is adjusted. It doesn't matter if you use the buttons OR the volume knob. If your dimmer is set at say 50% and the brightness looks like 50% and you turn the brightness to 60% the dimmer may "look like its at 0% or 70 or whatever". Then say if you turn it to 70% it may look like its at 100%, when you turn it to 80% it may look like its at 80 percent, then when you turn it to 90, it may look like its at 0%. Then when you turn it to 100% it may "look like its at 100% or look like its at 50% or whatever. My point is, and I'm not using the volume knob to adjust it, if you turn the dimmer up higher, the brightness of the display may acutally go DOWN OR UP. The dimmer doesnt adjust properly until the unit is over 26 Degrees. Would it help if I made a video of this and mailed it to somebody. This is really frustrating the hell out of me. I can show you on video tape what is happening at what temperatures.

By the way. When the temperature is at 4-24 degrees, and the dimmer is set to 100% and you keep pressing the "right arrow button, the dimmer will vary in brightness (looks like it changes from about 50% brightness to about 110% brightness) EVEN though it keeps saying 100%
When the temp is 24-35 degrees, and the dimmer is set to 100 percent and you keep pressing the right arrow button, the dimmer stays at 100 percent brightness and does not change. It is rock steady.....

why are you even trying to turn it past 100%???
that doesn't even make sense, you want the to put extra lines of code to protect you from yourself?
"maybe it's a problem with the interface between the keyboard and the chair"

Guardian, please don't comment like that if you haven’t seen the problem. I also have this problem with 2 units. I am performing testing now, and it does seem temperature related. I will post more when I have repeated the experiment.

A friend’s player has never shown the problem, suggesting a hardware issue with some players.

In reply to:

---

If your dimmer is set at say 50% and the brightness looks like 50% and you turn the brightness to 60% the dimmer may "look like its at 0% or 70 or whatever". Then say if you turn it to 70% it may look like its at 100%, when you turn it to 80% it may look like its at 80 percent, then when you turn it to 90, it may look like its at 0%. Then when you turn it to 100% it may "look like its at 100% or look like its at 50% or whatever. My point is, and I'm not using the volume knob to adjust it, if you turn the dimmer up higher, the brightness of the display may acutally go DOWN OR UP. If the dimmer is set to 100% and you keep pressing the "right arrow button, the dimmer will vary in brightness (looks like it changes from about 50% brightness to about 110% brightness) EVEN though it keeps saying 100%

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Yes, mine does the exact same thing whether I'm using the buttons or the rotary controller, but mine does it regardless of temperature. I'm sending my Empeg in to have it checked out.

Same here. I posted a while ago about it but noone said anything.

-Greg

"- Player thinking lights are on/off randomly and setting dimmer to suit. This is probably over-sensitive detection of the glitches on the headlight sense line and we can probably do something about it in the player. Can people suffering from this please describe their setups? "

I have never used mine in the car or used hijack to adjust the dimmer, but sometimes the boot-up is dim, sometimes bright. Sometimes it plays dim, sometimes it plays bright. I have never seen it change brightness without a reboot (except for when going from boot-up to playing). I have only seen it change after being rebooted. Remember that bug in beta 7 where the player would reboot itself when switched to the seek tool? Everytime that I can remember that that happened to me (which was quite often), the player would come up dim after the reboot. It was an expected and consistent thing. Perhaps you may be able to gather a few clues from that.

*Don't* use the rotary control when in the dimmer menu.

Thanks, Hugo, I'm putting this in the FAQ now.

guardian__J, not that I feel the need to explain myself to you, but I will because what you posted irritated the hell out of me. The reason is because when the problem occurs, selecting 100% again gets it to resample itself and I am trying to show that when it resamples at 100% when its cold, the VFD displays random brightness levels. When you resample the VFD at 100% when its warm, the VFD stays at a constant brightness.

Why am I even bothering with this. I have people posting stupid comments about the tests I am doing. What the hell. If you don't have the problem, dont crituque what I am trying to do. Are you helping in any way by saying what I am doing is stupid and doesn't make any sense?

Damn dude, you really have me all pissed off!

Player boots, display is fine, player program starts, dimmer drops low and becomes erratic when adjusted with either the knob or buttons- From Drakino.

This is all due to the same problem. When you boot your player and senses that your headlights are on, it is going to dim the player to whatever you have your dimmer set to. Say 70%. When the player is COLD and it tries to set it to "70%", it will randomly select a brightness level. If your player is WARMED UP, it will actually set it to 70 percent. You will notice that if you have the problem when your car is cold, sometimes it may even dim the display to the point where you cannot even see it. If you wait till the player warms up to over 24 deg C or so, you will notice this problem goes away. You could wait till the player warms up and turn your headlights off, then back on. You will notice that the dimmer will now function to whatever you have it set to....

If you could, next time you turn your headlights on and notice that your player dims to the wrong brightness level (assuming your car and player are cold), leave your heat on full blast to get the player warmed up (in my truck it takes about 20 minutes). Then turn your headlights off and on, see if your dimmer is actually what you set it to, then try adjusting it. I bet that when you try adjusting it after the player is warm, the dimmer will no longer be erratic...

Let me join you! My Mk2a shows excactly the same "random" behavior... I haven't checked if it's temperature dependent yet.

Welcome to the Experiment!

There is no such thing as random!

Then you have never lost big in Las Vegas. Go drop 1k to 2k in Vegas on a few hands of Black Jack. Then you will believe that EVERYTHING is random!

As in it went real unresponsive when I went to adjust the dimmer setting. I may have messed something up while playing with those numbers so feel free to ignore this peculiarity.

Can I try anything to help you?

Right. I have now completed my experiments, and I can only conclude that the problem IS temperature related.

BOTH my units show identical results. If the unit is cold (below around 22 Deg C for me, measured with Hijack) they experience the dimmer issue. After being in use for a while, the problem disappears COMPLETLEY.I tried rebooting them too, to check if it system uptime related, its not.

I even put it back in the fridge to cool it down. After reaching 8 Deg C (again, read from Hijack) the problem was back, and yes, again after warming up to 20+ degrees all was fine. I normally leave my empeg in the car (which is garaged) and temperatures get down to about 2 Deg C but never freezing, so I guess I notice this problem more than most.

I went out this evening in the car. After returning to go home, the empeg which was in the boot (getting cold) showed the problem. By the time I got home (15 mins) it was cured. I then powered it off and back on. Still working FINE (because it's still warm)

Software version makes no difference. I'm running 1.03 on one unit, and b11 on the other, both behave identically.

I have repeated this about half a dozen times now. Somebody please take note. I will pass this onto support and hope they can help. Its gotta be a dodgy hardware component as obviously most users don't have this problem (including a friends unit)

Both my units are dated 15.05.01 (on the small sticker on the unit itself), it would be interesting to know what you guys have got, perhaps it's limited to a batch of units.

Time to get out the freeze spray?

Mine is 12-05-01...
I cannot verify a temperature dependence... At least if the temperature is 34C -indors, after a while of usage- and forcing the player in DC mode using Hijack to get the settings/dimmer menu, the player still has the bug...

Thank you very much for taking the time to veryify my results. All I can assume is one of the components is very unresponsive at a certain temperature. I hope its not something like bad ram. I don't know anything about the way these units work. I'm glad you could veryify what I found though, it is defnitly repeatable. I know acurasquirrel also verified this for me at like 3 in the morning last night. I appreciate so many people helping me out on this temp testing. I feel the answer to the problem is near at hand!

I work in the technical field. I have seen things done by operators where a certain batch of product (all made by the same guy) only has say, half of something soldered to the board. I have also seen chips not fully inserted and various other things. I hope it is something simple like only half of something soldered down to the board. If it isn't obvious, support will have to cool separate components to see which is failing...

I don't think mine is tempeature related now that I think about it. I was almost convinced it was due to it happening most of the time when I left the unit in the car. But about a week ago, I had the empeg at my desk all day playing. At the end of the day, I packed it up in it's case, went outside to mild weather, and plugged it in. And it had the dimmer problem.

And earlier I said I would see what happens when daytime brightness is set to 90%, but I just realised I have also seen the problem when I haven't turned on my headlights. Most mornings I don't since it's bright enough, and it has happened in the morning as well.

I won't attack your scientific method. It is possble too that whatever part I have that fails from 0-24 degrees, the part you have fails all together. It seems like the more people do the temperature test, I am seeing more of a spread of peak thresh holds. Seems to me like its somewhere around 22,23,or 24 degress C. That would explain too why I dont see this problem when it is very warm outside and I always see it when my player is cold in the morning...

It can happen too when its in your car and the headlights are off. This is because the dimmer option is still active in your car when the headlights are off, its just that the dimmer is set to 100% (you can adjust the dimmer with your headlights on or off, there are two dimmer settings.but you can only play around with one of them while you are in the house if you force dc mode). Until mine warms up, I can turn the headlights on and off 10 times and get 10 different brightness levels without ever changing the setting. It just does whatever the heck it wants...

HOLY SH-T DUDE "15/5/01"
Do you think there is a pattern here?
Inspected by l.couil
or L.Covil

Same date.... I wonder if its a bad lot or a bad inspect. I remember when I ordered mine that the guy told me they "found a pallette" of 60 gig machines...

Lets see if anyone else has this date on theirs....

Inspected 18/5/01

Mine was inspected by "EP". No date specified. But the first four digits of my serial # are 0401, which means it was manufactured in April of 2001. Anyone else with this problem have the same manufacture month?

Does anyone have this problem on anything other than a 30 gig model?

Yeah, mine is the 60 gig.

20 here

My empeg Mark 2 has always had a dimmer problem. Adjusting the dimmer does nothing. But it has always been bright enough for me, so I haven't bothered to report it. Should I try this voltage measurement to check wether it is correct?
(I have tried adjusting both with the knob and the remote, the bar moves more correctly with the remote, but noe of them dimms the display)

Marius (Escort Cab + Mark II)

Does anyone notice that the lower two or three pixel-rows of the display are darker? At least if brightness is set to, say 50%? Maybe this is related to the dimmer prob...

As I've said, there's nothing we can do with the hardware. This is an EOL product. There are no newer front board designs, nor will there be.

We either try to fix it in software - and I believe it *can* be fixed in software, or you do without your player. Whilst I'd like to try and do a thorough fix, like possibly change the PIC code on the display board or the oscillator, it ain't going to happen as it's not cost effective.

The brightness changing when at 100% is an indication of a problem with the comms between the main board and the button PIC - the button PIC is getting 100% commands from the main board but misinterpreting the byte and as such is setting the dimmer level to different values every time a byte is sent from the main board.

The fact that, for some people, temperature appears to have an effect, is not an indication of a dodgy component as far as I can see - and I designed the circuitry. I believe it's an indication of a problem with the main board -> display board comms protocol or loading of the display board PIC.

Hugo

Have you tried adjusting the brightness with the remote?

This is the only way that you can be sure that the button PIC is not busy. Using the buttons *or* rotary control will mean the PIC is busy with sending a fake-IR sequence to the main board whilst the main board is trying to send a new dimmer setting to the display.

Hugo

We don't have facilities to cool chips, etc (not even any freezer spray!) but as none of the components run hot, that isn't an issue.

As I keep saying, I believe it's the oscillator on the button PIC and the issue is simply down to comms timing.

You cannot verify it using any of the front panel controls, as all of these will interfere with correct reception of dimmer commands by the front board. Yes, this is a design flaw, but the dimmer was added very late in the design cycle using spare pins on the PIC, hence the nasty interactions between non-IR input and front board commands.

Hugo

Dimming is done by adjusting the HT supply to the VFD. This isn't the *best* way of doing dimming - the best way is to increase the blanking intervals, but this isn't possible with the LCD interface on the CPU (at least, not to the same extent). As the display gets dimmer and dimmer, there may well be non-linearities in the screen brightness.

Hugo

Yes, I've tried to change the brightness with the remote,
and No, it *didn't* fix the bug. If I set it to 100% and then, *using the remote* tried to go "beyond" 100% the brightness still varied randomly.

Let's step back and take stock of this. I think we are losing track of the situation.

There would seem to be FOUR unrelated dimmer related issues.

1. Player sometimes boots up in dim mode, until the player starts. Yes - it does - we can't do anything about it.

2. Screen flickers on/off bright/dim all over the place at random, or goes permanantly ultra dim (barely viewable on 100% brightness). This is a component (capacitor?) fault on the display board. It can be fixed under warranty, and I seem to recall that we've only seen two or three cases in total. So - support issue, don't ask for a fix here, contact [email protected].

3. Screen occassionally switches into dim mode, and then back to bright mode. This is believed to be a player software bug (of sorts). A single glitch on the dimmer input is interpreted as a PCM cycle causing the display to dim. A second or two later the player notices the lack of further PCM cycles, and un-dims. Solution - more thorough PCM detection in the player software. We'll look at this for a later release.

4. Screen brightness is erratic when adjusting the dimmer using the front panel controls. Sometimes (rarely) the incorrect brightness level is set by the auto dimmer. This is a shortcoming of the display board processor. This chip is not software upgradable. It is possible that this could be affected by manufacturing variance or temperature, as the PIC runs from a very simple oscillator - but the problem is within the protocol (which should not be so sensitive to small variations). We can't think of any way to fix this in the player software, and neither is there a hardware solution. The dimmer should mostly work fine, except when setting the level from the front panel. If you're not satisfied with this, email me.

Rob
[email protected]

This is a good summation of the problem, Rob, but Warp10's recent post seems to either indicate there's a #5 issue we haven't narrowed down yet, either that, or it refutes your "front panel" condition in your #4 issue.

Excactly! I've sent an email to rob with the following detailed description:

“The Bug”:
If I go to Settings->dimmer to adjust the brightness, The following happens:

Issue 1: Starting at 100%, down to 0%
The brighness varies RANDOMLY, which means If I go to maybe 60%, the display might be total dark.
Then, at 50%, the diplay might be as bright as 80% and so on.
Interesting thing is: If I am near 100% (90%, 80%) the display will be relativ bright, and if I am near 0%,
The diplay is relativ dim.

Issue 2: Starting at 100% trying to increase to ‘110%’
The brightness varies, but stays relative bright

Issue 3: AFTER showing the boot logo, the original brightness is not restored.
In the setting->dimmer menu the correct value was saved, but the actual brightness of
The display is just in the scale of the menu value.
And thats the issue why I cannot live with this, sometimes it just starts to dim! I then always
Have to go to settings and so on...

Note:
1. It doesn’t matter HOW I change the brightness (Knob, buttons, Remote), “the bug” is always the same
2. There is no temperature dependence.

Maybe it's a combination of the problems???

Well, in reference to #4 on your list. I am not just complaining that the dimmer doesnt adjust correctly. I am complaining because when my player is COLD and I start my truck (without me adjusting any dimmer settings) it picks a random brightness level to power up at. Then if I turn my headlights on, it will pick another random brightness level. Then I go in and adjust the dimmer setting and it is still picking random brightness levels until it warms up. I guess the biggest proble is when I start my truck up, I never know what brightness level the player will start out on.

Now, if the player starts up with my initial settions of 100% dimmer brightness and the player still isn't going to 100% even if I AM NOT ADJUSTING anything, doens't that mean there isn't a PIC argument going on. I don't see how you cant cool components individually. All you have to do is buy a can of cooling spray. Then you take a unit and go component by component and see which one is effected. At that point, a very small and cheap TEC could accompany that part. Also, they sell little tiny electronic warming "blankets" that could sourrond the part that doesnt like the cold.

You know what I just realized, I don't think anyone cares about this as much as I do. I am going to stop posting messages about this. If I try to investigate this myself I void my warranty. I guess if I buy an EOL product, I should just shut my mouth and be happy that I was able to get one of them while they were still available. Good luck to everyone! It was nice posting with you guys!

This is the most accurate description yet of my symptoms. The real issue is that in the car, at start up in daylight, the display sometimes is so dim that you can only adjust by feel (down, 4 lefts, down...). This is pretty messy. Frequently it will boot on AC at full brightness and then dim itself with no external inputs.

I do not see any temperature dependence but often I do see 60% brightness dimmer than 50% (just an example of "randomness"), in the car or in the house, regardless of which way I try to change it (buttons, remote, knob).

I have a Mk2A, 10 GB, 04010.... date code.

Has anyone brought out the VFD bias to a DVM to watch this signal during changes?

Lynn

Just to clear things up, I've got the problem which Rez and Warp10 describe. The annoyance is when I get in the car my dimmer will seemingly be at a random level, and when I toggle the headlights, it changes to another random level.

After the player has been on for 10 mins or so (and something has fixed itself due to temperature rising, I'm assuming) the dimmer works without fault, without exception.

My problem is definitely temperature related. I've tested this time after time now. It's possible that the other guys here with the problem aren’t affected by temperature, I could just be "lucky" and the component in question is affected between the 20-24 degree range. Theirs might start working at 60 degrees, who knows.

I noticed an IC on the display board, an AD8400 which is a digital pot. I'm guessing this is used for dimming, and it would be my guess as the suspect component. Tell me if this is crap, I’m no expert.

Anybody care to comment on the fact the dates of all the faulty players are all within a fairly short time period (6 weeks?)

Anybody care to comment on the fact the dates of all the faulty players are all within a fairly short time period (6 weeks?)

I would guess that about 2000 players were assembled in that period. The boards for almost all Mk.2A players were SMT manufactured within a few days of each other, and almost all components were sourced at exactly the same time.

I don't think that's an issue.

Rob

I've been looking at this on the scope and *may* have found the issue.

There is no separate chip-select line to the AD8400 dimmer chip, as we ran out of pins on the PIC. So, the CS is driven by an unused monostable from the clock line of the dimmer - when there is a clock, CS goes low and when the clock is absent for a while it goes high again.

There appears to be an issue that the R/C timing circuit for this is a bit close to the edge - ie, if the PIC is running slightly slow there will be a phantom rising edge on CS halfway through the dimmer setting byte - this is only ~20ns wide, but the dimmer chip is very fast and catches it.

The solution appears to be either to change the R/C circuit (hard, as it's under the display) or to add capacitance to the CS line to hide the glitch. On *most* mk2a players, the single chip on the back of the display board is a DIP 8400 (we couldn't source SMT ones for love nor money - they were used in some mobile phones, allegedly).

Anyway, if someone with this problem, a 10nF capacitor (SMT is ideal, very neat) and electronics knowledge/a soldering iron can try fitting it between pins 2 & 3 (ground and CS) of the AD8400 - ie, the middle 2 pins of the chip closest to the top of the display board, and see if this helps them. The one unit we've had returned which would repeatedly show this problem was fixed by this capacitor addition.

We're awaiting some more confirmation that this does address the issue before we do any warranty work.

Hugo

Thanks for taking the time to investigate.

Here's a pic of the (unverified) fix.



Hugo

My Player has an annoying bug and I should fix it myself?
Will I loose my warranty if I begin soldering? My player
arrived just a week ago!

I didn't suggest everyone fix it themselves; if you read my post I asked if someone with electronics knowledge wanted to help us verify the fix helped their player then this was what they should do.

When we have verified that the fix detailed above *does* cure the problem on as many units as we can verify it against, then we will start offering the fix to people who want to return their players for it. At the moment though, we have a very limited sample size and would like to check that we have actually nailed the problem.

Hugo

Again: Will I loose my warranty?

If you are competent to do this patch - and I do mean that, not "I own a soldering iron" then take this message as an authorisation to do it. Obviously, power off the player and check when you've finished that there aren't any shorts anywhere.

You will need to remove the drive cradle to get at the area with enough room to move. Ideally, remove the display board to reduce the possibility of dropping solder on the main board as the CPU is pretty close by.

Hugo

You guys are AWESOME. I'm really excited to get my player back. Thanks for fixing it!

Thanks for the heads up. I will make the mod to my unit. For anyone else willing to make this mod I would suggest using a thermostatically controlled iron with an isolated tip. Just my 2 cents.

I have performed the mod, and I can confirm it does seem to have fixed the problem! I will do more testing and report back later. I don't have SMT technology at home (who does!) but this cap went on just fine. Sorry the picture is so blurred.

I have also completed the mod with positive results. The Dimmer works great! BTW a .01uf is the same as a 10nf, for us State siders out there.

Of course, others have beaten me to it. So I'll just chime in: 10nF is the majic word! Works great!

Thanks for the suggestion!

It's easy, too: I didn't remove the drive sled. (Just don't burn the ribbon cable 8-)

Armin

Just to confirm my further testing, in-car this time. All working great, even headlight toggle works flawlessly

Thanks to the empeg guys for investigating (and providing a fix!) It will be interesting how many others are affected and either perform this fix themselves or get support to perform the mod (assuming they will accept this as a warranty repair)

My final question is though, what component(s) affect the timing enough to cause the problem in a small number of players, and be temperature dependant in some cases?

Additional: The fix also seems to have resolved the start-up dimmer level problem.

I suspect it's a combination of the R/C network and the ceramic oscillator - if the PIC runs slightly slow, and/or the R/C time constant is slightly too small the problem is seen. If *either* the PIC oscillator runs a bit quicker or the R/C constant is larger (bigger R and/or bigger C) then the problem is not seen.

The capacitor fix attacks the output of the monostable as opposed to the actual timing - the glitches still happen but the capacitor hides them. But... the fix can be done without removing the display.

I'm glad that the fix appears to have worked for everyone, pity I didn't find the glitch about a year earlier! One issue was having a unit which exhibited the problem 100% of the time (hot or not) in my hands - when I had this it became a lot easier!

Hugo

Add me to the count also! MK2a sn# 040104150 running 2.0b11. I've had the player for almost 2 months and just noticed the problem earlier this week after running 2.0b11 for several weeks.

Without making ANY adjustments to the unit, sometimes display is very bright (100%) when I dock the player in my car after work and sometimes the display looks around 80% ish.

After discovering this thread I decided to dock my player in the car and have a look at it (I've been listening to the player for a couple of hours in my office) and the dimmer seemed to be VERY dim. I checked the dimmer setting and it was at 0%!

Perhaps it is a temperature issue?

-Chris

Just posted earlier regarding this but this post caught my eye.

I ALSO have a 30GIG inspected by EP with a serial number of 0401.

Interesting if nothing else.

-Chris

I checked the dimmer setting and it was at 0%!

I do not believe that this specific exact precise problem (dimmer set to zero in the menu) is the same thing as what's being discussed in this thread. That would be a different unrelated problem caused by the player's flash RAM getting hosed (I think).

The problem being discussed in this thread would result in the dimmer setting in the menu showing 100 percent, but the actual brightness of the display being random.

At least I think that's the case. I could be wrong. Anyone?

That's correct Tony, shows 100%, but actual brightness could be anything.

Just to update the capacitor fix, I've applied it to my other player and it is also now cured. I have noticed however, that in very low temperatures (hijack says 2 Dec C) the problem is back again but clears a few degrees higher. I may try a slightly larger value capacitor.

Does anyone have any more updates on their dimmer fix? Is the capacitor still doing the trick?

Still working fine on both my units.

I can verify that the cap fixed my problem 100%. I was finding that the unit would some times start up at the wrong "dimness" setting. Going to the dimmer menu and adjusting the dimmer by 1 notch and back again and the dimmer would be at the right level. After the cap, I have never noticed it start on the wrong level.

Is support accepting players still under warranty for this fix? Has anyone sent theirs in for this?

My Player (10Gb Rio Player) had exactly the problem
described here, i.e. Random dimmer levels, but mine
diddnt appear to be temprature related - it happed all
the time! ...

Added the cap, and the probelm is fixed... Thanks Altman,
you are truly the man!

My Mk2a has the same issue, now I'm pretty competent with a soldering iron but don't want to bugger my warranty. What is the current reckoning? If I do this mod is my warranty stuffed? If so, then I might as well add the button hack. Or is it better to return to Cambridge just for the extra safety factor?

Always contact support before opening the player.

I have over the last two days had a repeat of this dimmer problem.

I got the case open today with a couple of SMT 10n's ready, to find "Kilroy woz 'ere" - someone (I suspect Hugo ) has already done the fix, probably during the last warranty fix I had. Thanks!

However, it does tend to imply that the fix is not 100%. Any ideas about this?

You may have had a 20nF cap fitted - I've had another case of it, so it is worth replacing it to be sure you have a 10nF cap fitted.

OK, I'll give it a go later on today and then let you know over the next few days.

Wow, I forgot about this issue, making me think mine only exhibits this issue when it's a colder day. I'll have to remember to have it fixed when I get the button light hack installed.

Just to follow up on this thread:

I replaced the 20nF SMT cap that had been soldered onto my display board with a 10 nF leaded, micro-ceramic type (I coluldn't get SMT in my neck of the woods ). Despite great variation in local temperatures over the last few weeks it's been installed, there has been absolutely no repetitions of the dimmer problem (it used to happen about 3-4 times per month). So it looks as if (in my case, anyway) it was in fact just a matter of the wrong value cap.

Resurection of old threads... Haven't seen that done in a looong time.

Anyway, I read all the original messages when they were posted last year. My unit had always been fine regardless of temperature. Then a couple of months ago it had the random level startup problem. Move dimmer up then back down and fixed. Then a couple of weeks later it had a similar problem, but with the inability to fix itself with an up and down. Restart the player and all was good. This happened again a couple more times over the past month. Now this week I have seen the inability to fix with a restart. Total random dimmer selection when moving its value. Random dimmer setting when trying to increase beyond 100.

Exactly the same problems described by most people. The strangest thing is that I've been using theplayer for over a year and it was never an issue before. I'm going to ask someone here at work to add a cap to my board and I have every expectation it will work.

Moving this thread back to light is sort of timely right now because it's been extremely cold in this neck of the woods. Hopefully it will spark the attention of anyone else that may recently have been plagued by the issue.

Bruno

ah i had this happen to me i think the other week and it was damn cold first time ever and hasn't done it since

Hey just so you guys know, its not good for the player to be in super cold weather. You can damage your hard drives if they spin up when it's super cold out... When I forget to take my player out of my truck in cold weather, I actually pull it out of the sled about an inch so it doesn't spin up when I start my truck. Then I leave the heater on for 10 minutes or so before I put it all the way into the sled. Please dont wreck your hard drives!!

As a side note, the cap fix worked 100% for me. Only thing I'm not sure about is now my 'Fast Forward' doesn't always work. Sometimes I have to let go of the button and then hold it down again before it will cue through a song. I'm not sure if thats a problem with 2.0 Beta 13 or if it's because of the Cap fix though... It seems to happen with the buttons on the front of the player more than it happens when I use the remote to cue through a song...

Only thing I'm not sure about is now my 'Fast Forward' doesn't always work. Sometimes I have to let go of the button and then hold it down again before it will cue through a song. I'm not sure if thats a problem with 2.0 Beta 13 or if it's because of the Cap fix though...

That's a 2.0 beta 13 bug. Not related to the cap fix.

How cold is super cold?