What's wrong with my Empeg?

Posted by: dewdman42

What's wrong with my Empeg? - 30/09/2007 04:31

I've been happily using my Empeg for quite a while. Recently it started to intermittently do some weirdness. I will be playing along and then in the middle of a song it will just stop making sound. I look at the screen and the second counter is not advancing anymore. I hit the next song button and things continue normally....for a while. Sometimes it can run and run for hours no problem, other times it happens over and over.

I already thought maybe the IDE cable was loose or something, opened it up to check, but looks good.

Any other ideas? I'm using the last 2.01 consumer firmware.
Posted by: dewdman42

Re: What's wrong with my Empeg? - 30/09/2007 04:43

Oh I should mention also that one time when this happened, the player seemed to blank out or lock up in some way and I had to cycle the power to get back to normal again, but that never happened again.
Posted by: maczrool

Re: What's wrong with my Empeg? - 30/09/2007 06:07

Maybe it's encountering a bad MP3 file? Try installing Mark Lord's Hijack which recently added a feature that let's deal with such situations.

Hope this helps,
Stu
Posted by: tfabris

Re: What's wrong with my Empeg? - 30/09/2007 13:15

Quote:
I will be playing along and then in the middle of a song it will just stop making sound. I look at the screen and the second counter is not advancing anymore.


Two most likely culprits are hard disk trouble and (as was already mentioned) bad MP3 files.
Posted by: dewdman42

Re: What's wrong with my Empeg? - 15/10/2007 03:27

Yea, I can't see any reason why suddenly a large percentage of my MP3's would have become corrupted, unless they were corrupted in the Empeg somehow. I've been using this unit with this collection of music for a long time without any such issue. I opened up the empeg to see if the ide connection was loose or something, but its not.

I dunno what to say. Frustrated here.
Posted by: mlord

Re: What's wrong with my Empeg? - 15/10/2007 12:03

Quote:
Yea, I can't see any reason why suddenly a large percentage of my MP3's would have become corrupted, unless they were corrupted in the Empeg somehow. I've been using this unit with this collection of music for a long time without any such issue. I opened up the empeg to see if the ide connection was loose or something, but its not.

I dunno what to say. Frustrated here.


If you have not been adding/deleting music recently (with Emplode or jEmplode), then the obvious culprit is hardware trouble -- 95% likely that the IDE header is the cause of it.

This is a simple repair for many people on this BBS, so find someone in your part of the world who fixes such things and arrange for them to help out.
Posted by: dewdman42

Re: What's wrong with my Empeg? - 16/10/2007 17:54

Is there any way for me to verify that the IDE header or hardware is bad? The problem is that this is happening sporadically. I brought the unit inside to let it run in my office and it has been playing 5000 songs since I started it in here. (shrug)??

Are there any diagnostic tools I can use to confirm the hardware is having a problem?

I can certainly try to wipe the drives and resync all my MP3's in, just to try to eliminate this possibility...
Posted by: mlord

Re: What's wrong with my Empeg? - 16/10/2007 20:05

Quote:
Is there any way for me to verify that the IDE header or hardware is bad?


I don't think so, other than capturing serial port traces, which is not practical when it only fails some of the time.

Quote:
Are there any diagnostic tools I can use to confirm the hardware is having a problem?


Yes, install Hijack, and then pay attention to the front panel display when the player misbehaves.
Posted by: dewdman42

Re: What's wrong with my Empeg? - 16/10/2007 20:24

Quote:

Yes, install Hijack, and then pay attention to the front panel display when the player misbehaves.


I may try that. Thanks.