Control/Dimming Issues with MC 7524 (NSI)

[RileyChilds]

We have a MC 7524 with DMX, it has firmware 1.10 and has been in opperation for about 15 years. My understanding is that this is miracle that the board even still works. So yesterday about 2 hours before a show we flipped on the board and it flashed something along the lines of "EEPROM Corrupted Please Turn off Console". I think this is the Non-Viotile Flash Memory (I come from a Cisco Networking Background and EEPROM is the emulated flash memory). So I turn off the console and it restarts. It retains the 2 patches that are set and even the Cue stacks but not the presets (which are referenced by the cue stacks), this is an excellent example of why you should always backup your cues ! We delayed house opening and reprogrammed about 30% of the Cues. We turn on the board this morning for the Friday chapel service and it has not retained the presets! We are going to work with the pastor of the church to get an new board, but right now we need a quick fix! (Yes I tried the troubleshooting steps and no cigar.)

We have another show tonight at 7pm so any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

 

[JD]

EEPROM = Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory

This is where your operating system is stored. It may be possible to download the latest version of the operating system and flash it onto the EEPROM. Since the ROM data is corrupt, the operating system is not going to run correctly and in this case has stopped saving your data.

EEPROM is also sometimes used to save data, but most times it is not used for that because it has a limited number of times it can be edited before the chip fails. Most boards store show data either on a disk, a thumb drive, or active memory kept alive by a backup battery. If NSI used EEPROM to store cues and presets, then it is a ticking time bomb from the day it was new. The first few generations of EEPROMs could only be re-written a few hundred times. As technology got better this went to thousands, then hundreds of thousands of times. Still, 15 years of cues? yikes!

Contact NSI and see if you can't get it flashed. Also ask if this unit uses the EEPROM to store cues. If the answer is yes, then get a new board as fast as possible because this one's EEPROM(s) are at end of life. If the answer is no, and you can get it flashed, then you have more time to purchase a new board.

 

[jonliles]

I think firmware version 1.3 is the most current. It may be time to send it back to Leviton/NSI for repair/refurb. I had the same board (sold it a few years ago) and shipped it back to NSI for overhaul.The quoted a flatrate repair which included new memory and eeprom modules and faders. At that time, I was experiencing similar issues. As long as I didn't try Cue Stacks, it did ok. I could it into submaster mode and operate that way. The turn around was fairly quick, and I used standard shipping both ways. I believe there is an extra cost for expediting.

See post #14 in this thread