From bruce@ashbysolutions.com Tue Oct 09 13:22:46 2007
Subject:=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re=3A_=5BCWSG=5D_Re=3A_CX-3_firmware_?= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?_is_failing!!!!!?=

Hi Lou,

>I was thinking of upgrading my CX-3 to v2.0, but in
>light of the mentioned experiences, I think v1.0
>sounds OK to me. I wonder how many success stories
>there are at upgrading. I know Bruce has several, but
>I wonder what the failure rate is.

My sympathies to anyone who has had problems with the CX-3 upgrade. I would guess that the success rate is more than 95%, maybe even more than 99%. It's just that the penalty for failure is very high.

To be completely fair, the CX-3 was never meant to be a user upgradeable product, in the manner of the Nord Electro, Access Virus, or Roland Fantom. First off, it uses MIDI as its transfer mechanism, which means that the process takes a long time. Secondly, the CX-3 doesn't have a protected "boot loader," which will always remain in place to allow retries. The upgrade mechanism in the CX-3 was really meant for the assembly line, but it worked well enough to allow most users to upgrade successfully. Those of us who ran the upgrade and got to the finish line thank Korg for their offer of a free update; those who had problems probably curse with equal enthusiasm. :-(

As for the cost of repair parts, it generally costs more to build a product out of spare parts than to buy it outright, regardless of the product being discussed. On one hand, a $600 replacement cost for the mainboard seems high; on the other hand, it *is* the bulk of what makes a CX-3 a CX-3. Since the whole organ costs ~$1800US ($2595 SRP), I guess $600 for the "brain" isn't that far out of line.

I have personally ran the upgrade a couple dozen times, minimum, with good success. If anyone lives near enough to Ashby, MA to bring their CX-3 down, I would be happy to upgrade you. However, please don't ship your keyboard to me, as I have neither the space to keep it around nor the time to pack it back up and ship it again.

I do suspect that a CX-3 that can still boot to the IPL screen is capable of being re-programmed without replacing the mainboard. The real question is whether Korg Service is set up to handle such a process. If they aren't, then a mainboard swap may be the only option.

Regards,

-BW
--
Bruce Wahler
AshbySolutions.com_
978.386.7389 voice/fax
bruce@ashbysolutions.com

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