Escient Fireball flashing red light solved. - Page 2

PM sent.

PM sent to stefuel.

Hi all,

I have a MX-111 with the Blinking Red Light of Death also. I sent it back to Escient 3 times. The "said", they replaced the PS, mobo and firmware and charged me each time! Anyway, I think I've tracked the issue down to a leaky cap. It's the big blue cap under the heat sink. 220microfarad, 400V. Anyone know where i can buy one? I even tried Allied, no luck.

Any help would be appreciated!!
Thanks

Mouser or digi key maybe (both online).

Well, I just replaced the capacitor, no luck. Red light is still flashing. I wish there was a device replacement other than the Kaleidoscope!

I sent my mx752 to Panurgy. The fix lasted less than six months. I ended up going with Sonos for music, Dune for movies, and an NAS for storage. Using the Sonos App and thr Mymovies App on iPad, the user experience is much better than Escient.

I broke down and sent it Panurgyoem. Getting robbed, just for a power supply,, this is number 3!

Neighbor has a SE-80 with a blinking red light. Since I am the goto guy around here for devices, he asked me to help out. What is a PM? Is this a flash rom?
Thanks,

Private Message?

I know this thread is a few months old but it is right on point so hopefully people are still reading it. I have had an Escient DVDM100 running my Sony changer for quite a while and it has worked fine.
However, it has developed a problem where it won't turn on at times, and a reboot won't bring it up UNTIL I pull the ethernet cable. Then it boots up fine!

Support has told me this was a "known issue" but the only fix is to reset the unit to factory (and of course lose all my custom organizing) and that will fix the problem. Or send it in to repair to the now 3rd party repair center. Supposedly they can SOMETIMES repair this issue without having to reset the unit. Of course they will not give me any estimate at all on how much this would cost.

For now I can just run it without internet or network connectivity but that can be inconvenient however at least it works!

Any insight as to exactly what technically causes this and what they can do to fix it that I can't? Clearly if it was hardware related a reset would not fix it? And the DVDM100 does not use a hard drive. Hmmmm.

Thanks for any help!
BJBBJB

Thanks for that! Just seems somewhat bizarre that it works fine if the ethernet cable is unplugged. Does it use less power or something?

And then Escient tells me that if I reset the unit it would fix it. And this guys seemed to know what he was talking about, not guessing? Doesn't track with a power supply but it sure looks like you have fixed your issues very successfully.

O well, guess I live with it or send it in and cross my fingers......

Thanks again, this thread is a great service to those of us nursing along our DVDM100's and fireballs!

BJBBJB

I have an escient DVDM-300 that won't turn on and has a flashing red light. Would you by chance let me know what fixed yours? Thanks for any help!

I am having same problem.

PLease Help?

Hi, I have a DVDM-300 that has the same blinking LED, I have replaced every capacitor in the power supply board, but the problem is still there.
Blinking LED, no video display. I think the mainboard is the problem.
I am very comfortable with my soldering skill, which capacitors on the main motherboard do you think I should replace?
Thanks for your advise.

I have the same problem with dvdm-300. red light blinking, when you press the power button, the dvdrom starts to spin, but nothing happens after that unit wont boot up. anyone have any ideas???

i see a lot of you say it might be a power supply problem, is it something that is easily available to replace it.. I can take the unit apart and replace it if i can get parts.. any ideas on where to get them?

I have the flashing red light on my Fireball unit. It just started and the system is running internally, however, it seem to remain in the initializing stage. I see there is a fuse but wasn't sure if that was the issue. PLEASE HELP? Thanks.

hi all !

I have 2 Escient E2 one is 40gb, other is 300 gb

the 40gb have the red blinking button. I swap power supply > no luck
red light still blink and fireball logo on screen...

I swap hard drive with the 300 Gb that works on my other E2 fireball > no luck
red light still blink and fireball logo on screen..



any bios reset possible? I have the golden disc from Escient, but he don't want to boot on this EZ...

So, problem is onto the motherboard.

@Stefuel : Can you please telle me which smd capacitor was faulty on your board??? perhap's we have the same faulty here.

thanks for you help.

rgds,

Claude

I'm having problems connecting to the Escient server to update my new music. Is anyone else having the same problem?

I already try so swap CD ROM reader... not work...

Escient support give me some instruction to try flashing bios again, I will try and let you know.

Regards,

Claude.

Didn't realize I had a problem until I stumbled upon this thread. Went and looked at my SE-D1 and sure enough there was a blinking red power light. tried to power on unit, but it wouldn't. I am game for a solution or should I just trash it?

It seems strange that after swapping out a new 12V fan for the original noise-maker, the unit refuses to boot from the dread blinking-red-light. There is a slight sound from the CD transport as the unit tries to boot. Removed new fan, replaced old fan, disconnect transport. No joy.

Is there such a thing as coincidence?

The tiny new fan is higher amperage. Did that fry something?

Any illumination?

I was an Escient dealer. We had many units fail with the blinking red light. Escient supplied following instructions, and if the fix worked they would send a replacement CABLE which fixed the problem. Led me to believe a bad fit and that wiping the contacts temporarily fixed it. I currently have a couple bad ones, but have not been able to determine what was different about the replacement cables they used to send.
- Remove POWER from unit
- Remove three screws holding cover of unit
- Remove cover of unit.
- With rear of unit towards you, look on the left side for the P/S circuit board.
- Locate a thin 10-pin connector running front to back on the P/S board
- Unplug connector and plug back in
- Replace cover and screws
- Reconnect cables and power
- See if unit boots within a few minutes.

Doug Smith, Architectural Electronics, Houston

Same problem here with Escient DVDM-300. I focused on the two problem areas that seem to be the most popular in the forum thread, power supply and IDE cable.

First, I opened up the 'boat anchor' and checked the power supply, no visual signs of component degradation or failure.

Second, I powered the unit with the case off and measured the 5V and 12V power supply output to the hard-drive at the connector and found both to be nominal. Next, I measured the 3.3V, 5V and 12V power supply output at the connector to the main controller/mother board and found these to be nominal as well.

Third, I checked the parallel ATA (PATA) cable by performing a pin-to-pin continuity check on all 40 connector pins between the controller/mother board IDE ribbon-cable connector and the master (HDD) IDE ribbon-cable connector, no problems were found. I did not check the continuity at the slave (CD drive) connector because the unit is configured to boot from the hard-drive.

Finally, I powered the unit with the case off and checked to determine if the hard-drive was spinning. I can hear and feel the hard drive running but nonetheless the media manager continues to flash the stand-by LED.

I can't really do much more without a schematic...So I sent an Email to the folks at Escient to see what they have to offer in the way of service/repair advice.

The only other test I think I will try is to remove the hard-drive and connect to a computer to see if I can read from it.

Stay tuned...