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Author Topic: NEC NC1200C doesn't boot up after summer break Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 08-21-2015 10:48 AM                     quote: Marco Giustini NEC should have been more proactive on those sites. It actually wasn't very long a period that NEC released 4.217 after releasing 4.216, about 45 days perhaps. If you are looking on the Strong site for firmware it is really a waste of time as they seem to have rather long delays between the time NEC releases something to when they might actually post it on their ftp site. Setting up an account with NEC and keeping track of their site by reading the release notes is your best insurance. I too have some sites on 4.216 but they are never powered off long enough to matter, many remain in standby 24/7. Mark  |  IP: Logged Marco Giustini Film God Posts: 2713 From: Reading, UK Registered: Nov 2007 posted 08-21-2015 11:41 AM                     releasing a new version is not 'being proactive' to me. It means sending a note to all cinemas asking them to identify their version and to urge an upgrade if they plan to keep the projector off for more than 7 days.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 08-21-2015 11:51 AM                     Over here it's up to the servicing tech or contracted service company or NOC to keep track of that stuff. How is NEC supposed to know which projectors have 4.216 in them, and how is NEC supposed to even know where each projector is located? They sell through distributors, at least over here... not directly. In Australia they do sell directly and they do keep track of issues like this. It's pretty much the same way with Christie and Barco too. That's why there ARE service tech's and NOC's to begin with. Mark  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 08-21-2015 12:11 PM                     Ummm NO! The separation between 4.216 and 4.217 was about 5-months! As for proactive...NEC doesn't do many tech bulletins and this one deserves one. I do agree it is impractical for them to keep track of each projector. All of the NECs we remotely support are now on 4.217 as we took this as a potentially grave problem.  |  IP: Logged Marco Giustini Film God Posts: 2713 From: Reading, UK Registered: Nov 2007 posted 08-21-2015 03:23 PM                     Exactly what Steve said. NEC did not mention this as a big issue and Steve said they would upgrade during normal maintenance. Now all Steve's NEC projectors are on 4.217 because someone explained what the "power on failure" is on a public forum. Do you call this being proactive? I do not expect NEC to send a note to each cinema but to get in touch with every distributors, explaining the problem and asking to get in touch with all the customers who may be affected. When Dolby found the bug on the CP850 which was likely to disable the cat 1600, a bulletin was dispatched asking to urgently upgrade all the units.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 08-21-2015 05:30 PM                     It should be noted that the Enigma 1.8 did get a bulletin on the NEC download site (North America, at least)...there is no harm in having such bulletins and it is a decent way of getting the word out. For some reason, Barco hasn't been as talkative with their Info-Ts...I don't think they still mention anything about the magnet thing on the 32B lamphouse...the Info T exists but they don't publish it. They are also mum on the shaky B lens mount. Back to NEC...note, I did put 2 and 2 together, if you recall, that I questioned WHY 4.215 and 4.216 were removed from download when 4.217 came out and that it was strange and that the only thing in the release notes was the inability to boot the projector up if the dates were reset to 1/1/2000. But no...NEC didn't put out any CAUTION notices.  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 08-21-2015 06:22 PM                     And that date reset would occur due to a drained CPU board battery, they missed that? Is that CPU board battery a battery to actually be exchanged? Does it show up in any service manual? And how would a different software fix that? Yes, NEC SHOULD definitely issue a tech bulletin... - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Pietro Clarici Expert Film Handler Posts: 136 From: Foligno (PG) Italy Registered: Sep 2008 posted 08-22-2015 04:43 AM                        The new CPU boards are in, everything works fine. We haven't heard from NEC yet. I definitely think a bug of this scale would have warranted an urgent bulletin sent *directly* to all dealers and installers. And maintaining a customer database probably wouldn't hurt either.  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 08-22-2015 07:02 AM                     Could you take a look at the older CPU boards? Do you see a typical 'coin' type battery? They don't necessarily have to be this kind of cell. Some use rechargable cells or SuperCaps. Anyway, until NEC explains what happens, it seems that the problem is not so much a drained battery or clock reset, but the software being unable to cope with that condition, otherwise the issue couldn't be related to specific software versions. CPU boards with a different software seem to be able to recover from a clock reset, maybe by reading from another clock source like ICP or Enigma, or simply ignoring a wrong clock setting until it is set manually. ICP memory corruption, bricked Enigmas, bricked CPU boards - when will these systems be safe for the operator? - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Pietro Clarici Expert Film Handler Posts: 136 From: Foligno (PG) Italy Registered: Sep 2008 posted 08-22-2015 08:36 AM                        There are no removable batteries, just a large blue 5.5V /1.0 F supercapacitor. On the new boards they are black and much thinner, coin cell-style.  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 08-22-2015 08:56 AM                     So it seems they are not expected to actually keep time for years, and reset conditions would occur and certainly have occurred before. Just that previous software (and now 4.217 again) was able to deal with it. - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Marco Giustini Film God Posts: 2713 From: Reading, UK Registered: Nov 2007 posted 08-22-2015 09:55 AM                     seems a little unreal that a board loses its clock/settings after a WEEK - this is what the NEC note says.  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 08-22-2015 10:41 AM                     No problem if there are other sources in the system where the CPU board can update it's time after boot. AND if the software deals with a CPU board clock reset gracefully, which, potentially, is not the case for 4.215 and 4.216 at least. - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Marco Giustini Film God Posts: 2713 From: Reading, UK Registered: Nov 2007 posted 08-22-2015 10:51 AM                     Sure, but can you think of any piece of equipment with a clock and a battery/capacitor on it that loses the time after a WEEK?  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 08-22-2015 01:36 PM                     The damn microwave loses its time after mere moments of no power! Note, the note doesn't discuss losing its time per say. If you look at the setup date of any NEC (within DCC go to UPDATE>SETUP DATE..it has 1/1/2000. Now I was never told to change those and I don't recall reading about that anywhere. I wonder if changing those to something more current would also address the problem or perhaps it affects people that have set them and then after the power outage, they go BACK to that date and then the time line is confused. Anyone have the info on the Setup Date business?  |  IP: Logged

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