This is a difficult one, because the theater is in a small town a remote, rural area, and there is no tech (that I know of) that could get there without several hours of drive time and a hotel bill. It's also a nonprofit theater that doesn't have money to throw around (or, more accurately, even less money to throw around than the for profit theater industry, which itself isn't in great shape). The owner is a smart guy, who is able to do planned maintenance, including lamp and SX-3000 battery swaps, and other relatively straightforward repairs. But he doesn't want to take on disemboweling an NEC, even a relatively easy NEC to disembowel, which the 1200 is.
The problem reported this morning was errors 140 and 141 - DLP CommR and CommE fails. Poking around via the remote PC, I found the ICP to be in boot mode:
image.png
I rebooted the ICP via the ICP app, which appeared to clear it...
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...but those errors on the projector side had not gone away, and didn't go away, even after rebooting the projector.
I advised the owner to contact clean and reseat the ICP, which he did. I talked him through clearing the service door tamper on the phone afterwards, and then attempted the remarriage via the GDC UI, which didn't work - "IMB Divorced" remained after a timeout.
I then looked in the ICP app again, and in the Load/Install tab, saw that both slots A and B showed nothing there, and that the running image was boot mode. I uploaded the ICP version 4.5.454 from the NEC Series 2 4.3.20 package, rebooted the ICP, and then the ICP reported that it was happy:
image.png
However, the projector side is showing that it has no communication with the ICP (note the grayed out "Cinema Board" section):
image.png
At this point, I asked the owner to try playing both DCP and alternative content (DVI in through the NEC board): he reported that both played OK and looked good on the screen. I advised him to leave the projector powered on with the lamp off when not in use (his usual practice is to shut it down completely, including the mains breakers) until we can figure out what to do next, for fear that if the ICP loses power, it might not boot up again into a functional state.
According to the online error code lookup on Sharp's site, the underlying problem could be a dying ICP, a dying motherboard in the card cage, or dodgy connections between them. Replacing all of those parts, plus the cost of getting me there to do it (10-12 hours of drive time each way) is going to be so expensive that I've suggested that they contemplate replacing the projector, which he's receptive to discussing with the nonprofit's board. Another argument in favor of that would be that the retired projector could then serve as a parts donor for another of the same model in their other screen.
My question is this: has anyone else seen this specific symptom (projector is functional, but DCC cannot pull status information from the ICP), and can shed light on whether it's a minor issue that can safely be ignored, or an indication of a serious can that cannot be kicked down the road much further? My gut feeling is the latter, but would appreciate any feedback that anyone has to offer. The fact that this is a difficult and expensive site to get to makes this all the more tricky.
The problem reported this morning was errors 140 and 141 - DLP CommR and CommE fails. Poking around via the remote PC, I found the ICP to be in boot mode:
image.png
I rebooted the ICP via the ICP app, which appeared to clear it...
image.png
...but those errors on the projector side had not gone away, and didn't go away, even after rebooting the projector.
I advised the owner to contact clean and reseat the ICP, which he did. I talked him through clearing the service door tamper on the phone afterwards, and then attempted the remarriage via the GDC UI, which didn't work - "IMB Divorced" remained after a timeout.
I then looked in the ICP app again, and in the Load/Install tab, saw that both slots A and B showed nothing there, and that the running image was boot mode. I uploaded the ICP version 4.5.454 from the NEC Series 2 4.3.20 package, rebooted the ICP, and then the ICP reported that it was happy:
image.png
However, the projector side is showing that it has no communication with the ICP (note the grayed out "Cinema Board" section):
image.png
At this point, I asked the owner to try playing both DCP and alternative content (DVI in through the NEC board): he reported that both played OK and looked good on the screen. I advised him to leave the projector powered on with the lamp off when not in use (his usual practice is to shut it down completely, including the mains breakers) until we can figure out what to do next, for fear that if the ICP loses power, it might not boot up again into a functional state.
According to the online error code lookup on Sharp's site, the underlying problem could be a dying ICP, a dying motherboard in the card cage, or dodgy connections between them. Replacing all of those parts, plus the cost of getting me there to do it (10-12 hours of drive time each way) is going to be so expensive that I've suggested that they contemplate replacing the projector, which he's receptive to discussing with the nonprofit's board. Another argument in favor of that would be that the retired projector could then serve as a parts donor for another of the same model in their other screen.
My question is this: has anyone else seen this specific symptom (projector is functional, but DCC cannot pull status information from the ICP), and can shed light on whether it's a minor issue that can safely be ignored, or an indication of a serious can that cannot be kicked down the road much further? My gut feeling is the latter, but would appreciate any feedback that anyone has to offer. The fact that this is a difficult and expensive site to get to makes this all the more tricky.
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