Help AV32R spontaneous Standby...

GregDavidson

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I'm in Auckland, New Zealand and as of a couple of months ago am the happy owner of a TAG AV32R and 100x5R, which I'm totally happy with.

Well, until the other day - we had a bad week of storms and power outages in some parts of the city. On the same day I had my computer start to freeze up on boot (which turned out to be corrupt CMOS, but not until I was part the way through a time consuming software rebuild) and the AV32R completely forget all of it's user setup information.

I thought that was it but over the next two days the AV32R has begun to spontaneously restart (coming up with the self-test and forgetting all user settings). At one point the resets came think and fast and segments of the display were excessively bright. So I shut off the unit and sent it in for service (with the folk who used to sell TAG Mclaren in Auckland) while also starting to research on this forum. (I performed an eprom reset before sending it in, in case that was the problem).

I have found a long thread started by fraggle in 2004 who was having similar symptoms and eventually sent it to IAG for repair. Steve Sky suggested and IAG later confirmed that it was the "Siemens micro core locking up" - I think the repair ended up costing fraggle a minimal amount for parts and a reasonable amount for labour.

My challenge is I'm on the opposite side of the world from IAG and pretty reliant on local repair, I'd be surprised if was economic to ship back to IAG. Does anyone have any information or suggestion about what would be possible locally or if the repair performed by IAG for fraggle would be possible in NZ?

Greg
 
They could send over a new motherboard??? Might actually be cheaper than the freight costs???
 
Thought I would update the thread with additional information that I have gathered as it may be of use to someone else.

By coincidence (luck?) I was able to correspond with a former TMA employee (who doesn't work for IAG) and explain my symptoms. He suggested the following:

“The suggestion is to inspect / rework the solder joints at the Infineon (C164) micro and the associated program memory devices (main program FLASH and customer/factory settings EEPROM (small serial low pin count IC). All the devices are in the bottom right hand corner of the main board, viewed from the front. There had been problems, particularly at the micro, with dry joints. Obviously, being Surface Mount parts, the pins are small, requiring a fine soldering tip and a magnifying glass. The use of solder flux will aid the joint quality.

The other less likely problem could be a certain batch of the EEPROM. Unfortunately we don’t have details about it.”

On the issue of it being experienced at the same time as a PC CMOS failure and during a round of storms and power outages/problems in Auckland.

“It may not be the dry joints in that case and more likely to be the EEPROM. Dry joints can be aggravated by thermal cycling, vibration and high voltages. The AV32 has quite a high level of protection against power spikes, and the engineers here said that it was an unlikely cause. However, it does seem quite a coincidence.... It's difficult to say from here. Perhaps the repair shop will see something when they open it up. “

Still holding my breath waiting to hear from the repair shop (who are no doubt busy)...
 
OK. Very helpful local repair technician got back to me last week.

News is not good - inspection / dry joint rework under microscope of board hasn't solved things. Processor now barely makes it past self test without spontaneous reset.

Andy (local technician) is pretty much shooting blind without schematics or diganostic information. Problem is very probably around the Siemens micro, flash memory, eeprom area. If anyone on the forums has information that might help please reply - if the information can't be posted please suggest out of forum contact.

Still trying to source a replacement micro - hard to get in this part of the world in quantities of less than 50. Part costs / replacement costs not high but Andy isn't convinced this is the solution.

Currently running my 100x5R with Marantz SR8000 as processor (IT'S JUST NOT THE SAME!!!!) *SIGH*

Starting to assess other options - have emailed IAG helpdesk, who were able to provide me with upgrade costs (about the cost of a second hand processor ie: 1000GBP to go to 192k plus bypass with shipping to the other side of the world on top). They won't be able to discuss repair options /costs until sometime this week.

Put in insurance claim due to processor going out at same time as PC during storms and powercuts. But as the unit is not OBVIOUSLY fried it will be difficult to prove I suspect...

As a replacement AV32R is going to be hard to find (most UK ebayers won't ship to NZ) I'm pretty lost about what to do next. Suggestions welcome.
 

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