Need help with Ricoh 3224c firmware issue

[a1454]

Hello,

I currently have a RICOH 3224c on hand that have some problem beyond my ability to fix. When printing any color document from USB or Ethernet, about a third of the entire letter size paper will have a ghosting issue, everything on that portion seems to duplicate itself multiple times across the width of the page. However, if I simply copy a document, this issue is gone, it only happens when printing from computer, color only.

This led me to believe its something wrong with the controller board, specifically the option SD card on the controller board, as my client told me a few weeks ago his office's power went out while a document was printing halfway, so I was suspecting the SD card might have been corrupted by that.

I did a NVRAM clear on the machine, doesn't help. At this point I'm pretty frustrated with the machine and I made a very stupid mistake. I borrowed another SD card from someone that has the same machine, and copied the content of that SD card onto the SD card in my machine, when I insert that card back in, I get a "SD Card Failed to Authenticate", and both the scanner and printer option stopped functioning.

Inside SP mode its showing the machine's main firmware is 1.07

I was thinking maybe upgrading the machine's firmware could help, but I'm not a RICOH dealer so I don't have access to firmwares.

Up to this point I'm totally out of idea on what to do with it, I've already swapped another machine for my client, so right now I'm just trying to see if there is a way I can fix this one up and I can use it myself.

If anyone can give me a suggestion on what to do next, or help me obtaining a new firmware and the content of that SD card, I'd truly appreciate it.

thanks in advance for all your help

[zed255]

An NVRAM clear on a colour machine is a pretty bad move. You may find hidden somewhere the machine's 'Birth Certificate' that has the factory SP settings on it. If you have that you need to re-input all values. The SD cards can't be copied with the usual copy commands, a block level tool is needed like DD to copy these things as some have hidden / encrypted areas on them. This particular engine design sucks in general, just find a nice big hole and push it in... .

[knightfall]

as zed225 said find the birth certificate and re input the sp values but the sd card these card are specific to the serial number imbedded into the card that must match the application serial number and cant be copied by conventional means and if you cant find a way to copy the sd card as zed255 stated then you are going to have to buy another one. The original problem sounds like a controller issue, reload the firmware and reset the memory modules. Good luck.

[JustManuals]

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[GhostInTheMachine]

I feel for you. I only have 2 of these left in my territory and I CAN'T WAIT to get rid of them.

Biggest stinker Ricoh has put out in a long time!

[a1454]

Thanks for all the help, really appreciate it. I did have the "birth certificate" for the machine, however, I don't really find a need for it as the machine's process control pretty much adjusted everything automatically, even though right now print and scan are non-functional, the copy function is working perfectly.

Well, I've called a friend of mine to look out for these machines, if there is a old one clients don't want, or broken, I'm thinking I'll take the whole controller board + BICU from it.

I know how bad this machine is, but since its the first machine I received training on, I'm pretty familiar with it, and I'm trying to fix this one just so I can use it myself, I already give the customer a newer machine.

Again, thanks for all the reply, thank you.

[officerdibble]

Any Progress

I too have a similar problem with a machine, there is no fax or scanner details on the 'user tools page' I too expect that the sd card is dead but have no way to check this out.

Did you manage to get sorted with your problem? I would like to know how and why etc.

Ta

[pLatik]

your sd card is damaged. You have to buy a new one.

[a1454]

officerdibble,

I've pretty much given up on this machine and will go to a place I know near Venice Beach next week to buy another old machine back to play around with.

The problem with the SD card is a little more complicated than I initially thought, like knightfall mentioned above, it seems that the SD card have a serial number that need to match the machine, I borrowed a card from a friend of mine who owns the same machine and did a partition to partition copy, which is the best way I can think of to preserve its file structure, however, when I put it back into my machine I'm still getting the same error.

Because of the above stated reason, I've asked a dealer and based on what they told me, there isn't a part number for that SD card, rather the entire controller board.

I don't know if that guy is full of BS, but if what he says is true, it will cost me more to replace the controller board compared to just getting another machine. (old machines can be found around 4-6 hundred dollar, while a controller board is almost $700.)

So I'm gonna go to the Venice Beach place I mentioned above and see what I'm gonna do from there, if they have a decent machine that don't require much of repair, I'd probably just forget about fixing this one and get on with it. OR, if there isn't anything around this price range, I will look for an old, beat up Dsc424 and buy it for its parts.

The other thing I'm looking into is I tried to read out the files on the SD card and try to make sense of it, it basically consists of two folders, inside each folder have the same amount of files, in one folder, these files are a few KB in size while in the other folder everything is just 1 KB. The name of each file correspond to another file inside the other folder, I tried to use a text editor to read out the 1KB file, they all just contain one line of text, I'm assuming that's the serial number that have to match the machine, however, it seems like the serial number is encoded, so unless I know the encryption scheme used by Ricoh there will be noway for me to reproduce that serial number string.

Sorry couldn't be of much help, I'm kinda bumped into a brick wall on the first machine I ever attempt to repair... XD....

[a1454]

Sorry to revive an old thread, after several month attending other business I finally comes back and decided to do something about that copy machine sitting at the corner eating dust.

I've called Ricoh USA support and per their customer service agent, they told me the part number for the SD card (which I was not able to find according to the part number printed on the original SD card), they number they told me is B6455010

When the SD card arrived, the first thing I noticed, is that the original SD card is 32MB in size, the new one is 128MB.

So I put that new SD card into the machine and turned it on, the SD Authentication Failed message went away, I was happy for a while and thought I've revived the machine, but it didn't take long before I realize my printer module and scanner module is still not accessible, if I enter SP mode, I can only see Copy SP and nothing else. Exactly the same condition as when I was getting the SD Auth Fail message.



So I contacted the Ricoh representative again, and this is what they told me:

Hello Steven,

Sounds like the firmware for the functions (printer and scanner) have not been added. You would need to have a technician service the machine. Going into SP mode is not the customer based assistance we provide as this is a mode only accessible/programmable by a technician. Please call our customer service department at 800-432-9787.

Thank you for your inquiry



They don't acknowledge the fact that if I can just "call a technician" I wouldn't spend months reading through the entire Ricoh Core Tech manual and the machine's service manual. Not surprising.

So I contacted my dealer friend, and told them about the new issue, they told me they've never done firmware update before (i know, but they are the only connections I have), but they will contact their suppliers to see if they can help, so two days later I received an e-mail from them containing the Readme File for B156 BICU Firmware and DESS Firmware.

After reading those few pages of documents, I'm assuming that the firmware update can be done through the web management interface, as long as my machine have NCS firmware 4.17 or later, Controller Firmware 1.08 or later and Websys firmware 1.02 or later.

But after checking the machine, my controller firmware is at version 1.07...

The readme file did not mention what would have to be done if those requirements were not met, since I myself is not a Ricoh dealer, I don't have access to any of their technical resource websites.

If anyone here can offer me some help or guidance as what I need to do to get this done, I'd really appreciate it.

I know this forum is give and take, but since I'm not really "in this industry" exactly, I'm just happened to end up with this machine in my hand and want to put it to some good use, I don't really have much to offer...
I just try to do as much research myself as possible so I don't waste your time here with question that be answered with "RTFM"..

Thank you very much for any help. I really appreciate it.

And, I don't know if this is possible, but if someone knows a software that can perform a bit by bit copy of an SD card, I can probably upload the content of the SD card I got so if anyone is stuck with the same problem they can just get a blank card and flash it in. (Versus spending $147 buying a 128MB SD card)

[zed255]

And, I don't know if this is possible, but if someone knows a software that can perform a bit by bit copy of an SD card, I can probably upload the content of the SD card I got so if anyone is stuck with the same problem they can just get a blank card and flash it in. (Versus spending $147 buying a 128MB SD card)

I use DD, generally from a Linux environment, for absolute 'bit by bit' copies of anything. I'd recommend using a Live Linux CD like Ubuntu or any other that floats your boat. There are lots of good tutorials out there for using this program but try it out first on some non-critical hardware. This command is powerful and will do what you ask, without question, even if that is hosing you PC's system partition. If you really want to play, I'd disconnect all HDD from the PC and boot from the CD, then you can experiment all you want.

In general it looks like this from a Terminal window:

dd if=/dev/yoursdcardhere of=/path/to/image/filename
dd if=/path/to/image/file of=/dev/newsdcardhere

dd is the command, the default block size is 512 bytes and it will go until it reaches the end of the device
if=/dev/yoursdcardhere is the argument that tells dd where to read from, as in if= stands for 'input file'
of=/path/to/image/file is the argument that tells dd where to write the data that is read and what to call the file, of= stand for 'output file'

The command can go from one SD to another directly by specifying of=/dev/othersdcardhere. You'd have to plug in the card, unmount it and see what the device is called with dmesg.

[Leif]

sd card problem

Hi there, sorry too hear about your sd card failure. Have you tried to insert the card you are trying to copy from into your machine. I have just done the same here without any trouble. If you can't see the print/scan option in sp mode the machine don't have it instaled or it is mailfunction (memory failure?). The sd card slot is on the print/scan module so the card should contain the right "stuff".. I dont know if you can use the function app move in sp mode for copying that sd card. I know it works with other function like dos -->ps3 sd card.. The problem is that no body knows whats on that sd card, that's a ricoh production secret and can't be moved because it's hidden and have some sort of "secret code" that can't be copyied..(sorry about my crappy english) ..But if you find a used controller with all function maybe thats your cheapest solution

[a1454]

Leif:

Thanks for the reply, sorry I didn't describe my situation clear enough, but the machine was in a fully functional state before the SD card problem, now I've ordered a new SD with model number a Ricoh support technician gave me. The SD authentication failure problem went away, but my scanner and printer feature didn't come back. and according to that Ricoh support tech "the firmware for scanner and printer is probably not installed". My real question is, how do I install a "firmware" for scanner and printer module?
Thanks!

Zed:
Thanks for the suggestion, I'll give that a try!

[Leif]

sd card firmware

Hi again, I have searched true my manuals and that system card can't be modified. I'ts protected so no one can tamper with it..I't like post script sd card, cant be copied/modified.If I have to replace the sd systemcard it's delivered stright from the factory where it's produced, that's why it's has an unique ordering number B157 xxxx. . 3224 was delivered standard with print/scan so there is only one system card firmware for this machine..
Firmware that's upgradeable is stored on the nvram. Check sp mode 5990-004. There you will find your current firmware. There have been none changes in firmware since 2007/2006. Does your nib light up with an orange light? I have now just fired up my 3224 without the system card and as you have noticed print/scan is gone.. so the conclusion has to be that your dealer have messed up your sd card... The machine will fail after nvram clear because it don't know it's country code, i belive the same will happend if some one tamper with the serial number. Changing system sd-card seems to have none influence for the controller.

[a1454]

Thanks again for the quick reply,

The SD card I have on hand right now is ordered straight from Ricoh USA, it is handed to me still in original packaging with the sticker that says "made in japan"...

What do you mean by "nib" light? are you talking about the light at the lower left corner of the control panel or the network activity lights? (NIC)

Again, thanks for the prompt reply, I'm not next to my machine right now but as soon as I get home I will start it up and check 5990-004.