[Dead] MX5000 not booting, dark screen

[rayjeek]

I have MX5000 here which when power turned on, only a green light appears on the control panel and screen remains dark. When left on for about two minutes, all the fans started working and fuser also became hot but no booting and screen remain unlit.
I checked all the fuses on AC power PWB and cleaned flash ROMs/DIMMs terminals but no luck. Tried a DIMM at a time on MFP PWB to establish if one of the DIMMs were faulty, because it had three DIMMs. This did not make any difference also. If anyone could assist.

[ZOOTECH]

Sounds like your Boot flash ROM is corrupt. Try doing an EMUPDATE.

[rayjeek]

Will give a go.
Could the attached bulletin be the root cause of my problem.
Thanks

[ZOOTECH]

It's worth a look; I've also had a bad flash ROM cause similar symptoms, but I would try the EMUPDATE first. Let us know what you find.

[OMD-227]

Any MX machine that starts with a blank display, but you can hear a fan and fuser heats up, is 99.9% of the time a faulty System Memory Module. All MX machines need a working system memory to boot correctly & start the display panel. I know you have tried changing memory modules, but in all my previous cases, its bad memory.

** I just re-read your post. You say you just cleaned & reseated each memory individually? If that is the case, then yes, you have a faulty system memory.

The first time I saw this a few years ago, was on a MX2700N machine that never got turned off. I attended site and as part of the service, the machine had a firmware upgrade. Obviously, the machine restarts after it finished that, but it then wouldnt start up, with exactly this symptom..... no display, obvious power to fans & fuser. Changed the system memory over with new, because I knew that the machine needs that to boot up, and the problem was solved. I gave the faulty 512Mb module to the IT guys, who tested it in a laptop, and it only came up as 128Mb.
Each time I see or hear about this now, I always try the system memory first. Thats usually the fix.

If its not the memory causing this, disconnect the fax kit if installed & retest. I've never seen corrupt firmware on a MX machine cause this. Corrupt firmware will always give 'Main Program Error' on the display immediately on startup (no sharp spinning display). An emupdate will fix that.

[rayjeek]

Any MX machine that starts with a blank display, but you can hear a fan and fuser heats up, is 99.9% of the time a faulty System Memory Module. All MX machines need a working system memory to boot correctly & start the display panel. I know you have tried changing memory modules, but in all my previous cases, its bad memory.

** I just re-read your post. You say you just cleaned & reseated each memory individually? If that is the case, then yes, you have a faulty system memory.

The first time I saw this a few years ago, was on a MX2700N machine that never got turned off. I attended site and as part of the service, the machine had a firmware upgrade. Obviously, the machine restarts after it finished that, but it then wouldnt start up, with exactly this symptom..... no display, obvious power to fans & fuser. Changed the system memory over with new, because I knew that the machine needs that to boot up, and the problem was solved. I gave the faulty 512Mb module to the IT guys, who tested it in a laptop, and it only came up as 128Mb.
Each time I see or hear about this now, I always try the system memory first. Thats usually the fix.

If its not the memory causing this, disconnect the fax kit if installed & retest. I've never seen corrupt firmware on a MX machine cause this. Corrupt firmware will always give 'Main Program Error' on the display immediately on startup (no sharp spinning display). An emupdate will fix that.

DIMMs were swapped around from another MFP pwb which was known to be faultybut did not make any change. The actual fault had not been found with this pwb though. We put this other MFP pwb and the MFD boots up but can print only configuration sheet. It cannot make copy or print, only internal print is possible. We are thinking of ordering new MFP pwb with new DIMMs, as we think the DIMMs are also faulty as you mentioned. Any other thing hidden here?

[OMD-227]

So you had a MFP board sitting there with all memory modules installed, which was apparently faulty? What was the fault on this MFP?
From what you are saying, I'm still thinking you have faulty system memory, even on the second MFP board. Hard to tell with your description of events so far.

Any MX that can come up to ready, to allow it to print the config sheet, should be able to also make a copy (unless you have a trouble code or done something wrong). What is the reason you cannot copy or print? With a different MFP installed, you need to re-apply the previous MFP clone files, and swap the Eprom over. By re-applying the clone files, and changing over the Eprom, you are keeping all user data, system settings, network settings etc etc, so they dont need to be all entered again. You would have got a U2-05 code with the different MFP, but by running sim16 without having a clone file, you would have lost that data.

I'd be ordering a new system memory module first. If you have several MX machines in the field, its a good idea to have a few memory modules in your car stock for testing purposes. A MX machine that cannot boot up with a blank screen is usually a system memory fault. If your memory was good, the display would at least light up and then give a trouble code for a MFP or HDD unit fault (or any other trouble code for that matter). If it had corrupt firmware, like a boot rom failure, you would get 'Main Program Error' displayed immediately. Obviously with a functioning display (memory good).
There is a chance it could be the MFP, if it wasn't reading/writing to the memory properly. This symptom you have is memory based.

[rayjeek]

So you had a MFP board sitting there with all memory modules installed, which was apparently faulty? What was the fault on this MFP?
From what you are saying, I'm still thinking you have faulty system memory, even on the second MFP board. Hard to tell with your description of events so far.

Any MX that can come up to ready, to allow it to print the config sheet, should be able to also make a copy (unless you have a trouble code or done something wrong). What is the reason you cannot copy or print? With a different MFP installed, you need to re-apply the previous MFP clone files, and swap the Eprom over. By re-applying the clone files, and changing over the Eprom, you are keeping all user data, system settings, network settings etc etc, so they dont need to be all entered again. You would have got a U2-05 code with the different MFP, but by running sim16 without having a clone file, you would have lost that data.

I'd be ordering a new system memory module first. If you have several MX machines in the field, its a good idea to have a few memory modules in your car stock for testing purposes. A MX machine that cannot boot up with a blank screen is usually a system memory fault. If your memory was good, the display would at least light up and then give a trouble code for a MFP or HDD unit fault (or any other trouble code for that matter). If it had corrupt firmware, like a boot rom failure, you would get 'Main Program Error' displayed immediately. Obviously with a functioning display (memory good).
There is a chance it could be the MFP, if it wasn't reading/writing to the memory properly. This symptom you have is memory based.

The faulty MFP pwb sitting there had a problem of not being able to copy or print. As per my Supervisor he replaced the entire PWB with memory to resolve the issue hence he is sure replacing the MFP PWB+memory will resolve the current problem as well.

I am 100% with you on the emphasis you are laying on the system memory being faulty. While checking the Machine specification, I noted that 512MB DIMM is used for copy, another 512MB DIMM for print and 1GB DIMM as system memory. I believe the 1GM DIMM is ok that's why we could get internal prints printed out.

I think we have to pin down the root cause of the problem rather that replacing entire board/memory.

[tmaged]

If you're a US Sharp dealer, contact your regional service rep. We've had a couple replaced & were covered by Sharp, even if the machine is out of warranty.

[rayjeek]

Finally the problem has been resolved by changing the MFP board. The DIMMs from the old board were used.
In the nutshell, it was a faulty MFP board. Thank you all.

[OMD-227]

Nice.

Its rare for a MFP to go down with that fault, it normally gives a trouble code once booted up. Its normally memory on the MFP. Good fix!

[matts75brad]

mx5000

Its possible that a clutch maybe going to ground causing you this problem

Matts75brad