RED ROCKET CARD DYING AFTER UPGRADE

[Dustin Cross]

Something similar happened to my Rocket. It was working fine one day. Moved it to a new system the next morning. Installed software on new system and the Rocket stopped working. No system could see the Rocket. If I rolled back the firmware on the Rocket systems could see it, but it wouldn't work. Sent it to Red and they couldn't fix it or tell me what the problem was. $3000 for an out of warranty replacement.

The dip switch #8 thing did not fix my problem.

I never really considered that upgrading the firmware might have caused the problem, until this thread.

I just assumed that something happened when moving from one system to the other, even though in 20 years of working on computer hardware I have never had anything happen moving a card between systems.

I also considered that the card got too hot the night before and finally died , but that never made any sense.

I would just really like to know if upgrading the firmware could be bricking these cards or it is totally unrelated. I have another Rocket I am scared to upgrade and a friend of mine has had two rockets die like this, so he never want to use a Rocket again (one of those Rockets was mine).

Here is the Rocket software and firmware I was using
software - from 1.4.10 to 1.4.16
firmware - from 1.1.14.40 to 1.1.15.4



Dusty

[Adam Eden]

I have upgraded my rocket on more than one occasion, my card ran out of warranty in september and it is used pretty much everyday. I have heard of the rocket card blowing up mid firmware update but thought it was users playing around and blowing it up.

I have qualifications as a Broadcast engineer so I know what I am doing and my card still blew up.

In my opinion the eprom that holds the firmware has corrupted during the process, so there needs to be a way to force and reinstall the firmware. I haven't tried switching DIP switch 8 on and putting the card into safe mode yet and I will try that in about an hour when I get to work, but I can't see that helping as it doesn't matter what computer I put the card into as no computer can see the card at all now.

I have seen rocket cards blow up from being changed from one computer to another before, and that is usually when you take them from a PC and put them into a mac, as PC's have a longer residual charge in the mother boards, so when you pull the power cord from the PC, current is still flowing through the motherboard for sometimes up to 2 - 3 minutes.

When pulling ANY card from and PC or mac it is always advised to pull the power cord from the wall and leave the computer for 5 minutes before pulling any card out or inserting any card as the residual charge would have dissipated by then.

And always wear a static wrist band that is grounded, believe me static electricity is the best way to blow ANY card up and most technicians fail to be properly grounded when they work on computers and that is very dangerous.

If the Switch 8 doesn't fix my problem I will contact DVS to see how much they would charge to force a reprogram for my card as thats it all that could be wrong with it and I do not really want to spend $3000 for a replacement card. Hopefully RED technicians have the ability to manually program the card as I am sure the RED techs have modified the card to suit our needs.

[Cüneyt Kaya]

I hope its an isolated case. I have a system with 2 RR's inside and I am about to upgrade the firmware, i really hope the upgrade doesn't break it.


What If I document the whole upgrade process in video just in case something goes wrong???

do it!
i didnt upgrade yet.

[Jonas Rejman]

hmm... this is a bit scary.

[Cüneyt Kaya]

i love my rocket. cant imagine working without one.
would love to see the option for extended warranties and a comeback of the BT
rockets!

And btw. imho reds warranty handlings are really generous. and i am not sure but when buying gear from europe
you have a longer warranty because its sold under EU laws. (coreect me if i am wrong)

[Matt Ryan]

I have a rental rocket that is updated to latest firmware and working in RCX-Pro 10 without any issues. I just tested last night when I saw this thread. System reads the card no problem, Redcine x pro v10 reads the card, and I m getting real time playback and rendering. I wonder what the problem could be with some of the cards?

So far so good with the card I am using. Sorry to hear some are having problems. Is there anyone else like me that has a working card with the update?

[N_Villers]

I also had to pay the $3000 "replacement" fee 6 months after the warranty expired when my RR card died during a firmware update.

I had wanted to try to find a way to repair the dead card on my own (as unlikely as this is) but was told it cannot be returned to me.

Why is this?

This part of the policy does not make sense to me.

[axel ebermann]

I own you.

+50,000

I have a BT rocket, and would gladly fork out more dough to get some more warranty on it. 4800 dollars is a big chunk of change, and something as simple as a FW upgrade burning out the card is really scary. insurance won't cover malfunctions, and the customer overall is completely SOL. I'm sure a lot of people would want to just buy a RED armor for their existing rocket cards, just for the extra peace of mind for another 2 years. If RED claims it to be a very low percentage issue, it would be a win win situation on both sides, business wise and for appeasing customer worries.

edit: axel totally typed faster than me on this one :)

[M.Halsell]

Worrying for someone who just ordered! Hope I get lucky!

When one is paying that amount, luck really should not be a factor. :)

[Iain Philpott]

When one is paying that amount, luck really should not be a factor. :)

Looking at placing an order for $80,000. Totally agree.