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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

RED ROCKET CARD DYING AFTER UPGRADE

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
 
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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.
 
Frank Cueto said:
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???
Click to expand...
do it!
i didnt upgrade yet.
 
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)
 
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?
 
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.
 
I own you.


Tom.Wong said:
+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 :)
Click to expand...
 
Problem solved.

Chad from Red support told me to turn on dip switch 8 which is the closest dip switch to the back of the card near a hole.

I reinstalled the driver and then updated the firmware.

This puts the card in safe mode and allows for firmware reloading.

So i was right, somehow my firmware got corrupted but thank god there is a way of putting the card in a safe mode or else that would have been $3000!

Good work RED support
 
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N_Villers said:
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.
Click to expand...


N_Villers, you sent it a card in for repair, and Red would not ship it back to you unless you paid $3000?

I thought there was just a $100 evaluation fee if you declined the repair?


When our card died I tried to start a poll to get a better sense of red rocket failures.
That thread was deleted within minutes.
Maybe the poll should be hosted somewhere else.

Something like this:

Curious to know if anyone has the original red rocket (green pcb) and has it working with current Epic supporting firmware/driver (1.4.14/15/16) ?
and recognized in RCX PRO?


and if you had a rocket card that failed...


1. Which version of the rocket did you own that failed?

Red Rocket V1 (Green PCB)
Red Rocket V2 (Red PCB)


2.When did the rocket stop working?

After Firmware update
Next time computer was powered up
?

4. What were the symptoms?

SV_ERROR_DRIVER_MEMORYINIT, On card memory init failed.
SV_ERROR_DRIVER_HWCHECK, Driver hardware check failed
Firmware update ok, but RCX, etc do not work "RR Callback - Decode Failed" errors
?

4. What was the diagnosis of what caused the failure? What was the output of the DVS_test utility?
?


What was the resolution?

$3000 repair bill
warranty repair
dip switch 8/default firmware - resolved it.
?
 
Experienced hdsdi output failure after latest FW upgrade - card works fine but no hdsdi output :(
 
roryhinds said:
agree this is a major issue if RR cards are dying after a firmware update and no support is given.
Click to expand...

If you'd read the whole thread you'd see that support has been given:

Adam Eden said:
Problem solved.

Chad from Red support told me to turn on dip switch 8 which is the closest dip switch to the back of the card near a hole.

I reinstalled the driver and then updated the firmware.

This puts the card in safe mode and allows for firmware reloading.

So i was right, somehow my firmware got corrupted but thank god there is a way of putting the card in a safe mode or else that would have been $3000!

Good work RED support
Click to expand...
 
I have an original green Rocket and it's still working perfectly with the current Epic upgrades.

Christopher*Seguine said:
N_Villers, you sent it a card in for repair, and Red would not ship it back to you unless you paid $3000?

I thought there was just a $100 evaluation fee if you declined the repair?


When our card died I tried to start a poll to get a better sense of red rocket failures.
That thread was deleted within minutes.
Maybe the poll should be hosted somewhere else.

Something like this:

Curious to know if anyone has the original red rocket (green pcb) and has it working with current Epic supporting firmware/driver (1.4.14/15/16) ?
and recognized in RCX PRO?


and if you had a rocket card that failed...


1. Which version of the rocket did you own that failed?

Red Rocket V1 (Green PCB)
Red Rocket V2 (Red PCB)


2.When did the rocket stop working?

After Firmware update
Next time computer was powered up
?

4. What were the symptoms?

SV_ERROR_DRIVER_MEMORYINIT, On card memory init failed.
SV_ERROR_DRIVER_HWCHECK, Driver hardware check failed
Firmware update ok, but RCX, etc do not work "RR Callback - Decode Failed" errors
?

4. What was the diagnosis of what caused the failure? What was the output of the DVS_test utility?
?


What was the resolution?

$3000 repair bill
warranty repair
dip switch 8/default firmware - resolved it.
?
Click to expand...
 
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