Samsung NX1000 Firmware Freeze

[monkeyruler90]

I was updating my Samsung NX1000 last night to firmware 1.15 from 1.14 and i had a freshly formatted card with a charged battery. I proceeded to do the regular update and it began normally but then it stalled at 99%( the bar was almost full) for close to an hour. I removed the battery and tried to reset the camera but now the camera does not turn on at all. All it does is the status lamp blinks either green or orange and the autofocus lamp blinks. There is no other response or even menu, the screen is blank.

I bought the camera on 11/30/2012 so it is past it's warranty. Has anything happened to anyone and did they have a solution? i think the motherboard is frozen and I wouldn't mind replacing it but I can't find the spare parts online.


Anyone have any suggestions? is it just worth it to upgrade to the NX300 now?

 

[Sisung]

I had this happen to my NX1000, fortunately I sent it off for warranty repair. In the return sheet they mentioned an issue with the motherboard. I would get the NX300 myself.

 

[Coldamus]

It is extremely unlikely that the motherboard was physically damaged. What may have happened is that a read or write error occurred when near the end of the firmware update process. The old firmware may have been partly overwritten when the lockup occurred while the new firmware was not yet fully in effect. Consequently the existing firmware may now be damaged and inoperative.

However that is the worst case scenario. My observation of the firmware update process on other NX cameras is that it is a well-designed process that does not overwrite the old firmware until a successful update is almost assured. If I recall correctly, at least one user on this forum was able to complete an interrupted firmware update by allowing the camera to try again.

I expect you've already tried that. In case there's a problem with the current sd card, you might try putting the firmware update file/s on another card and trying to start the camera again, then wait for some time to see whether it continues and completes the update. Before doing so, ensure the write-protect tab of the sd card is not in the protected position. I think one of the final actions of the update process is to write back to the card indicating success of the firmware update. Until that action occurs, it should keep trying to complete the update.

If the camera won't even start sufficiently to attempt reading the card, you are probably out of luck. If so, try ringing Samsung support. They may offer to help even though the warranty period has expired.

 

[ttbek]

You could try updating through the Samsung software, it might still recognize the camera, it's a really long shot though. If you're knowledgeable about hardware you could try flashing the device directly, you can learn a bit about that by reading on what to do when flashing a router goes downhill on the DD-WRT forums (though they are rather tough to search and navigate... I couldn't find a good link to the info in a reasonable amount of time for you). I'm not sure how much information would be applicable to the NX cameras anyway.

If you're set on replacement parts, you can find a bunch here: http://www.samsungparts.com/PartsList.aspx?Catalog=Parts_and_Accessories&SearchKey=NX1000

I believe they are the actual supplier/importer of parts for Samsung US, as they had referred me to them to for more info on the SEF580A. Kinda hard to tell what each part is though T.T There is also a service manual, no idea if it has any useful info though.

Another site that is I think clearer and probably more complete is this one: http://www.samsungpartsnl.com/samsung-model/evnx1000babnl.htm

I believe they are based in Europe, given their Euro pricing. Kinda pricey too, the part listed as the mainboard is like 162 Euros. I'm not even sure that's the part you would need though.

Cheapest option is probably to pay for Samsung to fix it. It's possible that they'll be kind and fix it free as someone else said, but lets not count on that, it just might be the cheapest route even paying though.