Kronos Died!!!

[fmagic2000]

Hi everyone,

I usually come to the site and glean the funny and useful info from the members of this forum and enjoy reading everyone's input including their experiences, but now this time I feel I had to post something out of frustration.

I'm not here to troll, but just wanted to express my disappointment of the brief experience I had with my Kronos 61. I've had my Kronos for about one year now and it has only been used on at least 10 occasions with about an hour of up-time for each instance - unfortunately, the nature of my job this past year has not allowed me to spend time with the Kronos as I had planned.

It has been treated with the best of care and mainly covered and unplugged when not in use for long periods and when in use during those times it is plugged into a UPS with surge protection and is always powered on/off according to Korg's instructions.

Now, I was planning to upgrade the OS to version 2.0 the weekend before last. I turned on the unit and all I get are lit LEDs for the joystick and some brief LED disk activity and a black screen - after that, next to nothing. In short, I now have an expensive $3000+ paperweight. And to add insult to injury, I had registered my Korg on Korg USA's website - I distinctly remember entering my public ID when I registered at the time and added the option of getting notifications via email - and now Korg support (via a phone call and a recent email) has no record of my registration on their site and yet I still do get their emails as to when EXi libraries, OS updates, etc. are available.

I don't understand why this would happen. This unit is in mint condition and it has never been used for gigging. I have other keyboards that are 20+ years old and I'm able to still turn them on without any problems and still use the original floppy disks!

Since I purchased Kronos through Sweetwater, I am now forced to use their warranty instead. I still think the Kronos is a wonderful piece of machinery but it's unfortunate to be in this situation. It may be do to having one of the earlier units that got past QA since my serial number is in the 200s - I now know what Jahrome was going through when he was dealing with problems with the Kronos this past year.

Anyway, enough of my ranting I need to get this fixed in a hurry - hopefully, this won't happen again.

Sincerely,
fmagic2000

[AnthonyB]

Someone with more knowledge will chime in here later i hope, and "See" your problem more. However, the first thing that came to my mind though was a "Disk Failure". (I had a perfect working PC that refused to work on the day i tuned it on) Hope you get it sorted though...


Tony

[DennyC]

Tough break, my heart goes out to you! Good luck.

[roblof]

This could indicate a faulty power supply or a dead i/o-lcd-board (shark).

The i/o-lcd is separate from the pc-stuff (mobo) inside your kronos.

This means that even if the mobo is dead the shark will still display some initial boot screen as long as the power supply works.

The shark can in some circumstances get killed by a 'problematic' usb connection to your computer or other connected stuff that uses mains power.

Warning! Don't do this if you are using a pacemaker or otherwise have detoriated health. There might be half the mains voltage between the two shields. The current is normaly not lethal but nevertheless be carefull
To test this disconnect your usb cable from your kronos and touch the usb shielding on the cable at the same time you touch your kronos at the usb connector shield.

If you feel it then you know what might have killed your kronos.

Good luck!

[pressrecord@hotmail.com]

fmagic-- Very sorry to hear about it!

I know it's easy for me to say, but trust that Korg/Sweetwater is going to honor your warranty and fix it up like new.

I wouldn't troubleshoot it myself because I would probably just make it worse. I would just send it to Sweetwater and know they are going to take care of you right.

Let us know what happens regardless. I treat mine with kid gloves (all of my other synths as well, esp the oldies) and who knows-- this could happen to me and/or any of us.

[JPWC]

Don't treat your Kronos so kind, it will get the wrong idea. Personally, I occasionally go to Glodal Mode and detune the Kronos, then its gets a little embarressed, not being in tune with the other keyboards. After doing my Kronos has straightened up and not caused me any problems.


Have you tried booting with nothing connected to the USB ports?
Have you tried booting with the dvd

good luck.

[cello]

Off topic...

Don't treat your Kronos so kind, it will get the wrong idea. Personally, I occasionally go to Glodal Mode and detune the Kronos, then its gets a little embarressed, not being in tune with the other keyboards. After doing my Kronos has straightened up and not caused me any problems.

That's hilarious - think I'll adopt that for all my keyboards from time to time to make sure they behave!!!

[Stevesan]

One year. Ten hours... I think it died from broken heart neglected like taht, stupid work!...

Too bad this happened to you. Mine is at the service company right now. No fun, but hey... what can one do?

Hope you get it fixed really soon.

[fmagic2000]

Ok guys, my Kronos is back from Sweetwater's repair. It turns out that the repair tech confirmed my observations and he was able to re-seat the memory and get it back up and running - he even updated the OS and back-up my data for me as well.

Now I'm a happy camper! Only this time around if it ever needs fixing in the future it'll be because I'll be using it so much til the knobs fall off!!

Thanks again for the support. Hopefully, I'll be able to contribute to this forum too as you guys have already done.

BTW, this may sound silly but the Kronos to me is like a NED Synclavier or Fairlight CMI I always dreamed about but could never afford back in the early days.

-fmagic2000

[Francois]

I suggest you modify the title of your post, which is fairly dramatic, considering your problem was quite an easy one to fix.

Something like adding - fixed at the end of the title would make it less dramatic.