Half of keybed defective - Korg i5S

iCracky · Post by **iCracky** » Sat Nov 30, 2013 6:05 pm

Hi there,

I just bought my first velocity sensitive keyboard online for 120 euros, which seemed like a reasonable price to me as I have no knowledge on keyboards whatsoever. It was delivered within a day, only for me to find out that half of the keys on my new Korg i5S, are defective.

It's the 29 notes on the right which are not responding no matter what settings I try, so I'm quite convinced it's a hardware problem, maybe a simple cable that got disconnected during transport?

I believe I found the source of my problem in the first minute of the video in the link below, where a guys shows there's a 'cable' for each half of the notes and how those cables are easily reconnected.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nXtmoErQk4

I tried to screw the top of the i5S but it won't come off that easy and I am scared to apply any real force. Any tips on this? Should I do this myself as it seems like an easy repair? How much would it cost to have this repaired by a professional?

Any help on this would be very much appreciated

Apologies for any broken english, me from holland

karmathanever · Post by **karmathanever** » Sun Dec 01, 2013 12:25 am

Hi and welcome to Korg Forums

I used to own the i3 and i30 but am not familiar with the i5S although they were similar keyboards.

I may be wrong, but I doubt that the keybed on this 61-key keyboard is split electronically - larger keyboards may well be split.
Are you sure it is not just a volume/mute setting?
Put it into SOUND mode (i.e. not for STYLE playing) where you play the whole keyboard as a single sound and see if it works OK.
(I was just concerned that you were in STYLE mode and the right hand sound (right-hand split on the keyboard) was muted.

You may have already tried this.
Can you perform a factory reset on the keyboard?

I hope there is someone around with an i5S that can help.
I will do a little research for you.

Cheers

Pete

iCracky · Post by **iCracky** » Sun Dec 01, 2013 4:05 pm

Thank you Pete for the quick response,

I'm afraid the i5S has slightly different keys then the other models as I can't find any key implying 'sound mode' (closest thing is 'sound hold' , next to 'chord hold', I doubt that's what you mean). Double checked the manual as well

I think you mean the 'keyboard assign' where the right hand can be split from the left, I did put this on 'single mode' though so the entire keybed should have the same output.

I wanted to try a reset, but the disk flop was not included and my seller didn't have it either (yes, it's a mystery for me as well whether I got ripped off or not, seller seemed very trustworthy though). Tried looking for a new disk but couldn't find any for the i5S.

I've got an pretty good example for how I got convinced this might be a hardware problem:

As I connected the keyboard to my computer with a MIDI cable, Synthesia responded to muted notes as well (when I mute the left side of my keyboard), but it made no response at all to the notes I believe to be 'disconnected'

I would very much like to check the inside of this thing to check if the guy in the video might be right, but even as I have the top half screwed loose, it still won't come off. Could you tell me how this is done with the other models?

Tom

karmathanever · Post by **karmathanever** » Mon Dec 02, 2013 12:42 am

I wanted to try a reset, but the disk flop was not included and my seller didn't have it either (yes, it's a mystery for me as well whether I got ripped off or not, seller seemed very trustworthy though). Tried looking for a new disk but couldn't find any for the i5S.

Hi Tom
You can download the "pload" factory data here (for resetting):-
http://www.korgpa.com/pa_root/software/ ... reload.zip
...and the manual...
http://www.korgpa.com/pa_root/pdf/histo ... UM-ENG.zip

Let me know if you have any trouble with this.

Cheers

Pete

iCracky · Post by **iCracky** » Mon Dec 02, 2013 1:04 am

Hey Pete!

Thanks a lot for the factory settings! Do I have to put these on a floppy disk? Because I wouldn't know where to find those, would have to for a museum or something to get one haha.

As for my problem: FIXED IT! just finished screwing everything back, feeling like a friggin' boss

Found 4 hidden screws in the back trough this service manual, even though these things are like Chinese to me:
http://elektrotanya.com/korg_i5s_servic ... nload.html

Opened it up and guess what? The guy in the video was right after all, one of those bus cables or whatever you call them came loose during transport (there is one for each half in this model after all). It was very hard to reach but pushed it back using a tea spoon.. due to lack of proper instruments.. and BWAM problem fixed. me so happy right now.

Did come up with some new problems/questions though, will be posting these tomorrow in a new topic, for now I couldn't be more happy with this baby

Thank you for the help man! Really cool of you to help people so actively

karmathanever · Post by **karmathanever** » Mon Dec 02, 2013 2:35 am

Hi Tom

Ah yes - the old floppy disks...

Well I have a FD drive and some blanks - would you like me to post you a copy of the pload?

I'll PM my e-mail address to you so we can privately exchange contact details if you wish to go ahead.

Congrats on fixing it - awesome!!!

Hope you realise now that you are responsible for fixing the world's i5s problems

Pete