Korg Forums

I've searched heaps of forums and asked plenty of people but I can't seem to find a solution or diagnosis for the issue with the Korg SV-1 88 I bought last year.

After turning the keyboard on and playing for roughly 15 minutes, the sound will abruptly cut out and all of the backlights will turn off along the whole keyboard interface - all except for the backlight for the tube, which remains on! This is an intermittent problem that occurs randomly during play, while other times the sound doesn't cut out at all and the keyboard performs without fault!

Turning off the power and turning it back on instantly doesn't fix the problem, the tube backlight illuminates, but none of the backlights turn on and no sound is produced. However, waiting for about 10 minutes after turning the power off and turning it back on fixes the problem and sound is restored... until it cuts out again!

The problem developed about 2 months ago, but there was nothing that caused it - I'm very careful transporting it and I haven't bumped or jolted it in anyway that might induce some kind of problem.

Someone has suggested to me that it could be some kind of internal power supply defect or transformer fault. Thankfully, the keyboard is still covered under warranty and so I'm not copping the bill for any repairs. However, its still a seriously frustrating problem, because it means that I can't gig at all as long as this issue persists.

Any feedback or thoughts would be greatly appreciated. I'm handing the keyboard over to a local repair guy that I trust but i'd like to be able to give him a bit more information and maybe a potential diagnosis of the problem.

Thanks!

If it works for a bit and then stops, and then doesn't work until it's left off for a while it sounds like an overheating problem.

If everything dies, lights and sound, then it's probably something in the power supply.
The valve unit (including backlight) runs off 12V, whereas the rest of the instrument runs off 5V.

So it's likely something in the 5V half of the power supply gone dodgy. There might be something obvious from a visual inspection (like evidence of scorching or melting), or it might need a lot of poking around with a multimeter. Probably easiest to just replace the whole power supply, but I don't know how easy they are to come by outside of Korg's official repair network.

Thanks heaps oy5t3h! This gives me a starting point to solving this problem. Much appreciated!

13endo wrote:I've searched heaps of forums

I recommend you take it first to a KORG authorized repair facility in your area. This is the right way to diagnose the problem, I would have them fix the problem too. This way you are following the recommended way to treat problems with the keyboard. Hopefully, the problem ends there.

Let us know,

Ken

After more than a year with my current SV1 I'm having the same problem as of yesterday. poop