Hello All - As a proud new owner, I am eager to upgrade my software version soon (I am away from home right now). I see in the manual that the player can only be software upgraded via the serial port. Trouble is as my computer is legacy-free, I have no serial port. Is there a hack available that would allow the upgrade via USB? Thanks - John

Technoweenie
12 GB Blue / Red MK2

Unfortunately, there is no way (at this time) to upgrade the Empeg via the USB port. Only serial right now.

You will be able to upgrade with USB or Ethernet in the future, but those would require starting with a newer version of the software to begin with, and you're in a catch-22.

Also, the USB/Ethernet upgrade methods will only be useful if you've got a working player. If something has gone wrong during the upgrade process, causing the player software to fail, then you would still be forced to fall back to serial as the emergency upgrade method. So really, you still need a serial port in the long run.

The reason for all this trouble is because the protected power-on-boot firmware can only talk to the serial port. USB and Ethernet aren't active until after Linux has loaded from the hard disk. So if your player is totally hosed and the software can't boot from the hard disk, the only recourse is to talk to the serial port at power-on.

And finally, you can't use my Logo Editor without a serial port, so now you definitely need to have one.

There are adapters available which will let you add serial ports via the USB plugs. Although I've never heard of any Empeg owners trying an upgrade with one of these adapters, I assume it would work. Does anyone have (a) experience with these, and/or (b) links to these products?

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Tony Fabris

There are adapters available which will let you add serial ports via the USB plugs. Although I've never heard of any Empeg owners trying an upgrade with one of these adapters, I assume it would work. Does anyone have (a) experience with these, and/or (b) links to these products?

It does work. However, if the legacy-free PC has a free PCI slot, you should look for dual serial port PCI cards -- they can be cheaper than USB-to-serial adapters.

Peter

Thanks for that information.

Another thing I just realized... You could perform the upgrade on a friend's computer. It's not like you need to do the updates every day or anything.

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Tony Fabris

I have experience with such things. I have an 8 port serial hub on a USB port and i can say it works fine for everything from syncing palm pilots, to modems to american express smart card readers.

Calvin

Thanks All
I never thought of using another computer, silly me! I did think of using an adapter cable, but could not find one at a recent visit to a shop....as for my system having a free PCI slot, nope! I own an AST Century City microtower and it has no expandability whatsoever, I had to pratically crack open the case to install more memory. It uses an all-in-one mobo so it has no slots at all. I guess another computer will be the logical and easiest solution. John

Technoweenie
12 GB Blue / Red MK2