After several years of trouble free operation, my empeg is giving me my first major problem. I take my empeg to work with me every night. (I work night shifts) Since my first empeg was stolen, I take it in its carrying case and store it in my locker religiously. Last night it was working perfectly, but this morning when I put it back in its sled and started my truck, the display was garbled. I pulled it out of the sled for a moment, then put it back to restart and there was no change. Now for the worst part: when it gets past the boot screen, it shuts down! The disk drives spin for a moment after the screen turns off, then they shut down too! When I got home I tried AC power with the same results. Can anyone give me a hint as to what is going on here? I've seen plenty of threads about garbled displays, but none of them describe shut down.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Norm

First thing, before applying power to the player again, make sure there isn't a loose screw inside the player.

The garbled display and the refusal to boot would generally be unrelated to each other, and might be a case of simultaneous coincidental failures, except in a situation like the one I warn about above.

Garbled display is usually blown fuse or display ribbon cable trouble, investigate those.

You said the player had several years of trouble free operation. If, during those several years, you never applied the 2.0 firmware upgrade, then refusal to boot could simply be hard disk trouble. 1.0x firmware simply refuses to boot if there is disk trouble. If the 2.0 firmware is on the player, then it would give a message about "hard disk not found" if there is disk trouble.

In any case, opening the player to investigate is your next step. Make sure to carefully follow the opening the player steps so that you don't damage anything in the process.

By the way, the link to MrMunsells fuse replacement page is now broken. Argh, I hate web rot. Anyone got an alternate?

Okay, I opened it up, no loose screws. I haven't ever unplugged the display ribbon cable (not on this one anyway) and by visual inspection, nothing seems to be wrong with it. I am using firmware version 2.0, so does anyone know where I can find a new tutorial for testing and replacing mainboard fuses?

Look for SMT fuses near the display ribbon connector on the motherboard. One of them is circled here.

Look for all components like that and do continuity tests on them.

Yeah, try this.

Stu

Yay! Go go gadget wayback machine! FAQ entry link fixed. Thanks!

I can't believe I didn't think of it, having already used it in identical situations before.

Perhaps it's because the *last* time I tried to use it, it failed me, and somehow that flipped the bit in my brain that told me it was a useful tool.

Wow! Thanks for your help guys! I've identified the blown fuse and ordered a replacement. With any luck, I'll be enjoying many more years of trouble free operation thanks to this great community!
-Norm