MPC5000 reviews, bug reports and fellow user support on the most recent standalone, hardware MPC from Akai
By donlimpio Tue Aug 17, 2010 3:23 pm
I have encountered the minor hiccup from time to time, just like the rest of us, but since yesterday I'm in the land of plenty crashes. Just like that.

I was previewing a sample and she froze. Rebooted, MPC froze on the 'initializing modes' screen. Rebooted again, MPC froze on loading what few of the program I had saved so far. Rebooted, succeeded in loading the program and tried to add some of the missing samples again: 5 samples in she froze again. Reboot reboot. Loaded in all samples and saved: MPC froze while saving: the whole program corrupted on disk!

Countless other freezing during the rest of the day, sometimes just during playback (not even sequencing, just as a midi-driven sample playback box).

I gave up in the end, and I'm pretty scared to come home tomorrow and see if it still persists.

Here's to hoping for the best, but after this I'm reluctant to take it with me on the road for live shows. Pity..
By donlimpio Tue Aug 17, 2010 6:56 pm
OS 2.0 - I'm not actively using the hard disk a lot of the time so I don't think that's the cause. Of course it could be that the hard disk is doing something at the moment.

I'm not home tonight, and probably won't be tomorrow either - hell, I'm practically living out of a sports bag for the moment, but I'll keep you guys posted once I know more. I left the machine on for a couple of days, so maybe it's some sort of overheating issue (that it shouldn't have). I'll make sure to tell you if the 'damage' is permanent.

Thx,
Thomas
By donlimpio Tue Oct 12, 2010 11:10 am
Left the MPC unused for 2 months - busy at work - but I decided to try it again a couple of days ago, hoping that for some reason it would not crash constantly. Unfortunately it did. I got it to hang for about ten times in all types of situations, but never doing weird stuff (like mashing buttons while saving). Even just turning it on and doing nothing ( no MIDI in either ) for 5 minutes got it to hang... Too bad...

Any suggestions on what to do? Reformat the hard-drive? Re-install the O.S. (does it do this if you don't give it a never version of the O.S. than the installed one?).. Apart from that all I can do is send it back to MusicStore... Too bad. I like the machine if it works right, and I made some good tracks on it that I would have loved to perform live, but given it's track record I can't trust it - last week's rehearsal with a bass player was kind of embarassing: I had to send him home after an hour of non-stop crashing!

Cheers,
hoping to get this solved / fixed,

Thomas
By donlimpio Mon Nov 15, 2010 11:08 am
Unfortunately I have not been able to solve this problem :-(

I formatted the hard drive and reloaded the O.S. but I keep getting the same problem: even booting up the machine and letting it run on idle for a while locks up the whole machine...

As a last resort I would think about changing the RAM, but it is the factory RAM (not the expansion), and I don't feel like going on a big search for compatible RAM so I think I'm sending this one back to Music Station.. Besides, if I'm not even doing anything the RAM shouldn't be causing so much trouble.. Hopefully I can get a decent one in return, but with this experience the question is how long it'll work..

I'll keep you guys posted on how this pans out.
Cheers,
DL
By donlimpio Wed Nov 17, 2010 8:32 pm
I bought it at Music Store and it's still under warranty - they're picking it up on friday with UPS and will replace it. That's the easiest option for me. I wouldn't know where the authorized repair centers are, actually - besides, I'd rather have another unit than have this one repaired; I don't trust this box anymore.