M Audio Venom Boot Freeze help please

[coldwar]

Hi all I have an M Audio Venom synth that is having an issue. It previously worked but now freezes at boot, only displaying VENOM at the bottom of the display with nothing else. It does not respond to any controls or buttons and does not make sound. I have tried several suggestions of new power adapters, soft and hard factory reset, plugging and unplugging a USB cable, and updating the firmware via USB (no go due to the boot freeze). The computer recognized it was plugged in and even loaded the appropriate Venom driver which leads me to believe that the usb controller chip works but is either not communicating with the cpu or just the cpu being frozen either by a bit of damaged code or something physical. When I tested the voltages on the motherboard and else where on the button and knob boards, 3.3 and 5v rails were present and pumping fine. I even tried the DREAM RESET jumper to hopefully just reset the cpu. There are some debug headers on the mobo so I am hopeful that it can be jumpstarted somehow. Just wondering if someone out there had some experience with this machine or have encountered this boot freeze before. I appreciate any help and ideas to help get it going again. Thanks

[Jasper2]

Hi,
I have an identical problem with my Venom. Did you find a way to sort it out ? If so I would be eternally grateful if you could tell me how you did it as it's driving me up the wall.
Many thanks

[Yekuku]

I just got one exhibiting the same behaviour, stuck on boot , showing Venom on screen.
The service manual is on Facebook Venom group, on files section , according to a post on this page:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/m.audio ... 562133692/

[Yekuku]

I think that this thread needs an update.
It has been more than 10 days that I have contacted M-audio about this issue.
I have messaged them twice but got no reply.
Way to go AVID! Worst customer experience ever ! I think that professionals should avoid this company.
EDIT: Just got a reply saying that it is a legacy product and that they can not provide detailed assistance for this product.
I disassembled the VENOM and I was surprised by the quality that this thing has been manufactured.
Its freaking awful, just like some Chinese toys you can get for 1-2 dollars.
Hot glue all over the place, broken / cracked plastic screw holes and soldering quality that reminds me my youth.
Anyways , problem was solved , for some strange reason the firmware got corrupted, re -installing the firmware did the trick and brought the unit back to life.
Actually the problem was that I was not getting a proper reset to the main ARM cpu, this reset line was supposed to be generated by the Dream DSP, but the DSP was in unknown state due to corrupted firmware.
I hope this helps someone in the future .

[meatballfulton]

Just got a reply saying that it is a legacy product and that they can not provide detailed assistance for this product.

This is the biggest piece of #$%^ that I hear over and over again. What, you lost all the service manuals?

I am so tired of customer service reps who are trained to deflect any questions about anything not on the list of "current" products. It's just a bean counter decision. If a product was discontinued far enough in the past any money spent on supporting customers who still use it is considered to be a waste of money, as if having you buy more of their products isn't important.

I have already scratched a couple of companies off my list after customer service nightmares. Looks like M-Audio is on that list now, too

[Yekuku]

I hear you buddy , unfortunately this a common tactic for many companies.
I was expecting from a company that used to be a leader in music technology, to be more supportive, especially in problems that are not hardware related but due to buggy firmware that can get corrupted without user error.
I am not blaming them, they can do whatever they want , but I will put the blame on me if I buy anything from them in the future.