Kurzweil K2000 boot problems

[emzakluk]

Just picked up a non-functioning Kurzweil K2000 from Craigslist for really cheap, taking a gamble whatever problems it had might be easily fixable. When I try to boot it up, it looks like the screen glitches out or something— it displays all black pixels, which kind of gradually dissolve into a glitchy pattern then finally a blank screen. There's no sound, and none of the LED lights ever turn on except for the one on the floppy disk drive.

I've tried one of the reboot options (holding 1-2-3 while rebooting) and that had no effect. No menus come up at all.

I've tried replacing the AA batteries (which I understand can cause some problems when low), opened it up and looked for some loose connections, which I didn't really find. It had an internal hard drive installed (which I understand was an optional feature back in the day— I think these keyboards were supposed to run on the floppy disk and internal RAM/ROM primarily, with installing a hard drive being an option if you wanted to expand its patch memory). I tried removing the hard disk and booting up without it and had the same problem.

The guy who sold it to me said he heard from a friend that the hard drive might need to be reformatted, though he didn't exactly strike me as an expert so I take his opinion with a grain of salt.

Anyone familiar with this board and have any idea what's up? I understand it's supposed to be a classic so I'd be pretty excited to sort this out.

Thanks!

[The Elf]

Unfortunately that sounds pretty terminal to me. The K2000 should boot perfectly well with no assistance from the hard or floppy drive, so anything to do with the drives is irrelevant, I would say.

There are a few Kurzweil old-hands hereabouts, so hopefully they will chime in with some diagnostic suggestions, but I really would manage your expectations.

[BJG145]

Have you tried testing MIDI in/out...? If you try the hard reset you mentioned, you'll want to follow through with pressing <Enter>, switching off and on, then waiting a minute, in case it's just a display problem. (Also note the point on the above link about leaving the batteries out for at least half an hour before replacing.) If you don't mind poking around inside it while it's unplugged, I'd try reseating any RAM and cables , then thinking about removing any additional options like a Daughterboard.

(Also note that buttons can get pretty hammered on these old synths, so I'd be pressing down hard and wiggling them a little to ensure contact.)

[James Perrett]

The first thing that I'd do is check the power supply rails with a voltmeter.

[SynthfulDwarphus]

Did you ever solve or make any headway on this problem?

I recently got a K2000R with the EXACT same symptoms. I was able to narrow down the issue to the Audio board (the one with the power supply) but I'm not sure how to test the power supply rails, etc.

Since the K2000 was around for so long, and seems to have a number of issues caused by the power supply (old capacitors, etc.) , is there any tutorial on how to test specifically the K2000 supply ?

[Ciotton]

Did you ever solve or make any headway on this problem?

I recently got a K2000R with the EXACT same symptoms. I was able to narrow down the issue to the Audio board (the one with the power supply) but I'm not sure how to test the power supply rails, etc.

Since the K2000 was around for so long, and seems to have a number of issues caused by the power supply (old capacitors, etc.) , is there any tutorial on how to test specifically the K2000 supply ?

Checking the voltages coming from the transformer is easy, just disconnect the 6-pole cable that goes from the transformer to the Audio/Power card of the K2000, then, for convenience, fix this block of cables with scotch tape on a point of the chassis where there are none "obstacles" or contacts with other metal parts or with the two boards. Once the block of the transformer cables is fixed, turn on the K2000 (obviously since those 6 cables are not connected, the two boards will not be powered, but now, if you haven't already done so since more than 2 years have passed, you need know what voltages are supplied on that 6-pole connector: those 6 cables correspond to the so-called "secondary" of the transformer, i.e. the area of ​​the transformer which allows for lower voltages to be obtained than that of the reey, 110, 127 or 230 volts depending of the country where you are) and usable u multimeter (a tester), positioning the cursor on "alternating voltage" on no less than 20 volts, preferably if you have the option to select a higher voltage as an option (when you make these measurements, remember that you must always set the cursor of the multimeter on a higher voltage level than the one you need to measure, this is to read the results, but above all for your safety), then place the point black lead (the one that connects to the multimeter's com connector and corresponds to ground) on pin 2 of the 6-pole connector that is normally fixed to the Audio/Power card, which should correspond to the white cable and then connect the red lead (after having connected to the connector located on the multimeter that allows you to measure voltage) to the first blue cable you see on one side of the 6-pole connector, then connect it to pin 3 (on the other blue cable). By doing so you should measure (if the transformer works correctly) between 16v and 17.5v in both cases Doing the same thing there, but this time placing the black test lead on pin 5, which usually has a black color and consequently the red test lead once on pin 4 and then on pin 6 (both red) you should measure between 6v and the 7.5v. Once this is done, all you have to do is turn off the K2000, put the multimeter away and reconnect the 6-pin connector on the Audio/Power board.
I have a problem on the Audio/Power board and it is not possible to understand what it depends on, I am going by exclusion but it remains an enigma.