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sound stops after anhour (every time)


zajibo
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Hi guys,

I've been using the Helix floor for about 2 years now,

and I'm having an issue that apparently hasn't been posted here or in any other forums, or maybe no one had it...

here it is:

-->I turn the helix on,  everything works fine then suddenly after an hour or so, no sound coming in or out 

    I turn it off and leave it for 6 or 7 hours, turn it on again and it works but the same , after an hour or so no sound anymore .
 it doesn't freeze, I can still go through everything (Banks,presets,snapshots, settings, tuner ...)

somehow this started to happen since I updated to 2.80 (maybe not related to that) 
In the 2.80 it worked fine for few weeks, than it started to happen again...it happened also after I did 2.81  2.82 .2.90 .2.91  .
  Finally with 2.92 I didn't have this issue anymore until the 3.00 is released , I did it few days ago , after few hours the sound turned into noise progressively (the guitar sign input on the screen started blinking red ) than the sound is gone again.

I came back to the previous firmwares but still the same ...I have to leave it turned off for HOURS to work again for a little time.


when I say there's no sound at all I mean not even in the tuner . not even through the Aux input or microphone ...


Ofcourse I did all the troubleshooting possible  ( guitar works fine in other amps, jack cables works fine, bought even plenty of new ones just to be more than sure)

I did a test mode reboot , all inputs and outputs checked green. everything checked from red to green.
I did factory reset , global reset ... power supply cable used is the original, and I tried also another one.

 

just to narrow your answers , nothing ever happened to the helix (no chock, no hit , no water..)

 

I hope someone here have an answer or a solution that could help me fix that, even though I hope no one had this issue cause it's just frustrating.


(can't open a ticket cause I don't have a receipt to submit the registration, calling will be the next option if no one knows)

 

Helixely yours 


 

Edited by zajibo
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On 11/28/2020 at 7:15 AM, zajibo said:

can't open a ticket cause I had it as a gift and I don't have a receipt to submit the registration, calling will be the next option if no one knows

 

You don't need a receipt to register a Helix. Just the serial number from the unit itself!

You would need a receipt for warranty, but not for registration which gets you access to the ticket system. 

 

This is an odd problem... and it seems like you have gone over the usual suspects! 

 

The only thing I don't see mentioned (I think) is more related to power. If the voltage isn't stable or there is a ground fault the Helix may behave erratically. 

  • If it's connected to any power strips or extensions, remove them and try directly to the wall plug.
    (although for general use I do recommend keeping it on strip with surge protection)
  • Try different circuits within the home... 

Aside from that... I think you need to register that Helix and open a support ticket. Again... no receipt is needed for that! 

 

 

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I would open up a support ticket if you haven’t. I have seen occasional posts about people losing sound, but none of them seem to follow a set pattern. It could very well be hardware related, unfortunately. I use my Rack way more than my Floor, and I rarely turn it off. Even when I used my Floor more, I would leave it on for long stretches, and I’ve never run into these sorts of issues. So I don’t think it’s an expected behavior in any way.

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@codemedia heard, thank you for your answer , I agree it's safer to keep it with the surge protection, but even straight into the walls without extensions didn't change much about it.

 

indeed no receipt needed I've opened a support ticket .waiting to hear back from them with something helpful.

 

@phil_m for sure its not an expected behavior, and I believe it's not bad if you leave it on for long time .  I've checked other forums and found another user in a French forum  who said he had the same problem for few times but without doing anything it didn't happen anymore .

 

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16 minutes ago, PiFromBRC said:

Have you considered that the unit is overheating?

 

Make sure the heat vent on the bottom of the unit is not blocked by carpeting. Might be worth running a fan across the unit to see if this extends the time before the sound drops out. It does sound like you may have to open a ticket on this however. Curious btw, does this happen regardless of which preset you have selected? I've had my Helix out in the blazing sun as well as sitting on a carpet and never experienced the behavior you are describing.

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Based on how audio electronics works.... I suspect the "overheating" concept isn't far off.

 

It's probably one of these 3 thigns:

- a cold solder joint

- a single component that is out of spec (it can't handle running at the higher temperatures it is supposed to be able to run at)

- a component or circuit (power supply?) is generating higher heat inside the unit than is within normal operating parameters, causing other parts of the circuit to have issues as they overheat.

 

That is just circumstantial... I don't know the specific helix workings, but it does have a built in power supply, it does have solder joints, it does have components that could stop working if they were out of spec (just a random bad IC or something could do that, and would have gone unnoticed during manufacturer testing as it runs fine for first hour).

 

The problem with all of that is it would require a receipt and to be within warranty period to get repaired without having to foot the entire cost yourself.

 

I do hope I'm wrong, but I believe that if there was a firmware related issue that actually caused this problem, more people would experience it.

 

The interesting thing is that if it ran perfectly under 2.92 for you or whichever version, I wonder if there is any way shape or form that you could have it reflashed to the older firmware and keep using it, assuming you can't get warranty repair done?

 

Anyhow

 

I know that's not a very positive post :-)

 

And I'm not looking at the unit, nor would I be qualified to do so.  But I do know electronics, and any one of my above 3 scenarios could and does happen in electronics once in a while.  So, at the very least, it's 3 possible ideas for you to consider suggesting gets looked at.

 

One thing about cold solder joints - if that IS the problem, then hitting the unit (pretty hard, like don't damage it but give it a good rap once or twice on different sides)... that might actually let it contact again and produce sound (make sure you are generating guitar noise at the same time to see if it helps).  That wouldn't be a solution, but it would be a pretty solid diagnosis... and could help someone with serious surface mount soldering skills to maybe find the problem component and fix it.  Surface mount soldering is WAY beyond my skills....  but there are people who can do that stuff, with the right tools.

 

But that isn't a perfect test, and the other two issues aren't typically going to be solved by physically shaking the unit to regain contact between two parts that have lost electrical conductivity.

 

 

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Btw, thought I would be remiss not to ask if you had tried testing this with headphones to see if the sound is lost there as well. I have had more than a few powered monitors or PA speakers exhibit this behavior where they work fine for a while and then one of the boards overheats and it cuts out. May have already but I would eliminate my monitors as a possible source of the issue. 

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9 minutes ago, donkelley said:

...

 

One thing about cold solder joints - if that IS the problem, then hitting the unit (pretty hard, like don't damage it but give it a good rap once or twice on different sides)... that might actually let it contact again and produce sound (make sure you are generating guitar noise at the same time to see if it helps).  That wouldn't be a solution, but it would be a pretty solid diagnosis... and could help someone with serious surface mount soldering skills to maybe find the problem component and fix it. ...

 

 

 

Finally some expert technical justification for my favorite repair technique - give it a good knock to the side. Served me well for years now.

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Further to my previous post:

 

This is not a new problem. People have been reporting this since forever - I got my Floor in 2016, so at least that long. Actually, it used to be more common, and whether thru specific coding or random elimination when other things were changed, it's become less commonly reported. Also, it's not specific to the Floor, it happens on my Stomp, too, and has happened less thru the updates since I got it (Stomp is also on all day). Or it could just be my imagination that it's gotten better, and it's so random.....IOW, while it COULD be a temperature problem, it would be specific to the components in OP's box, and if it was a bad component, it would almost certainly have to have gone bad concurrent to 3.0, or he would have noticed the problem in 2.92.

 

OP mentioned the symptom of the audio turning to noise before fizzling out. This happened on mine very early on. I sent it in for service since I was getting random noises over S/PDIF, and they replaced "a couple of boards". It never did it again.

 

I'm with phil_m. Open a support ticket! Even if you don't have a receipt, if L6 thinks it is a manufacturing defect, they might fix it anyway. They're really good like that.

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When playing at home (which is pretty much all the time because 2020) I keep my floor units on furniture dollys.  It allows proper ventilation while giving me an easy store hack for fitting the units under my desk.  They're cheap as hell and a quick solution to the cable crisis most of us trip over at one time or another.

 

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On 11/28/2020 at 4:53 PM, rd2rk said:

Further to my previous post:

 

This is not a new problem. People have been reporting this since forever - I got my Floor in 2016, so at least that long.

Good to know!  How many people?  If hardware problem causing this exists in 0.1% of all units (just for example) - well this is a popular product,so that is a bunch of people right there. 

 

IOW, while it COULD be a temperature problem, it would be specific to the components in OP's box, and if it was a bad component, it would almost certainly have to have gone bad concurrent to 3.0, or he would have noticed the problem in 2.92.

Just to follow along with your point, firmware, given the same build number, is identical from unit to unit, so if 99.9% (again just for example) of all units running firmware X have no issues, and 0.1% of people running firmware X have this cutout problem after a while, then it isn't the firmware that is the problem, but maybe something in the firmware utilizes a certain piece of the helix hardware differently from other firmware builds, and therefore exploits this particular helix's hardware problem (the things I mentioned, weak/intermittent connection (cold solder joint), out of spec component, etc).

 

Also he had the problem prior to 2.92 as well.  So it's quite possible that 2.92 randomly didn't trigger the problem for him (and/or everyone with this issue),

or didn't trigger it on purpose:

....maybe line6 had a workaround in the firmware in 2.92 to avoid triggering a problem in a piece of hardware that has been deemed "iffy" from their supplier, or similar.  A revision "A" or something of their d/a converter, who knows... that has a certain bug in it's system, and line6 put a workaround in 2.92 to avoid the cutout after an hour.  And then maybe that workaround accidentally got left out of 3.0.  This stuff happens ALL THE TIME in firmware releases. Hardware is VERY challenging and expensive to repair/swap out/modify, if not impossible.  Firmware can sometimes be updated to work around a hardware issue.  Every computer bios has workarounds for hardware issues that get discovered on a given motherboard.  It's part of working in digital electronics.   ** AND If that is true, that it had a fw workaround in 2.92 that accidentally got left out of 3.0, then maybe line6 CAN fix it in a fw update 3.0.1 or whatever, which would be totally awesome!

 

 

 

OP mentioned the symptom of the audio turning to noise before fizzling out. This happened on mine very early on. I sent it in for service since I was getting random noises over S/PDIF, and they replaced "a couple of boards". It never did it again.

 

So then it WAS a hardware issue with your unit?  That kind of backs my theory too.

 

 

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49 minutes ago, donkelley said:

So then it WAS a hardware issue with your unit?

 

Maybe. Just because it hasn't happened since, doesn't mean it'll never happen again.

I know, kinda sux not being able to nail down a problem with absolute certainty.

Such is the nature of complex systems.

That's why I said to open a support ticket.

They get paid to deal with the unexplainable weirdness.

 

 

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