Hello, I recently tried updating my Motif XF8 and unfortunately had a power outage during the process. Now the Motif powers, show the logo and does nothing else. All keys are unresponsive. Any suggestions? Thanks in Advance

Yamaha designed the firmware update system in an extremely brittle way. It ought not to be so easy for a firmware update to turn a Motif into a brick, but as you’ve discovered a power failure can do it in a hurry. You will also wind up in the same boat if you accidentally flash an S90XS firmware to a Motif XS. (Oops!)

The problem is that there is no recovery partition on these machines. There’s no internal backup, and a standard part of the update procedure is to erase and rewrite the bootloader (i.e. the firmware updater itself!)

Unfortunately, it seems that Yamaha has firmly directed their authorized repair network to say that such a device is not repairable. You will be told that the problem is “a bad DM board”, which is the “motherboard” of the Motif. A new DM board costs ~$1000 USD nominally, but you may find that they are actually unavailable for purchase (this is the case with the Motif XS).

Fortunately (ha), that’s an awful lie on Yamaha’s part. The only problem with such a “broken” DM board is that it’s got the wrong 1’s and 0’s on a single memory chip. It can be fixed by flashing the correct data to that chip, but that requires two things:

1. Experience working with electronics repair, potentially including soldering experience depending on what tools and method will be used to fix the chip

2. The correct data to flash

Given a healthy donor Motif, I was able to safely create a backup of this critical data which Yamaha positioned so precariously. After multiple failed attempts to flash to the “bad” chip in-circuit, I had success instead via de-soldering it from the board (be very careful and use a heat gun, because it’s stuck on there with some high temp stuff), flashing the backup to it, and soldering it back to the board.

The chip on the board that you’re looking for is a TSOP-56, labeled adjacently IC515.

Backups such as this will be critical to saving countless Motifs from the landfill in the future. Share this post with an electronics repair person that you trust, but skip the Yamaha Authorized folks because it seems that their hands may be tied.

If you or your repair technician require further assistance or have any questions about this process, please send me an email via my profile page here. I don’t check this forum all that often.

check this thread:http://www.motifator.com/index.php?URL=http://motifator.com/index.php/forum/viewthread/473580