NEC PA500U problems

[Casey, Andrew W]

Hello All,

 

I’ve recently been having this error on our NEC-PA500U projectors.  The status light blinks red (4) times.  This indicates a cooling fan error according to NEC.  What’s confusing is the fan is running fine.  Simply unplugging the power cable and plugging it back in fixes it for a few days to a few weeks.  Please let me know if this has happened to any of you. 

 

Thanks!

 

Drew Casey

Media Services Specialist

Information Technology

Vanderbilt University- School of Engineering

drew....@vanderbilt.edu

phone 615.322.3697

cell 615.999.0292

it.vanderbilt.edu

 

 

 

 

[Andrew Sharpe]

Hi Casey,

I have that exact same projector in one room.  A little over a month ago it gave me that same error about the cooling fan.  By the time I took it out of the room, put up a short term replacement, took it up to the bench to check it out it started working as it should.  I could hear a difference in the fans between having an error and not.  Since it started working again I have had zero problems.

I was thinking I must have gotten a unit with a bad fan but it sounds like this could be a larger issue if somebody else had the same thing.  A coworker was thinking somebody stuck a piece of paper in it just right to catch the fan and my moving it knocking it loose.  I honestly can not say but it is working as it should for the moment.  

Drew

Andrew Sharpe, CTS

Manager of Technical Services

Elliott University Center

The University of North Carolina at Greensboro

336-334-5800

The right thing to do never requires any subterfuge, it is always simple and direct.

- Calvin Coolidge

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[Steven Douglas]

We had an intermittent problem with another brand that turned out to be
position sensitive. Hanging upside down a poorly mounted sensor moved
under vibration and would send a bad error code. Taking it down and
running it for literally hours on the bench showed nothing. We finally
built a ceiling simulator (pipe frame on boards) and hung it as it would
be on the ceiling to get it to malfunction. The manuf. suggested adding
a wire tie to hold the sensor. Don't know if that is what you are
seeing but it sounds similar.



Steven Douglas, Media Engineer
Central Washington University
ITS - Media Support
400 E University Way
Ellensburg, WA 98926-7436

PH. 509-963-1232, FAX. 509-963-1169
eM. dou...@cwu.edu
www.cwu.edu/~media


>>> Andrew Sharpe <amsh...@uncg.edu> 10/29/2013 11:00 AM >>>

[Keith Mills]

We saw this in a bunch of PA-500U projectors that were installed last summer.  The solution for us was a firmware update, or new fans in the cases where the fans actually didn’t start.

 

K.

 

Manager, Classroom Services

IT—Communications/Media

MLB 25, 2500 University Drive, NW

Calgary, Alberta, Canada

T2N 1N4

Phone:  (403)-220-6386

E-mail:  kmi...@ucalgary.ca

--

[Nathan Burge]

We have about 70 of these projectors on our campus and have encountered this issue a few times.  If you have the projectors networked, you should see 'Fan Error' as the status.

I've have been able to get one replaced by NEC, but only after leaving the projector in its state of error and calling NEC support.  Unfortunately this is not practical for most classrooms.

We heard about the possibility of a firmware update being available for this projector, but our NEC rep and the support folks I spoke with denied it.

Good luck!

Nathan

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--

Nathan G. Burge, MA, CTS, DMC-D
Multimedia Architect
Multimedia Services
Information Technology Services
Saint Louis University
314-977-1665 Office Phone
314-713-6591 Mobile Phone

[Snow, George]

we recently experience the same issue for a second time on the same projector. the 2 instances occurred months apart. the unit has yet to actual stop working while in use.

______________________

George Snow 

Audiovisual • Technical Services

University of New Hampshire

603 862 1430

[Elaine M Mello]

Hi Drew,

 

We had two out of three purchased last January have this problem and NEC replaced them.  It was probably before the firmware update, but the power reset was the only way we could get them working for our classes.

 

Elaine

 

 

Elaine Mello, CTS
Distance Education & Streaming Operations Manager
MIT Office of Digital Learning
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
77 Massachusetts Avenue - Rm 10-337
Cambridge, MA 02139

    Tel:  617-452-2172
Mobile:  617-719-5279

Call me on Jabber Video: emell...@amps.ms.mit.edu

 

From: av...@googlegroups.com [mailto:av...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Casey, Andrew W
Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2013 1:54 PM
To: av...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [av-1] NEC PA500U problems

 

Hello All,

--

[Bonchi, Joseph]

Have you checked with NEC. I have found many times manufactures’ have “secret” service bulletins where there is a known issue and a fix, but they do not announce it publically. I had that with Epson 7800’s several years back, where there was a known power supply overheating issue which they would fix if asked, but they did not issue a formal service bulletin since the unit was still in production. I actually found out through this group when someone else mentioned it. I asked my Epson rep who was unaware until he called corporate and confirmed the issue. I then got all my 7800’s updated and my issue went away.

 

Joe Bonchi, (bon...@njit.edu)

Assistant Director

Instructional Technology and Media Services

New Jersey Institute of Technology

GITC 0300

218 Central Avenue           Voice (973) 596-3005

Newark, N.J. 07102           Fax (973) 596-6465

 

[Casey, Andrew W]

I have.  Unfortunately I have been unable to get any answers other than “send it back.”  I’m trying to get in touch with the regional service manager to get to the bottom of this.  There are too many of us that have had this issue to just be a “chance” error.  These are great projector for the most part which makes this even more frustrating.  Also these were purchased in October of 2011 just to add some context.

 

Thanks for all your feedback!

[Charles Barbour]

I had a similar issue getting support a few years ago from Panasonic. They were unaware of any problems and that my experiences were an anomaly and the problems must be in my environment.

Eventually I arranged a meeting with my Panasonic sales rep and had him “accidentally” bump into our NEC sales rep as he was leaving.

About a week later I had an engineer from Japan on site upgrading firmware that I had been told didn’t exist.

YMMV.

Thanks,

 

Chaz

Charles Barbour

Educational Technologist

University of Notre Dame

Notre Dame IN  46556

342 Edward J DeBartolo Hall

Office - 574-631-2386

Cell - 574-485-6076

[Andrew Sharpe]

Let us know what you mind out "other" Drew!

I'd be interested in knowing if there is a firmware patch I can apply to prevent it from happening again.

Andrew Sharpe, CTS

Manager of Technical Services

Elliott University Center

The University of North Carolina at Greensboro

336-334-5800

The right thing to do never requires any subterfuge, it is always simple and direct.
- Calvin Coolidge

[E.J. Hudock]

We've recently seen this on two of our PA-550W projectors as well.

One was installed in 2011, and the other was just installed in August.

The older one is on an AMX system, the new one on Extron so I don't think it's the control system. 

-E.J.

[Keith Mills]

The ones we had problems with were installed in July/August of 2012, so they’re a bit newer than yours.  We installed full AV systems into 60 rooms and had about a 25% failure rate with the Dell computers that went in at the same time, and maybe 10% failure rate on the projectors.

 

K.

 

Manager, Classroom Services

IT—Communications/Media

MLB 25, 2500 University Drive, NW

Calgary, Alberta, Canada

T2N 1N4

Phone:  (403)-220-6386

E-mail:  kmi...@ucalgary.ca

 

[Tim Cichos]

We have NEC PA-550W’s with the same problem. First time it happens we power cycle the units. Second time we send it in. So, sounds like it’s not a model specific issue….

 

Tim Cichos     CTS, DMC-E
Lead A/V Systems Engineer

 

University of Notre Dame
115 DeBartolo Hall - Room 230
Notre Dame IN  46556
574.631.4854

 

From: av...@googlegroups.com [mailto:av...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Casey, Andrew W
Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2013 1:54 PM
To: av...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [av-1] NEC PA500U problems

 

Hello All,

--

[Louis W Graham]

Hello all,

 

We have been working with Joe Minder from NEC on these issues.  He tells us they are firmware issues and we’ve done some upgrades with success on our stock of 500U’s and 550W’s.

 

Joe Minder jmi...@necdisplay.com

Joe Minder, DSCE

NEC Display Solutions of America

Regional Service Manager

Northeastern USA & Eastern Canada

Office: 215-679-2243

Mobile: 215-208-8966

Email: jmi...@necdisplay.com

 

Hope this helps.

 

Lou

 

 

************************************************************
Lou Graham, Manager
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Audio Visual Services, Building 4, Room 017
77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139
phone:617-258-9461 fax:617-253-5945

email:  gra...@mit.edu

website: http://studentlife.mit.edu/dsl/es/av
************************************************************

[Scott Doyle]

We've had numerous projectors from the PA series with this problem and an LCD panel discolourisation problem.

We were told firmware and had this upgraded on all installed models.  Since then and with new purchases we have not seen the problem.  Out of about 15 faults, we only had 2 projectors completely replaced.

Regards,
Scott.

Scott Doyle - CTS
Senior Audiovisual Engineer
eSolutions

Monash University

738 Blackburn Road

Notting Hill, VIC 3168

Ph:      +61 3 9905 4594
Mob:    +61 418 501 394
Email:   scott...@monash.edu

CTS: Certified by InfoComm International®. Click Here for further details. 

[Casey, Andrew W]

Will do.  They are overnighting a replacement to me today.  The NEC Service manager also thought it may be the super capacitor in the projectors, just FYI.