Bringing a Siemens MP370 back from the dead

Hi guys,

While trying to upgrade a Siemens MP370, it hung somewhere in the process and gets about halfway through the creation of its disk structure and then goes to a black screen.

Pressing the screen rewards me with beeps, but that's it.

Is there a way to force the reflashing of the firmware when it gets into this state?


Thanks!

Does the panel boot up? It seems not. In this cases a USB/PPI Multi-Master Cable from Siemens can help you. With this cable and the "SIMATIC ProSave" tool (which comes automatically with the WinCC installation) you can recover your panel.

You need to use the "restore to factory settings" in Prosave.

For the MP370 panel, this only possible with a serial connection. You need a null modem cable and a serial port on the PC.
When PC and panel are connected, select the serial connection type in Prosave.
In the OS Update screen activate the "Restore to factory settings" tickmark. Click on the "Update OS" button. Then reboot the panel (cycle power).
Prosave should then be able to hook the panel via the serial port and start the OS Update.

Thanks guys!

Okay, I've tried several times to do an OS Update, but it gets as far as clearing the flash and then stops on a timeout error. The first thing that I did was to set the baud rate down to 9600 baud. But I still get these errors.

When it fails, the Prosave screen reports: "No operating system found on this unit".

I've noticed that as it is "Clearing the Flash memory", the 370 is in the process of loading its bootloader. Is that normal?

According to my USB to RS232 converter, it is transmitting and receiving just fine. In fact, I've noticed that the serial ports marches in lock-step with the progress bar on the bottom of the screen (a sure sign that it's transmitting and receiving), and it goes through the progress bar twice and then stops on the 5th or 6th bar at the beginning of the third iteration.

Any thoughts?

Never could get the thing to flash, so I sent it back for repair.