Jiri, I have a bunch of computer motherboards I have had to throw out from big name companies (Dell, ASUS....) that have had this same problem.
Upgrade the BIOS, something flakes out and wha la...a bouncing baby brick!
Hello Tom,
I was referring to an embedded system such as NetBurner (great system it will never brick out), Rabbit, Tiny from Dallas Semi etc.
These systems are bullet proof. You are talking about PC mother boards, a little different scenario.
Another bricking story:
About 4 years ago I had a 1756-DNB module that was about 2 years old (definitelly less than 10 years old!!!)
I needed to re-flash it to the latest of that time. I got the latest Control Flash files, read the Readme.txt file on how to do it and proceeded with the re-flash. I managed to brick it.
By re-tracing my steps I figured out that the readme file had WRONG INSTRUCTIONS that caused me to brick out the module.
I called AB's tech support and after 2 days of arguing with various people and trying to explain in detail where the problem was I finally managed to get a new module sent to me.
Tech person I was talking to was very unreceptive to what I was telling him (or so I thought), he told me that there was nothing wrong with the instructions. To my amazement couple of days later I got an official e-mail informing me that AB has discovered an error in their re-flashing instructions. The same guy used my input to make himself look good and could not even say thanks.
Nowadays to get this guy on the phone so that you can help him de-bug their own system will cost you large tech connect fees.
While it may be true that the new CL CPU's and modules can't be bricked, you need to keep in mind that there are many legacy systems around. I think that the CL modules of 6 years ago were
still brickable and 6 years in terms of an automation system is not a long time. If you have a large system including legacy modules you should always exercise extreme caution when re-flashing (have a spare on hand).
Re-flashing via an RS-232 as was mentioned earlier would be preferable, however on a large installation it will also be very unproductive if you have to walk to each individual CPU.
I also think that AB's blanket tech connect fees are badly conceived.
While I am not arguing that there are many people who would abuse the tech support by not reading the manuals or not having enough brain power to comprehend the material you need to look at the other side of the issue.
There are many experienced people who call tech connect only when
they experience issues beyond their control, i.e. lack of information, inaccurate information, issues with bugs etc.
These people are in fact helping AB!
There should be some sort of "pay according to the type of help you need" system. This blanket system where everyone pays the same is not right!