Branksome Posted June 22, 2013 Share Posted June 22, 2013 Hi I bought my Elite controller in 2011 but only today decided to upgrade to 1.4 firmware. Bad move! The Win 7 driver installed automatically and selected com port 3 The Firmware download appeared to proceed correctly until the progress bar seemed to be fully complete when a pop up box appeared which said "Update failed" with an OK button. The system seemed to be in a bit of a loop because 2 more identical failed boxes appeared before I pressed OK on the latest which closed the process Now when I switch the Elite on, all that happens is the orange light flashes on and off. The screen is blank and nothing happens when pushing buttons Help! Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RDS Posted June 22, 2013 Share Posted June 22, 2013 @Branksome Welcome to the Forum. My suggestion to you would be to contact Hornby in a situation like that as they will either be able to tell you the correct steps to take or they will maybe ask you to return the Elite to them to upgrade the firmware. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graskie Posted June 22, 2013 Share Posted June 22, 2013 Silly question probably, but have you disconnected your PC from the Elite, switched off the Elite and then switched it back on on its own to see if that works for at least your controller? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishmanoz Posted June 22, 2013 Share Posted June 22, 2013 Branksome, don't give up just yet, try again. Make sure you follow the instructions meticulously and disconnect your Elite from the track before you start. Make sure you start in Upgrade mode by doing the holding the Stop button for 15 seconds etc as per instructions. Try a few times as sometimes it takes a few goes for it to work. Also, make sure you are installing 1.41 not 1.4 or you will have to go through the whole thing again for 1.41. You don't have to do 1.4 first and 1.41 fixes bugs in 1.4. Then on the rare occasion, it will not work at all so return to Hornby and they will fix it for you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregd99 Posted June 23, 2013 Share Posted June 23, 2013 Fishmanoz said: Branksome, don't give up just yet, try again. Make sure you follow the instructions meticulously and disconnect your Elite from the track before you start. Make sure you start in Upgrade mode by doing the holding the Stop button for 15 seconds etc as per instructions. I have done a lot of upgrades/downgrades over the years. On a few occasions I have had a failed sw load that left the elite looking like a brick. I have always been able to recover the device using the approach tat is described above. Do give it a go. The boot loader design seems very robust. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Huwsie Posted June 23, 2013 Share Posted June 23, 2013 Branksome, I had exact same problem. I don't know why, but after two or three attempts, it actually worked. My advice is switch it all off, and come back tomorrow with a fresh mind. If it ultimately doesn't work, contact Hornby. Their support is second-to-none with these issues. They have some really knowledgeable people for DCC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Huwsie Posted June 23, 2013 Share Posted June 23, 2013 BTW.. When the 1.4 upgrade is in and working, I promise you will be impressed with the improvements. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Branksome Posted June 23, 2013 Author Share Posted June 23, 2013 Thanks to RDS, Graskie, Fishmanoz,Gregg99,and Huwsie for your helpful and encouraging comments I will keep trying and I will also try and set up an attempt using a different Windows machine. I am using Win7 Professional 64bit Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
martigues12001 Posted June 23, 2013 Share Posted June 23, 2013 I have a similar problem when trying to upgrade to 1.4,i download the interface software but, every pc I use, the elite displays, "elite I/O error", has anyone got any ideas ? Tony Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
96RAF Posted June 23, 2013 Share Posted June 23, 2013 For some reason neither of my 2 HP pcs will upgrade the Elite firmware - both are running Win8 64 bit. Previously one of them was running Win 8 64 bit and that was OK. Others have had no problems upgrading from Win8 so it may just be the bundled version from HP. I have an old laptop running Win XP and that works the upgrade to v1.41 every time, then the Elite behaves itself on the Win 8 machine (whether under self control or using Railmaster or Rocrail to control trains and accessories). If you can beg, borrow or steal an XP machine and use it to try the upgrade I'm sure it will work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
96RAF Posted June 23, 2013 Share Posted June 23, 2013 Grr - no edit facility. Sorry I meant '...previously running Win7 64bit...' Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Branksome Posted June 23, 2013 Author Share Posted June 23, 2013 Hi Halton You are correct. One of the Win 7 machines is an HP although the other isn't. My mother said "never throw anything away" so I have been able to retrieve an old IBM Win XP machine from storage and after adding Net Framework 4 I have now successfully upgraded to 1.41. And that was after many failed attempts using Win 7 For good reason, and in spite of various inadequacies, Win XP is still regarded as Microsoft's most successful system Thanks everyone for your support Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graskie Posted June 23, 2013 Share Posted June 23, 2013 It shouldn't be necessary to revert to an older OS. I use Windows 7 64 bit. I'm not saying I have no problems, but then I think we practically all do, whatever OS system. I would imagine that Windows 8 64 bit should work the same way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishmanoz Posted June 23, 2013 Share Posted June 23, 2013 I agree with Graskie, it's not the OS as people on here have been able to do the upgrade on all Windows versions. I did it with W 7 64 bit myself. The problem is more subtle and, once you eliminate those who thought they were following the instructions but probably weren't, the occurrence of problems is low (think of all those who got it to work first time and didn't bother saying anything here). It is likely to be a combination of hardware and BIOS configuration at work, in my opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larki Posted June 27, 2013 Share Posted June 27, 2013 https://www.hornby.com/forums/hornby-forums/hornby-digital/4476/ Most of the questions being asked have been answered in previous posts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Branksome Posted June 27, 2013 Author Share Posted June 27, 2013 After I had installed the Elite update, I then installed on my Win7 machine JMRI (Jarva Model Rail Interface). However, on connection to the Elite I would keep getting the Windows Message that Jarva Binary had stopped working. Looking at the JMRI forums, it seems this is a common problem and the suggestion was to connect the controller (eg Elite) via a powered hub - or if already using a powered hub, try a direct USB connection instead. I bought a powered USB hub and this overcame the problem. I mention this as a possible cure for firmware upgrade problems on the Elite Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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