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If you can get it up, you could load patches via Midi with sysex.
Mine starts with that and then drops to the loaded patch number and showing “YAMAHA DX7” across the top row (if I recall correctly. Been a while since I watched). No experience with the E! Board, so I’d check all the circuitry for any obvious corrosion and clean that first, replace the ROM batteries, and see what she does from there.
> On Jan 28, 2019, at 6:19 PM, [email protected] [YamahaDX] <[email protected]> wrote:
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> Hi there – Seth here, writing to you from Boston. After 20 years of just letting my DX7 Mark I sit in its case (I purchased back in the ‘80s), for the longest time I've been thinking about bringing it back to life largely as a MIDI controller – as the keybed is just incredible despite the DX7's weight – which would be tough per gigging. I'm hoping to use it like a Hammond B3 as I think the edges weren’t so sharp per waterfall techniques.
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> I’ve pored through older messages in the forum here, I wanted to hear what you all thought as to the best way to go about getting started before I go down the rabbit hole per repairs. As I’m currently very frustrated per repairs with my other dead gear of the similar vintage, I just don’t want to drive myself crazy here – but I also don’t want this to end up in a landfill either. It was my first keyboard and I miss it all these years later.
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> Again, it’s a DX7 Mark I with E! Grey Matter installed. All the DX7 ROM cartridges were lost somewhere in storage and I can’t find them – despite repeated attempts to recover them.
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> When I turn the DX7 on, I get 88 (or a different digit) that shows up, and dark blocks on the upper row of the LCD. I’m assuming that this means that the system isn’t booting? (Alternately – I’m concerned that this means the 9.4265 Mhz crystal may be dead…and I just learned that the company that made replacement crystals is out of business as of 2017!)
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> So, I figured I’d (1) replace the battery (I’m good with soldering, so no problem there) using a fresh battery and an external CR2032 battery holder and then (2) try to check the connections with the E! and clean the contacts before reseating it. But I doubt these two things will fix it - but it's inexpensive enough to try.
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> If that doesn’t work, I figured that next I’d remove E! and try to revert it to stock. But not having the original chips, I figured I’d ask to see if someone has the SER-7 ROM as a .bin file here that they'd be willing to email me; I’ve already ordered a EPROM burner for a totally separate repair so I could give that a go. (I figure that’s the best version EPROM to drop in there, especially per MIDI standards?) Also, if someone knows specifically what EPROM and RAM chip I should order and throw in there, that would be a help.
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> But other than that, I’m out of ideas and I don’t have much money to throw at repairing this right now. Plus, again – I don’t have the DX7 ROM/RAM cartridges anymore, as they’re buried in storage – so I don’t know how I’d initialize the unit even if I could get it to boot - so that's another issue.
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> Any thoughts or suggestions, I’m all ears. Thanks for your help!
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> - Seth
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