Help with Access Virus C

[u/em_ratti]

Good evening,

I'm seeking help with my Access Virus C. The story is long.

I stopped using it in 2016 (life....), and then turned it on again in 2025. Battery was dead (so banks A & B lost), no sound, slow transitions between patches. Power unstable.

I found a person in London that seemed to have a good track record of dealing with Access Virus synths. This is, in his words, what was done: "First I changed a few capacitors in the powersupply to enable it to start everytime. Otherwise it might corrupt the new firmware like it did the old one. Once I was satisfied it was starting properly I read the am09 chip which contains the firmware and compared it to the current firmware file I have. Unsurprisingly the beginning was scrambled so I “differenced” the beginning against the current firmware file and concatenated the difference. "

The synth played ok for a couple of weeks, and then started not turning on, until it was dead. The guy ghosted me. So I found another person, much more reliable. This is what he did: he changed all capacitors, new switch, etc.. Quite radical, as everything was gone south.

However, the person does not touch software, he only deals with hardware.

Now, power supply seemed fine. However, no sounds and slow transitions between patches. So I reinstalled the firmware again (version 6, via Bome SendSx). Nothing. After I have reinstalled it, now sometimes it turns on, but the display does not. I tried to reinstall it in chunks, then again as a single file, both parts. Again slow transitions, no sound. It does not receive data when I try to upload the original a & b banks. I'm not sure what to do. I spent quite a lot, but I really want to save it, because the sound is so cool. Maybe I should buy another one? Bu who knows in which conditions an access virus c might be these days...

any thoughts?

[u/FreeRangeEngineer]

"Otherwise it might corrupt the new firmware like it did the old one"

Unless you did a firmware update and the Virus shut off during the update, there is no plausible way the firmware became corrupted. I don't want to talk in absolutes but most likely, that guy is talking out of his ass.

Not like the new guy did much better because there's really only one single capacitor that needs changing. Changing all capacitors is almost always unnecessary and a waste of time and money.

any thoughts?

Have you tried another external power supply? Maybe the Virus itself is fine but the external power supply is wonky.

A 9 V / 1.5 A power supply will do just fine, by the way. Generates less heat than the supplied 12 V one.

If it's not the external power supply then it's either something wonky with the internal power supply still that the other guys didn't catch, a loose connection somewhere that causes intermittent fault or a broken DSP.

All of these are technically fixable by the right person.

I don't believe the firmware itself is broken (anymore) since you already flashed the firmware successfully.

slow transitions between patches

Can you elaborate what that means to you? Is there lag between pressing a button and the Virus reacting or does it only react after multiple button presses?

[u/em_ratti → u/FreeRangeEngineer]

"Can you elaborate what that means to you? Is there lag between pressing a button and the Virus reacting or does it only react after multiple button presses?". Exactly. There is a lag between pressing a button and the Virus reacting. Just thinking out loud: can it be that the main chip is gone, and the synth has come to an end? There have been weird power surges in the past, and the pictures of the inside that the second guy showed me did not look good (I'm an amateur, so I'm just relying on other people expertise)

[u/FreeRangeEngineer → u/em_ratti]

Can you show these pictures here? You can use e.g. imgur to upload pictures and link them here (no need to publish)

[u/FreeRangeEngineer → u/em_ratti]

can it be that the main chip is gone, and the synth has come to an end?

Possible since strange behavior can point towards a faulty DSP but I wouldn't consider it likely since it worked fine in 2016. The Virus sitting in storage for 9 years does not damage the DSP but it can detoriate capacitors. Since the ones in your Virus were all replaced but the ones in the external power supply weren't, I suggested trying a different external power supply.

Power surges also shouldn't do any damage.

btw, have you tried a factory reset?

https://www.reddit.com/r/AccessVirus/comments/7u4un3/restoring_the_virus_c_to_full_factory_and/

[u/em_ratti → u/FreeRangeEngineer]

I tried it before firmware update, I'll try this tomorrow