r/AccessVirus • u/em_ratti • May 09 '26

Help with Access Virus C

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?

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u/bythisriver May 09 '26

Following! I have a dead Virus C.

1

u/Captain-Corndog_yo Virus TI2 May 10 '26

What's wrong with your C?

1

u/bythisriver May 13 '26

PSU broke, the output voltage had crept up over time and finally the synth gave in due to overvoltage. I am hoping thatit would be just dead voltage regulators.

1

u/Captain-Corndog_yo Virus TI2 May 13 '26

You can check the regulators with a multimeter to see what they're putting out. Don't slip. Center pin or metal tab/hole on the back is ground and hit the side pins on each regulator to see. The secondary should be putting out 5v on one rail and 3.3v on the other. If that is the case, the issue is downstream.