Your G-Major hanging? Here's how to fix it... (Page 1 of 3)

By hanging, you're talking about not fully powering up or freezing, right?

That is, this is different than the other guy's post about the knobs not scrolling through the menus correctly?  I'm having that problem and wasn't planning on having to do any surgery this extensive

Excellent.  Thanks for the tip.

No problem man Glad to be of help!

Did it work for you?

Im still having the problem.

Its something to do with the input knob.
It powers up fine, but with blank lit screen. Then I need to wiggle the input knob side to side, then it loads.
WTF is going on? Is something shorting out?

(by the way my chip on the front next to the input knob is soldered on. no socket)

Last edited by xcpointx (2008-03-13 09:52:22)

Oh awesome thanks! Ill open the G up again tonight and try this.

hello there..i'm hoping that someone on here can help me out before i'm forced to get rid of my g major which i dont wanna do!!
I arrived at a festival this saturday, set up my unit as usual (all the plugs in the right places) but for some reason i had no sound at all.
I run my unit through a jsx in the effects loop and have never had a problem up until this point so i checked all my leads (all ok), the effects loop of the jsx (worked fine) and found that although the input levels were showing an input on the g major i had no output..
I removed the return lead from the back of the JSX and i had sound from the amp but obviously no effects so it appears to be a problem with g major.....having played the set with one sound and survived i set up my gear the following day in exactly the same way and lo and behold everything worked fine...
I've read about so called reliability problems with the G major but have never had any problems in this respect however i have no confidence in the unit now and am hoping someone out there may have experienced a similar problem and may have a remedy??
My unit is version is 1.11 so perhaps an update will cure the problem...Thanks in eager anticipation!!

hey read774...sorry, i've had reliabilty issues as well, but nothing like that.

Yes, that's how mine started, it'd freeze, i'd turn it on and off and then it'd work, then one day it just wouldn't work.

The above procedure fixed it It's simple to do, and shouldn't take too long to try!

I also use a behringer fcb1010 as well.

Tell me if it works, a few people have got theirs working again this way

can someone give me a guide on how open the G-Major for doing this ... I don't know how to open the main board ... Thanks !

Hi all,
I'm new to the group and had this very same problem with a used G-Major unit that I bought off eBay a couple of months ago. I figured that I was screwed to say the least until I cam across this post from 7 Dying Trees. Man you were right on the money with this one. I removed all of the knobs, jacks and covers as instructed. I inspected the insertion of the chips and flat ribbon cables and saw no immediate problems. Upon closer inspection I noticed that the front chip, in photo 2, did not appear to be fully inserted. I had to really look closely to see it. When compared to the main board chip it was not sitting level at all four corners as it should have been. I carefully tried to seat it further into the socket but it wouldn't budge. I knew that it needed to go in further so I changed the way that I was pressing it. I grabbed it with my thumb and put my first finger behind the board and squeezed really until I heard a positive snap sound. It was so hard to fully seat that I though that I broke the chip and/or socket but I didn't. I used the same procedure on the remaining three corners. One more out of the remaining three also made a loud snapping sound and again scared me. Once again it was alright. At this point I could now see that the chip was fully inserted and basically sitting level or slightly below the chip socket when viewed from the side. All I can say is that this is a very tight fitting chip and socket so be careful, but don't be afraid to give it a pretty good squeeze to seat it if the chip is not fully or properly inserted. Thanks 7 Dying Trees for taking the time to post the original thread! This saved me $130.00 plus shipping back to TC Electronics. Please remember as stated above, do this at your own risk. Please don't attempt this if you are not comfortable with the possibility of breaking your unit. Please send it into TC if this is the case.

My Thoughts on this problem:

And of course, the unit now boots up fully again. I'm guessing that because this chip was never fully inserted during assembly that the connection became poor with tarnishing over time. Once the connection became too poor, the chip would not power up to complete the boot up process. I'm sure there's some amount of very small voltage to power this chip. (Maybe 5 volts or less).

For me, this problem just came out of the blue one night at band rehearsal. I was changing presets with the dial and the preset numbers just disappeared. I lost output sound and the small amber LEDs in the top right of the buttons were blinking really faintly. I thought that it was a power supply board issue for sure. I power cycled the unit and that's when I got the blank screen. I also tried the reset procedure with holding the TAP button while powering as well. Nothing!

I've spent a lot time with this response with the hopes that it will help another user get back up and running as fast as I did. Good Luck everyone! 

Every time I look at this thread, it's nice to know that the original post helped so many people out!

For anyone that wants to try this, you actually need a torque key set (looks like an allen key, but with rounded edges inwards if that makes sense).

It's a bit of a pain to do, and takes a while, but is well worth it

This could be the single greatest post I've ever read on a message board. 

Thanks, 7 Dying Trees.  So far so good for me!!