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Feel free to shoot me an email if anyone wants to buy my G-Major. Other than the occasional power-up issue as described in this thread it's like new and has never been out of its rack.
I would also trade it for an old Rocktron Intellifex (ltd or blackface). I'll pay the difference in value.
For everyone whose problem has not been resolved by this thread, please also check-out the following thread.
http://forum.tcelectronic.com/viewtopic.php?id=4872
I am sure that a faulty capacitor could explain a lot of problems.....
Agamemnon,
Thanks for the link. Interesting. I am usually not afraid to do certain things myself, but soldering stuff to a PCP board - especially in the power section- is nothing I'm good at and want to spend time on.
I wish TC would chime in and offer some advice. If they said: "Look, there is a problem with these units, but we can fix that for $50 or so - send it to XYZ." I'd be totally ok with it. They way things are now it ruins their reputation. Indicators? I was at my local Guitar Center a few days ago. They had the G-Majors now on the "junk for cheap" table together with other stuff that noboby wants. Or I was cruising on some European guitar forum a few days ago where someone had a reasonable question about the new G-System. The response there? "Buyer beware - you never know how long their stuff lasts..."
Does anybody here know a good repair person in the US who has succesfully made these units more "road worthy"? Now, there's a business model...
Hey,
thanks for posting that!
I totaly agree with Libertarian. There are so many people having these kind of problems with their G Major....There are topics about this on every music forum. I personally think TC should recall them or at least offer some kind of compensation.
I own two g majors: one that works fine and the other one that is unusable because it would freeze at any moment or wouldn't power up with only the backlight of the display lit. A few years ago, I sent it to Tc so they could take a look at it....And they sent it back saying there was nothing wrong with it.
I'm really disapointed and I'll probably never buy anything from TC Electronic again.
I sent my g major to a local tech. Got it back and it still freezes. I don't know if i should update the software. Plus the unit was working when i first got it and it had no problems. Then when I got the Behringer FCB1010, thats when i started having the freezing issue. I'm going to see about replacing the chips and see if that works.
I've noticed that cold temps seem to slow down the start up too. The fix worked great for me, but if I leave my rack in the cold, the G Major will usually take longer to start up so I've been hauling it inside in cold weather.
Yeah Im in the same boat of mine not working any more as well. LCD goes on but there is no chars on the screen, no sound at all, etc. It would be nice if they would offer a fix or something to do about this issue. but I get the feeling since the Gmajor II is out, they are going to care much about this one and it's problems. When customer support is bad the answer is to move on to another company I guess.
Sorry to bring up this old thread, but I'm in the market for a new multi-effects unit. I used a Rocktron Xpression for years, but I'm no longer using a MIDI based rack and preamp.. I'm now using amp heads and want effects with amp channel switching.
Unfortunately, before the Xpression, I spent about 5 years with the first G-Major. The first 2 years were problem free. However, by year 3 I started having ALLLL the problems that were being discussed above. I sent it to TC Electronic not once, but twice.... both times, they told me that they let it run for over 8 hours and the problem never occured. So, they sent it back and said nothing was wrong with it. Of course, when I get it, it starts blinking out and freezing again... I wound up practically giving it away for free and moved to the Xpression.
I vowed I'd never use another TC product again... but, as far as sound quality (outside of Axe-Fx) this is the best sounding stuff.
I just need to be sure that a G-Major 2 (or even the Nova System) won't be a repeat of the issues from the first G-Major....as, it's scary being onstage and your sound just stops in the middle of a song. Plus, no real support to address and fix the issue.
Thanks for this post. I was having problems powering up my G Major over the last few weeks. It happened just before a sound check recently - NOT good! But managed to get it going by randomly tapping away at buttons on the front panel. Last night at rehearsals the unit froze while I was renaming a preset. No sound but the screen had frozen.
After finding this thread and opening up the G Major I spotted the chip on the front panel was slightly raised on one edge. I firmly seated the chip and checked all the ribbon cables and main board chip. I didn't find an issue with anything else.
The G Major appears to be working fine now. I've power cycled it a number of times without any problems.
Fingers crossed!
This is crazy.
Mine froze up about 5 times today. Finally I shut it down for a bit and unplugged the power.
I went online and saw this post but was worried if i took the chip out i'd loose all of my settings.
I simply tapped the screen with a screw driver and im back in action.
We'll see what happens.
chances are it'll work fine for the next couple weeks till we start gigging again...hope the tap works!
Its still freezing! tapping only works temporarily!
Has anyone lost all there settings from screwing around with the Chip behind the screen?
Hadn't used my rack in a while. Promptly after firing everything up recently the thing froze up again. After whacking it it came back.
Then MIDI in started to fail on me. Unplugging and rebooting "fixed" that. In short: if I want to go out and play somewhere again I'll have to get something different. The TC stuff is unfortunately completely unreliable. I love the sounds but this just doesn't work. I wish TC would have lived up to their reputation at some point and acknowledged that their are mechanical or electrical issues with this processor. Why would I ever buy anything else from them? I really would like to have the G Force but after this experience I don't think that's such a good idea.
If anyone wants to have my G Major for parts let me know. I don't think I would even want to sell it on ebay like this.
This worked for me too!
At first I had problems with the buttons on the front. Some of them didn't respond in any way. Then the unit began switching randomly and the midi-In indicator was flashing all the time. In the end it freezed on booting.
After pushing the Atmel chips a little everything works like a charm again!
Thanks a 1000 times for posting! This literally saved me from buying another unit!
best regards
Alex
Tried to get into unit with no luck.
My unit has distortion and very reduced output in the delay for all but Dual. Go figure.
I also notice that after I reset parameters (tap button at shutdown) my settings sound great at 10 to 15 percent mix, but after time the effects start to disappear.
Anyone else experience this?
I took off my front panel and above that chip there's a little capital "I" Penciled in. Anyone else have that?
Also, i dont have a little Brown boarder around the chip.
could this be the problem?
7 Dying Trees, you are a legend! Didn't even have to take the whole back off (don't have a small torx driver), just the lugs & slid off the front panel, good bit of pressure & job done! Thank you - I may have got there in the end but tbh I'd never have spotted it visually so saved me probably weeks of messing about.
Rosedalmike, your settings are most likely stored on an eeprom chip on the main board, messing with the chip on the front panel should make no difference to that. If there is no brown border, that suggests maybe that same chip is soldered directly to the board instead? if so, I'd suggest an electrical contact enhancer (not that cheap lubricant stuff though, nor WD40)
This thing has previously never given me a moment's pause since I bought it new in 2003, and while now I'd maybes not trust if for a gig, well, I ain't in a band anyway! 
Hey thank you man! It works!
You saved my Gmajor
Hello there,
I still have mine. The freezing described here is one thing and that's one reason I wouldn't trust any of these units for live use again.
But since it's practically worthless anyway I thought I might give this procedure described here a try to at least use the thing here at home every now and then.
Question: would any lose chips also explain why my unit sometimes stops changing programs via midi? The midi through still works but the TC just sticks to whatever the last program was. Anyone ever experienced this?
p.s.: anyone still has an old Alesis Midiverb4 and wants to trade? Thanks