Hi all,
In July, a WCP C3545 appeared at one of the local thrift stores. I wanted it, but I wasn't going to buy it, until my friends insisted that I get it. It was only $142 with delivery, so it seemed like it was a fairly good deal.
The machine came with a professional finisher, ten boxes of assorted toner, two drums, two waste toner cartridges, and two boxes of staples.
Once it was set up, I tried to turn it on. At first, I had to hold the power switch for it to stay on. Holding it for several minutes ultimately resulted in the message:
"Communications problem encountered. Turn the machine off, then on, using the white power switch."
I read that that error could be fixed by making sure the install phases were set to Install Complete. I installed PWS, and sure enough, the install phases were set to Manufacturing. So, I set them to Install Complete, pressed Apply, and watched. It didn't do anything.
I messed with it, and decided I would open some covers. I found a plastic cover on the internal output tray, which had a metal cover under it. I removed those covers and found a small board with another board suspended above it. The suspended board had a broad connector, and it looked like it was supposed to be connected to the board it was above. I pressed it down, and it snapped into place. I put the covers back, and pressed the power switch. Now, it stays on even if the power switch isn't being held.
Because the NVM battery is dead, I had to reset the install phases to Install Complete again. When I did that this time, it booted fully. I got it set up on the network, and even printed several things to it. Then, suddenly, it went offline. I rebooted it, set it back up in PWS, but the ESS was no longer booting. The ESS HDD had died.
I decided that until I had a way to do an altboot, I would just set it up as a copier and learn about it. I noticed that the finisher's center tray would frequently become unavailable, but rebooting would solve that. Eventually, rebooting stopped working, and the center tray remained unavailable.
I decided to try something I hadn't tried before: NVM Backup, and NVM Restore. I felt like it was too many clicks to set the install phases and the model identifier each time, so I just took a backup of the NVM, turned the machine off so it would reset, and turned it on. I watched the finisher closely to see if the center tray would initialize. When it failed to do so, I turned the machine off once more, then back on, and entered PWS. This time, I made the mistake of choosing NVM Restore. That's where the current issue started.
It took an excruciatingly long time to complete the restore, but I let it finish. After it finished, the machine rebooted, but it did not start back up. Instead, it presented an error that said something along the lines of: "The Power Up Self-Test failed." I could dismiss this message, but it reported all four drums as being incompatible, and all supplies were at 0% life remaining. ALL counters - some of which had been in the millions of pages - were at 0. I tried resetting these counters from within PWS, and had no success. I noticed that the clock was stuck in october 2035. After several unsuccessful reboots, NVM initializations, and even poking around in the NVM values, I gave up for a few days.
When I decided to mess with it again, it was worse. Now, the UI fails to connect to the CCM regardless of the install phase, and the machine's initialization is different. When the power switch is pressed, the UI emits a long beep. Then, a moment later, the print engine does its routine, then clicks, and does it again. Afterwards, the UI's LCD turns on, with the Xerox logo and the Dots of Death. The scanner's routine is much shorter, the green LED no longer turns on when a document is in the ADF, and the scanner bulb no longer turns on when the cover is lowered. And, in PWS, the Time section is completely blank, and any values that are entered disappear.
When I run a CCM Self Test from PWS, all tests pass except UI Present, ESS Online, and Wall Clock. I think the Wall Clock failing is causing most of the issues the machine is having.
Also of note: it no longer turns off from the power switch. The only way to turn it off now is to unplug it.
TL;DR:
I bought a WCP C3545 with a dead NVM battery that's in my bedroom and it had some problems but I kinda got it to work but now I've really screwed it up and it doesn't do anything. The Professional finisher it came with didn't work quite right and when I was trying to troubleshoot it I decided to do an NVM Reset and Restore. Now, the UI doesn't connect to the main unit even if the install phase is Install Complete. All supplies are stuck at 0%, and the Time section in PWS is empty and won't take anything I put in it. The CCM passes all the self tests except UI Present, ESS Online (because the ESS HDD failed, though the machine was working for a time without that) and Wall Clock.
So... I was wondering if anyone knows what I need to replace to get the machine working again, and if anyone has any suggestions for why taking a backup of the NVM, and then restoring that backup, caused the wall clock to fail.
Thanks!