M250 Takes 7 Seconds to Turn On!

A few years ago I was given a hand-me-down M230 by a FreeCycler.

I used it every day for years but then the screen got broken so I replaced it with an M250 from eBay.

The old M230 would turn on in 3 seconds.

But this M250 takes 7 or 8 seconds to turn on.

Is there a way that I can speed up the boot-up time?

Will in Seattle

a.k.a. “Clueless”

Another problem is that it has repeatedly dropped the station on FM preset #20.

I suppose the solution to that problem is to just give up on using preset 20, eh?

Perhaps I need a firmware upgrade?

How can I determine which firmware is installed on the player now?

Will in Seattle

a.k.a. “Clueless”

The M250 also freezes up sometimes when I pause a song and then try to continue playing it.

Is there a way to reboot the player?

I’ve tried taking the battery out and then reinserting it.  But it’s still locked up.

Will in Seattle

a.k.a. “Clueless”

The m200 series is a really, really old (over 5 years) player and not too many people that frequent this forum are familiar with it any more.

Taking the battery out and re-inserting it should force a “hard reset”. Make sure you leave it out for a few minutes to let any residual information stored in memory to dissipate.

With all the different issues you’re having though, I’d probably recycle it responsibly and get a more modern player.

Theres 3 or 4 different hardware devices that went into the m200 series plastic shell over the years. It could be that your old player’s hardware was faster than the newer one. Whats the firmware version on the two devices? My guess is that one of them starts with a 4 and the other with a smaller number.

I’ve repeatedly tried to reply but just kept  getting an error message warning me that my post contained a forbidden two letter combination.  I tried over and over to edit the message to eliminate any occurences of the two letter combination, but could not post the message.  So I’m trying afresh:

I need to know the way to find out which firmware I have installed.

Maybe this will get through to you.

Will in Seattle

a.k.a. “Clueless”

I put on my Dollar Store reading glasses and then closely watched the display of the M250 as it booted up.

It looks like the firmware versions is:  4.1.08A

I tried the same trick on the M230, but the display is damaged and the version number is not visible at boot up.

I found a thread at another web forum that suggests that the version 4 firmware is buggy. 

Do you think I could load an earlier version, such as version 3 onto the M250?

If so, could you help me find a likely suspect to try installing?

Will in Seattle

a.k.a. “Clueless”