Problem Fix of Aerosoft Australia MCP747 Err 001

[vr2radio]

Hi there,

I'd like to share my experience of recovering a problem of Aerosoft Australia MCP747 Err 001 Sn 000xx that I had recently which may help other MCP747 owners when they come across to the same issue.

The story started that my poor MCP747 recently experienced an error of "Err 001 Sn 000xx" at power up which could be related to a firmware issue (forum discussion on the web). This problem could originate from a power failure of the box itself or a subtle power surge. The LEDs on "IAS/MACH", "HDG", "VERT SPD" and "ALT" showed Err 001 Sn 00xxx respectively and stayed on like that even rebooting it.

Then I wrote an email message to Andrew McLean of Aerosoft Australia and he replied me in several hours later in the evening as usually very responsive. Andrew then set up a link in his web server for me to download the MCP747Firmware zip file.

I initially ran through firmware update with an USB-to-Serial dongle which didn't make proper connection to MCP747. Then I realized the dongle could be only used for standard 3-pins type of serial connection without the other signal pin. I managed to find an old IBM notebook which has a built-in COM port. Using this configuration, the firmware update was carried out with 100% completed.

However, MCP747 became weird that all 7 segments LEDs showing in complete darkness. Re-powered the MCP747 didn't make a difference that all LEDs were still remaining in dark.  After an email exchange with Andrew again, he suggested to run a factory reset by executing the MCP.exe utility.

Later on, I managed to find the mcp.exe and associated files from another website. Ran that exe file and did the factory reset. At that time, all LEDS were still in the dark. Without any joy, I then clicked the "Panel Check" button rather unintentionally. This "waked up" the MCP747 with all LEDs and push buttons light turning back ON.  

Vow-la! My MCP747 is now back on its business again and performs as good as before. Thanks go to Andrew for his kind support of a great product which I bought over 10 years by now.

Cheers and happy PSX simming,

William