[JohnBee]

Hello, we are the proud owners of a pair of K20D's and a few other bodies and one of our bodies(purchase on eBay) seems to have a problem with it.

The problem is, that it locks up on occasions.
I've narrowed it down to the grip and taking the card out of PC and placing it into camera for first time. Though I have yet to pinpoint the combination or recreate it as of yet.

Though I do suspect this is in part due to the SDHC card not being properly unmounted prior to ejecting it from the PC reader. I know many people are on the fence with this, but on my yamaha keyboard, if I don't unmount the card prior to removing it, the keyboard will not load the data samples. So there is evidence to suspect this might be linked to the issue.

Taking things further on the issue of stopping(or unmounted) devices, I've found that it is only when I access and write data to the card from the PC ie. ACR adjustments, that seems to invoke this problem.

Though I would really like to hear from others on this issue also. The combination I'm using is: K20D + Grip + 8GB PNY Optima + ACR and 3.5 multi-card reader/writer. Just now, I tried accessing the card with ACR, adjusted a PEF, clicked DONE, and ejected the card(no unmounting). Popped it into the camera, turned it on, took a reading, clicked shutter = black frame. Turned off camera, poppep out card, re-inserted and all was well. Though the results seem to vary.

I'm going to keep working at it to try and isolate this issue with a measure of certainty. But I'd be curious to hear from others experiences here as well.

The total freeze-up has happened to me aprox. 5 times since we've received this camera(which is about 1.5 months now).

The camera did come with an extended warranty, however, its none transferable so I'm really hoping the seller will help me with getting it serviced somehow.

However, before I begin this, I was wondering if anyone had any potential information on this issue and whether or not I should be worried about it?

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Last edited by JohnBee; 12-26-2009 at 12:10 AM.

[Canada_Rockies]

Hello, we are the proud owners of a pair of K20D's and one of them(which I recently bought on eBay) has a problem with it.

The problem is, that it seems to lock-up on occasions. I've narrowed it down to the grip + taking the card out of PC and placing it into camera for first time type of thing. Still haven't managed to recreate it though it has happened aprox. 5 times since we've received the camera(which is about 1.5 months now).

The camera did come with an extended warranty, however, its none transferable so I'm really hoping the seller will help me with getting it serviced somehow.

However, before I begin this, I was wondering if anyone had any potential information on this issue and whether or not I should be worried about it?

Make sure the camera is turned off before removing or replacing the card. The grip power is dependent on the camera power being on, so it should not cause a problem.

[JohnBee]

Make sure the camera is turned off before removing or replacing the card. The grip power is dependent on the camera power being on, so it should not cause a problem.

Hi thanks for the response.

There are so many variables that remain unchecked at this point that it's a little daunting but I really feel as though this issue can be mapped with a degree of accuracy. The grip really seems to have something to do with it though.

Anyone else have this problem?

[Canada_Rockies]

I just reread your post, more carefully, and it has to do with writing to the card from the PC, I am certain. The only thing I have ever written to the card from the PC is the firmware upgrades, and I then formatted the card in camera. It is strongly suggested by many to format the card in camera, not on the PC. With my age, and my career that includes many, many years working with computers, read/write can be a problem when one of the writers/readers is ever so slightly out of adjustment compared to the other. There is a tolerance limit, and if one device is at the maximum end of the tolerance and the other at the lower limit, they may not be able to "see" each other's work.

[JohnBee]

I just reread your post, more carefully, and it has to do with writing to the card from the PC, I am certain. The only thing I have ever written to the card from the PC is the firmware upgrades, and I then formatted the card in camera. It is strongly suggested by many to format the card in camera, not on the PC. With my age, and my career that includes many, many years working with computers, read/write can be a problem when one of the writers/readers is ever so slightly out of adjustment compared to the other. There is a tolerance limit, and if one device is at the maximum end of the tolerance and the other at the lower limit, they may not be able to "see" each other's work.

I feel the same way.

Though I have to say, today it happened again and I did not take the card from the PC this time.
Last night I formatted the card with the camera(twice )., took a few shots and put it away.

Today, we grabbed our gear and went for a drive in search of some nice shots. Once we found a place I turned off the camera to swap lenses(M42), when I turned it on everything looked fine, however when I took a shot, I got a black image and the camera stopped working(frozen). Turned it off and the top LCD showed how many images were left on card, back on showed a battery icon(none responsive)

So I removed the battery grip and the primary battery and reset the camera. Started it up again and all was well. Though this time, I left the BG2 off. I don't know why but I get the feeling the grip has something to do with this as well. because I don't think I've ever had the camera act this way without the grip on it.

I know this doesn't make any sense powerwise, but this is what I'm finding. Anyways, time will tell.

[Canada_Rockies]

As a last ditch sort of idea - try setting the camera to use one of the batteries first rather than the default of both. First grip first (my personal setting) and if the camera fails, camera first and see if it comes up. That will at least prove to you that it is the grip that is causing the problem.

[JohnBee]

Excellent suggestion!

I'm going to try that tomorrow and see if I can't find anything.
I wish I knew how to reproduce the error though.
This is quite possible the most limiting aspect of this entire problem.

I would be a shame to send the camera in for repairs only to find the problem was with the grip or battery etc.

[JohnBee]

Update...
I just reproduced it without the grip.

Took the card out of the PC, placed it in the camera, unmounted lens, remounted lens, turned on and got this.



I'm going to keep trying to see if I can't find the exact recipe.
Might help in determining the cause.

[JohnBee]

Another update...

I've managed to repeat it(intermitently). but with a degree of success.
Here's what I've got thus far:

• Left card in reader with ACR loaded(15mins).
• Take card out of PC and place into camera(cam off)
• Turn on camera.
• Select focal length(M42 lense)
• Take metering(reading).
• Depress shutter.

Camera malfunctions

[kkoether]

Have you tried this with a different card? If not that would be my next step. Could be a flaky card.

[JohnBee]

Have you tried this with a different card? If not that would be my next step. Could be a flaky card.

Good idea.
It's definitely next on my list.

But... I want to try and pinpoint the exact procedure that causes this to happen beforehand.
To which I may have made more progress on this as well.

1. Take card out from camera without turning off
2. Left card in PC reader with ACR loaded(15+mins).
3. Take out card out and placed in camera(camera in sleep mode)
4. Awakened camera(half shutter).
5. Take metering(reading)
6. Depressed shutter.

Malfunction.

NOTE! Camera SD activity light does not flash following SD card insertion.

[darrenleow]

John, I seem to have been experiencing the same thing as you. I'm using a Kingston 8GB Class 6 SDHC. Sometimes when I power up the camera and take the first shot, it hangs and toggles between the shots left and battery icon when I switch the camera on and off. I have to remove the grip and re-insert the body battery to get it to reset. I either lose the frame I shot, or get a corrupted image (mostly pink/green, not blue/red though). This has happened about 10 times in the last 8 months of use. It might be the grip, or the card, or worst, the camera, but I haven't attempted to isolate the culprit yet.

[JohnBee]

It might be the grip, or the card, or worst, the camera, but I haven't attempted to isolate the culprit yet.

I can confirm that it isn't the grip. And though I would have sworn it only happened when the grip was on the camera, my latest tests have shown that the problem isn't limited to the grip.

So far, it seems limited to a read/write/power issue.

The jury's still out on which it is, but it seems limited to one of these three areas.
I'm leaning toward that of a card issue(perhaps because I want it to be resolvable)

I also think it's worth mentioning that a number of people have had their camera's serviced with success. I've also read that a few of them found that it made no difference(problem persisted) so... there is still some ground to cover on this issue it would seem.

On my own end of things, I've managed to invoked the lock-up aprox, 6 times in 2 hours by following a specific set of procedures.
So I am hopeful that we will get closer to pinpointing the nature of the problem soon.

[JohnBee]

I just wanted to update this thread with some of my latest findings.
Following my last tests, I found that I was unable to recreate the problem with any degree of accuracy though I was able to narrow down the problem to a given set of conditions.

So to help narrow things down some more, I decided to take a few days and limit the K20D memory card to camera only(no PC reader). This is in retrosdpect to the possibility that the issue is either linked or part of a compatibility issue produced by the PC data reader and the camera's.

This morning marked the second day of trying to reproduce the lockup using all items less the PC card loading. And I am happy to report that out of aprox. 50 instances(processes), I was not able to get the camera to lock-up. This involved, turning off camera while writing(battery removal), removing card while in sleep mode, leaving sleep mode on overnight without a card and taking shots in morning(no card error) and a few other ideas I had along the way.

The short story is, I was never able to get the camera to lock-up or freeze in these conditions.
So...today, I will return the process to the PC card reader and record my findings. And though I already have my doubts as to how it's going to go, I already have good evidence to conclude that there is a discrepency between the PC card reader and camera lock-ups. The only thing left to conclude(imo.) is whether or not the problem is limited to a particular card(s) or all cards as a whole.

I'll post my new findings when I've completed this portion of the tests.

The objective here is to send the data to Pentax to(hopefully) get a response toward this issue. I also think this may prove to be valuable as I've read a number of people sent in there K20's to get repaired under these conditions.

And what's more interesting is that I have not been able to reproduce the error with our other K20 or K200D. However, I can't say that I've tried very hard at this point. I guess this would need to be established before calling it.

[tmalkiew]

John,

Please have a look in this thread I Posted soon after I got my K20D. The issue you described happens to mine camera on regular basis. It is ususally happening after a period of inactivity. After it does the first good shot it's ok then. Sent it to Pentax but they didn't find any fault - had to pay for shipment. Looking forward to more observations. The only thing I can add is that I do not have the grip...

Best regards

Tom