HOWTO : Upgrade Firmware (K3)

[gpaciga]

4The link to V4.03 on the first post seems to work again.
However, the ones to V4.06, which look like they've been changed to zol.com.cn, do not. I get a 403 Forbidden error.

I wasn't able to get the files from download page linked above (as opposed to directly to the files as in the first post), but only because I'm at work and gave up after a few false starts---I'll try again tonight.

[Zeddicus Zu'l Zorander]

Alright, amendments have once more been made to the V4.06 links in the first post. There are manual and automatic downloads for each colour.

[Masure]

i have just tested the 4.06 CN version.
and the only difference to the KR version is, that the CN has NOT the "Display - Font Type" settings

btw: on the first post, the manual and automatic downlads for 4.06 are false linked.
the manual are the automatic and vice versa

[Zeddicus Zu'l Zorander]

Originally Posted by Masure

btw: on the first post, the manual and automatic downlads for 4.06 are false linked.
the manual are the automatic and vice versa

Thanks for that. The links and titles in the first post are now arranged respectively.

[DCG]

Thanks for the guide. Like others, I found it impossible to put the.rom and .img files into the "root" folder - so created a "Data" folder next to Music etc and put them in there.

Well that worked for me upgrading from 1.04 to 1.09.

I haven't spotted the difference between these versions yet. Does anyone know what's changed?. Perhaps it's just stability - not that I had many problems.

[Snoopy69]

Sorry for the stupid question, but i dont know to flash the K3.

3. Put the .rom and .img files (4.03) in the root directory of the player

Which root directory - where???

The K3 is now formated, but i cant drag and drop any files to the player (mp3 is ok, but no img and rom).
I need a step by step tut - maybe with screenshot.

And sorry for my bad english...

edit: Yeah, der flash i done!!!

[DCG]

Originally Posted by Snoopy69

Sorry for the stupid question, but i dont know to flash the K3.

Which root directory - where???

The K3 is now formated, but i cant drag and drop any files to the player (mp3 is ok, but no img and rom).
I need a step by step tut - maybe with screenshot.

And sorry for my bad english...

edit: Yeah, der flash i done!!!

Read my previous post .... just before yours!

[moi92]

Does anyone knows if the upgrading process to 4.03 & 4.06 works well on a Samsung yp k3j qb/xef ??
I did the mistake to do it with the 4.06 directly and the player freezed (& connected to an XP SP2, it is not well recognized )

Thks !


Edit : Ok, i just have to be patient.. and wait the batteries run out... then at restart it works well...

[megarules]

I need help.

I had FW 3.50 JN and the updated went well until

6. if you turn it on and get "no space for DB. delete at least 18mb error", plug into computer and format it again.
7. If you turn it on now and get a blank blue screen, just repeat steps) 3 and 4 and it should work this time.

After i get the blue screen i paste the files again but it still goes to the blue screen

[Zeddicus Zu'l Zorander]

Originally Posted by megarules

I need help.

I had FW 3.50 JN and the updated went well until

After i get the blue screen i paste the files again but it still goes to the blue screen

Try using the firmware files from v4.06 mentioned in this thread.

[WingZero91]

umm this might not b the rite post but is there anyway to de-grade the k3. i dl 4.03 n is there any way i could remove it? i try the reset button but that didnt do anything.

[Zeddicus Zu'l Zorander]

Originally Posted by WingZero91

umm this might not b the rite post but is there anyway to de-grade the k3. i dl 4.03 n is there any way i could remove it? i try the reset button but that didnt do anything.

Sure, you need to use the firmware which was on the K3 before the installation of 4.03 (or any other version) and use the same method as 4.03 to install it on the K3.

[Speedierbug]

Da Best now i can fix my k3 becuse it has a blue screen and playes music

[ihaveworms]

Well I got my k3 in today and have played around with the US firmware and the Korean firmware. I like the user EQ, Baseboost, and .ogg support. However, I liked that in the US version you could browse the MP3s by ID3 tags. Why can't they just combine the best parts of each firmware to make 1 great one .

[unggoy]

will the UMS still be able to support playlist?.. will it ever be able to support ID3 browsing?.. i like the new features added onto the new v4.06 firmware but i also like the ability to browse through the ID3 tags.. its more organized that way.. so i stick with the v3.05 firmware & hopes samsung release a MTP version which include the new features such as text viewer & fonts changing..

[Zeddicus Zu'l Zorander]

Originally Posted by unggoy

will the UMS still be able to support playlist?..

Yes, playlists in the form of an .spl file (by using SMS) and .wpl file (by using WMP) are supported with the UMS firmware.

Originally Posted by unggoy

will it ever be able to support ID3 browsing?..

It is extremely unlikely that a new UMS firmware will support tag browsing.

Originally Posted by unggoy

i like the new features added onto the new v4.06 firmware but i also like the ability to browse through the ID3 tags.. its more organized that way.. so i stick with the v3.05 firmware & hopes samsung release a MTP version which include the new features such as text viewer & fonts changing..

It's unfortunate that the divided firmware lines (UMS / MSC and MTP) of the K3 and K5 have caused this catch-22. I don't see why there should be any correlation between; MTP and tag browsing, and UMS and file browsing. I've said it before, but providing a simple setting to change between transfer protocols within one firmware is the most convenient. Samsung have done this in the past so I hope they consider it again. At least it appears that they are going to incorporate tag browsing as well as a file browser for future models, but for the K3 or K5 I don't see any convergence being offered through a new firmware.

[inkrat]

...and it worked exactly as it said it would based on the first post.

I had a 2GB K3 model with the newest "International" firmware on it.

Had to download the manual patch version because the automatic version said I was up to date and wouldn't allow me to patch.

I actually had a "Data" directory on mine. I had to put the files in there, since the MTP protocol would keep me from putting the firmware files anywhere else. (Not even in root.)

I'm thrilled this worked because one thing I was fearing having to do when I give my system its yearly format-and-reinstall is that the CD that came with my player tried to install much more crap than it needed. It wanted WMP (I nuked it, much prefer Media Player Classic), to install the slow and buggy Samsung MediaStudio, and on top of that it installs a DRM driver (MarkAny ContentSafer (maagent.exe)) that has no uninstall. I had to nuke the DRM Driver by using some system cleaning tools. After I cleaned up all the installed junk, I was left with only the device driver, so it continued to work in Explorer.

MediaStudio never got playlists right on my unit. The other issue I had with the ID3 tag reading is that when the player would list albums or genres... I had tried to use genre and album browsing as an alternative to playlists since I couldn't get them to work... Only that grouping tracks by genre and album resulted in many duplicated entries. Example:

I had tracks that were labeled artist's name for the album... just to easily group together tracks by all artists, or by type of music (pop, punk, electro, etc) I'd get a listing like this when I browsed by album:

The Black Dog
The Cure
the time before
The Black Dog
The Cure
the time before
The Cure
the time before
The Cure
the time before
The Cure
the time before
The Cure
the time before

With only -some- of the tracks in each of the albums I had listed in the ID3 tags. Suppose I had 30 total tracks for "The Cure" as album. 3 would be in the first line the name appears, another 4 in the next line it appears, maybe 2 in the next, one in the next, 7 in the next... (I used tag and rename so there were NO variations on spelling or formatting for that field) - I never bothered with ID3 based sorting, so having a flat file list with folders is a major plus for me.

(As an aside: I think the reason why there is no ID3 tag based sorting/browsing in the UMS version is because when files were copied over from MTP, a database was updated on the unit itself that carried the pre-generated sorting information. This is also how the iPod works, it uses a DB instead of a flat file list. So yes, I'm afraid that dumping MTP and going UMS will lose your ID3 tag browsing abilities is an -expected- trade off. Proprietary file transfer protocols can include behaviours invisible to the user, like updating a Database or generating information for the DB before the file is copied, that you wouldn't be able to really do with a drag-and-drop action that only copies a file to a location as with UMS.)

The other nice change is that you're expanded from 5 to 10+1 EQ options. VERY nice. (Having a custom EQ field is absolutely tops!)

USB/UMS Mode works perfectly. There was NO need for MTP, makes me wonder why they even bothered trying to sell a crippled version of a very nice product to other countries.

Other observations:

Volume seems louder since the firmware update. Every time you turn on the unit, the volume defaults to about half. Now it defaults to just under half... and now when I increase the volume, I don't have it nearly as high as I used to.

I'm kind of missing the "Vocal" EQ setting, since that made nighttime listening before sleep a bit easier on my ears. R&B seems closest.

The firmware also causes the background when the clock is displayed to "throb"... very cool.

As previously noted: Font options. Kinda neat, but I stuck with the default.

Text Mode is new for the firmware as opposed to the International version. I never had text reading mode when I got the player until now.

When I did the update, it defaulted to English despite having used the Korean firmware... I was rather surprised, but pleased.

Someone mentioned that this firmware prevented people from listening to the unit when plugged in via USB. I never was able to listen to anything on the unit when it was plugged in with the MTP Firmware... so no loss there. I WAS concerned about the comment, so I gave it a try by plugging the unit into a wall-wart to USB (power only) adapter and it recharged and played music like before. So, in other words, no difference with that as far as I can tell.

With the new firmware: Copying files to the unit causes the graphics to flicker like an activity light. When I updated ID3 tags on files on the player itself, it certainly did flicker erratically, so yes, it is a true activity flicker as opposed to an animation.

Oh, and you can mix or match the themes if you want. I had a black/blue unit and decided to throw Red onto it. Works just fine. (And red is better for night vision) Plus the "fire" looking graphic EQ is very spiffy looking.

One of the only remaining caveats that I have with the product is: Random/Shuffle mode isn't very random. Despite having 430+ songs on the unit, I still hit a duplicate within a new listening session every 5th song or so.

MTP was the most bitter issue I had with using the K3... and now that that's been solved, I don't miss my old Creative Nomad one bit.

Hope this explains a few things for folks wondering what to expect.

Overall, updating the firmware was absolutely worth it to me. Very pleased with the results.

[JacksonC]

Sorry for being a complete noob, but I just put the files in the "DATA" directory, then turned the K3 on. I got the "no room delete 18mb" thing. Then I plugged it back into the computer and try to format it again in Samsung Media Studio. But I am getting this message:

"Could not format this drive. Please close the disk utility or other programs that are using the drive. Make sure that there is no window showing the content of the drive and then try reformatting again."

But all I have is this thread in Mozilla Firefox and the SMS on, nothing else. Please help.

Thank you,
Jackson

[piacek]

Hi, you can try also this metodh, click right key by mouse to player icon in menu MY COMPUTER and choose formating.

[JacksonC]

Thank you, but my computer wasn't even detecting the K3 after. It was not in "My Computer" anymore. I decided to go exchange it for a new one, and if I can't get it to work, then I will just refund it altogether.