I was playing a midi file from my laptop through the PSR-3000 and comping with my right hand when suddenly, everything stopped playing. The midi file stopped playing and the entire right side of the keyboard suddenly went dead. For a moment I thought the electricity may have blinked because it was a very windy day and electrical outages are not at all uncommon under these circumstances. I instantly selected a song from my MFD, and continued the remaining 20 minutes of the job without the aid of the laptop.

I brought the rig into the house when I got home, plugged everything in, and wallah, everything seemed to work just fine. However, after 20 minutes of playing the keyboard's right side began missing notes. At first I thought it may have been a worn out contact strip, but it was inconsistent. The next thing I did was unplug the USB to Host cable between the keyboard and laptop. Everything on the keyboard worked perfectly. A few minutes with an ohm meter and some wire jiggling provided me with the information I needed--the 5-year-old cable was shot. After connecting a replacement cable everything is back to normal. It's amazing what one, seemingly, innocuous cable can do to an entire system.

Food for thought,

Gary