40D going hay-wire

hey all,

I'm out here in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic for a week. It's beautiful! just one problem... My 40D decides to start acting up on me the second day i am out here I just wanna know if anyone has an idea of what might cause my problem. Whenever i go to take a shot the camera, doesn't matter what mode it is , starts to flicker 125 or 200 in the lcd display a top the camera. it's acting as if i were pressing the shutter button halfway repeatedly. I can still take shots but when it starts the 125 - 200 metering most of the time everything is off exposure. This also happens when i go to review pictures, i get to see the picture and then it turns off and i have a flickering 125- 200 shutter speed in my LCD display. The camera hasn't had any water spilled on it and didn't even get to the beach yet. I just see if anyone has any ideas before i send it off back to Canon for warranty repair when i get back home to NY

Thanks
-Mike

MikeKS wrote in post #6036977
hey all,

I'm out here in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic for a week. It's beautiful! just one problem... My 40D decides to start acting up on me the second day i am out here I just wanna know if anyone has an idea of what might cause my problem. Whenever i go to take a shot the camera, doesn't matter what mode it is , starts to flicker 125 or 200 in the lcd display a top the camera. it's acting as if i were pressing the shutter button halfway repeatedly. I can still take shots but when it starts the 125 - 200 metering most of the time everything is off exposure. This also happens when i go to review pictures, i get to see the picture and then it turns off and i have a flickering 125- 200 shutter speed in my LCD display. The camera hasn't had any water spilled on it and didn't even get to the beach yet. I just see if anyone has any ideas before i send it off back to Canon for warranty repair when i get back home to NY

Thanks
-Mike

Have you tried taking the battery out ...leave it out for a minute..... then start it back up again?

Sorry to hear that. I'm off to Paris on Tuesday and hopefully my beloved 40D doesn't do that to me. Yeah worth trying removing both batteries out and leaving it for a few minutes and see if it helps.

Yeah, i took the batteries out, went out for a couple hours came back and when i put the battery back in it was ok for like a minute or two, then it went all crazy on me again I even tried switching lenses + taking out the CF card + battery and leaving it off over night with the same results.

Strobe, i don't think this is a common happening with the 40D. i have seen several guest here where i'm staying with the 40D and they haven't had any issues, i just have a lil bad luck Enjoy your trip man, there is plenty to photograph out there

Never seen anything similar. Haven't had any problems with my 40D, really.

I was at the AMA tire test at Laguna, my 40D went nuts and shutdown. No menus, no af not able to take a single shot. powered up not even a sensor clean splash.

I took the batteries out, pulled the CF, pulled the lens and cleaned the mounts. It started working after I put it all together. I got home and flashed the firmware just to do it.

Has not repeated itself yet

I had some unexplained funkiness with my Rebel before it became a 5D.

I believe (absolutely nothing technical to back it up, just gut feeling) that it had to do with the one battery that tended to live in my camera. I had two, but for whatever reason the one always ended up in the camera.

So it would get used, charged, used, charged..... The 'spare' got charged back to full, but rarely fully cycled.

After about two years, the 'regular' battery seemed to flake out, giving me funky errors and causing weird behavior. Turning off the camera and putting in the 'spare' solved the problems.

Problems would reoccur when the 'regular' battery made it back into the camera.

I'm very careful now to alternate both batteries equally when I'm not using the battery pack.

So I'd recommend finding a new battery STAT!

I'm out of luck here guys, i think my 40D needs to go back to Canon for warranty repair. I tried everything, i switched batteries, pulled out the CF card, switched lens, cleaned the contacts. I even updated the firmware, still no changes.. in fact the camera is acting weirder and weirder. Oh, well thanks for the suggestions fellas.

Mike

Did you remove the small round battery from the battery compartment too as this will reset the camera,you didn't specifically mention that one,just removing the camera battery wont do much.

Hi Mike,

When you rebooted the camera, did you pull out both batteries?

Besides the BP511A, there's a small, silver memory battery. You have to pull them both out for a while (not sure how long... I've heard everything from 15 min. to overnight), to force the camera to completely reboot. Just pulling the BP511A won't do it.

You will lose all special settings in the menu, the camera will reset to the defaults.

While it's out, wipe off the silver battery with a clean rag, just to be sure there are no finger oils on it. They can mess with the tiny amount of electrical power being provided (1.5 volts).

Thanks Zoox and Amfoto1, i'm gonna give that a try tonight and leave them both out over night.

-Mike

Canon recommends 20-ish minutes with both batteries out.
That’s usually enough for all capacitors to discharge and completely reset the camera..

I don't have any suggestions but I hope it starts working because the beaches there are TOPLESS!!

Ahh well, i put in both batteries this morning and still it's all wacky. Thanks everyone for showing a lot support to a fellow potn'r in distress. scbaily, thanks for the laugh and i'm sorry there will be no pics of the beautiful beach, and it's inhabitants

Didn't read anything about you trying different modes. What mode is it in? I'd try M and work my way all the way around to the green box, see if any of them will work. Would stink to not have the thing working for the whole trip.