[theodb]

Hi everyone,
 
I just got a Fiio X5 for Christmas, along with 2 128 Sandisk GB sim cards. As the instructions said I could format the cards with in the mp3 player, so I went to the format option, selected each of the cards, and formatted them. I then connected to my computer and proceeded to load up the player with my music. I got each card pretty full, they both have 12 GB of free space at this point, with a total of 30,000 songs now on the Fiio. It should be noted my music organization is a mess. I've tagged everything perfectly on iTunes, but the actual files were scattered on my hard drive throughout 5 or 6 different folders and countless subfolders with no pattern of organization. Therefore I only copied mp3 files onto the sim cards; no folders. I'm aware that this makes things more annoying for me to search, but should it have an impact on the efficiency/speed of the Fiio? Cause this thing is real slow. When I click a menu, it takes 30-60 seconds to advance to the next menu. When listening to an album, there have been gaps of 2-10 seconds between songs. The sound quality and storage capacity is amazing, so I want to make this work. But its really annoying to use at the moment with how slow it is.
 
So I'll be straightforward with my questions. I want to update my firmware to the most recent stable version. What version should I go with, and where can I download it? Next, how exactly do I do the update? In the instruction manual it says I can use a Fat32 formatted sim card. Is Fat32 the format I gave my sim card when I formatted it through the Fiio? If not, how can I format my sim cards to Fat32? Is there a way of doing it now that the sim cards are full with music, or would I have to erase them? Finally, I'd appreciate any other advice about how to maximize/speed up the performance of the machine without just deleting a lot of music. 
 
Thanks for any help. If there is another board, within this site or in another website, where I could get better answers to my questions, please let me know.

 

[theodb]

I should mention this is a 2nd generation model

 

[EagleWings]

You did the right thing by formatting the card in the device. That has already formatted yours cards in Fat32 format. Here are the steps how you can update the firmware:
 
Step 1: Go to this link on your PC and download the file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/wl724puib3xz43e/X5II-FW1.2.zip?dl=0
 
Step 2: Unzip the zip file and you will find a X5ii.fw file
 
Step 3: Connect your X5 to your computer and copy the X5ii.fw file to the SDCard 1. Place this file outside in the main root folder of card and not inside any folder.
 
Step 4: Disconnect your device from the PC and completely turn it off.
 
Step 5: While it is in the off state, press the Power Button + Top Left Button on the front of the device (The button that is right below the screen on the left side). This will restart the device and update the firmware automatically
 
Step 6: Once the update is successful, the device will turn off. Turn it back ON and go to system settings and do a 'Factory Restore'
 
Important: Remember, before you update the firmware in the future once a newer version is available, delete the firmware file on the card and then load the newer firmware file.
 
Regarding the lag and speed issues, you can ask the members here on this thread:
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/765943/fiio-x5-2nd-gen-impressions-and-discussion-thread

 

[theodb]

Great, thank you for your help.
 
Before I go ahead with the update, is there any drawbacks or glitches I should be aware of that could happen with updating? According to the about screen I have firmware 1.0 right now.
 
Will the fact that I have an almost full sim card, and all the files are already just sitting in the root folder (there are no subfolders) affect the updating process?
 
I'll bring these questions to the other thread you mentioned too

 

[fearafter]

Hello.  I'm a rocker of the Fiio X5 and have done what you're doing.  Do the update, with Fiio there haven't been any "1 step forwards, but 2 back" firmware updates.  And just to help your vernacular, SIM cards are for cellular service in network devices.  Micro SDXC & SDHC (or just MicroSD, TF internationally, flash storage, etc)  are ROM storage devices, or mini hard drives. That covers a fair amount of aliases and pseudonyms.  Just as long as you do not use SIM as a synonym for microsd, because they are not one and the same.  

 

[EagleWings]

  Great, thank you for your help.
 
Before I go ahead with the update, is there any drawbacks or glitches I should be aware of that could happen with updating? According to the about screen I have firmware 1.0 right now.
 
Will the fact that I have an almost full sim card, and all the files are already just sitting in the root folder (there are no subfolders) affect the updating process?
 
I'll bring these questions to the other thread you mentioned too

 
I have never had my music sitting in the root folder so I have not tried what you are about to. Although, I can say with much confidence that it shouldn't be a problem. Just make sure the device's battery is sufficiently charged before performing the update. 
 
Try moving music into multiple sub folders to see if it improves the performance. The device's RAM and processing power is fairly limited. So trying to read tens and thousands of files in a single folder might put a lot of load on the processor. Also, it has been observed in the past that large data in large sd cards tend to slow down the device.
 
I own a fiio X3ii with a 64GB card, but I only have about 35GB of data on it. So I haven't run into speed issues.

 

[theodb]

Thanks for the great advice guys. And thanks for the heads up on my wrong terminology. Of course I should have known that, wasn't thinking..
 
I was hoping to avoid splitting my music up into folders. Considering I have a library of 30,000 songs, it will be a headache getting everything organized. But, the point you bring up makes sense. Of course the player will run faster if it has more clear folder paths to deal with, as opposed to searching one giant folder for each song. And of course, it'll make things easier on me to scroll through my collection. I'll be getting to work on this..

 

[theodb]

If I follow your instructions given yesterday and do a factory restore, will it delete the music off of my SD cards?

 

[EagleWings]

Nope. It won't affect the data. It will just reset the settings in the device to factory defaults.

 

[theodb]

So I tried, put the .fw file within the root folder on SD card 1 (On my computer, the two cards show up as drives E and F. I'm assuming drive E corresponds to card 1). I ejected the drives and completely powered the Fiio off. Then I held down the power and left buttons. At first it said waiting for sdcard, then "file system not support" after this it just went to the normal main menu screen. Any ideas what happened?

 

[EagleWings]

Hmmm. Not sure what caused that. I have not run into that issue myself nor have I come across anyone mention such an issue in the X3 2nd Gen. Given the situation, I'd suggest you ask in the X5 2nd Gen thread. I'm sure the members there would be help you better.

Just to make sure, when you say the "left button" you mean the left button below the screen and not the one below the scroll wheel?

 

[fearafter]

So I tried, put the .fw file within the root folder on SD card 1 (On my computer, the two cards show up as drives E and F. I'm assuming drive E corresponds to card 1). I ejected the drives and completely powered the Fiio off. Then I held down the power and left buttons. At first it said waiting for sdcard, then "file system not support" after this it just went to the normal main menu screen. Any ideas what happened?

If it went through a power cycle, listed some messages of current process statuses while working, and immediately proved ultimately successful, what is the problem? You are worried why the status read for a second file not supported? It was in the process of reading!

 

[theodb]

I'm worried because the firmware didn't update as it was supposed to it. It just said file now supported then went to the main menu. Now it won't read any music off of sd card 1 at all, and after being connected to the computer the Fiio won't even turn on at all. Here's a detailed post I put in the general Fx5II thread describing what happened:
After confirming with someone in another thread, I went and followed the instructions above. Then .fw file was in the root folder of sd card 1, I ejected, powered off, then held the correct two buttons down. At first I got a blank screen that said waiting for sdcard, then it said file system not support and brought up the main menu. After this I updated the library, since I had also changed the folder arrangements. When that was done I went and looked around. I noticed that when I went to folders, sim card 1 was unselectable. It again said file system not support when I tried to click on it. I checked and sure enough half my music was now missing from the artists, albums , etc lists. So now I went to plug the thing into the computer to see what was going on. The drives didn't show up on the computer and now I noticed the Fiio was completely powered off. I tried turning it on again, both connected and disconnected to the computer, but no reaction. So now it seems its just dead. It had a full battery so that's not the issue.

Does anyone have any idea what's going on here, or how I should proceed? I'm just gonna leave it alone overnight for now.

 

[fearafter]

-------

 

[fearafter]

I ejected, powered off, then held the correct two buttons down. At first I got a blank screen that said waiting for sdcard, then it said file system not support and brought up the main menu.

I'm concerned about when you say you "held the correct two buttons down." Can you show me a diagram or a post an image displaying beyond any doubt, which two buttons you are actually pressing? Since following this thread that seems to be a spot still obfuscated in a hazy fog on unspecified vagueness.