Hi,

It could be something as simple as some foreign object stuck somewhere or maybe one of the traction tyres has become loose and got stuck. Look underneath the train to check.
Another thing to check are the connectors between cars.
if it isn't the above, I would try and locate the source of the clicking.
First I would power down the CS2, and restart it after 1 minute or so.
If the train behaves the same, the only things I can think about are:
- Something around the motor - drive shaft - worm shaft arrangement is loose, for example, one of the drive shafts (number 24 on the explosion diagram for the model) might be partially dislodged at the motor- or worm shaft end, and needs to be put back in place. (The instruction manual shows how to open the loco), it might be worth checking that the motor is properly attached.
- the decoder is kaput

hope this helps...

Let us know how you get on, I have the same model so am interested to know what caused your problem.

Another day and after a complete power down overnight, a new power up shows that the blinking and clicking has stopped. The ICE3 is once again functioning normally.

Strange.

I know what you are saying but reboot yesterday did nothing. Quit and restart yesterday did nothing. Complete power shutoff of the power bar and restart yesterday did nothing. Complete power bar shutoff over night and restart this morning cured the problem.

Peter

It is not the reboot that fixed it, it was the extended time not powered.

Not an uncommon problem with some electronics when it gets properly stuffed up.

Agreed, I believe the decoder hardware got its knickers in a twist somehow and the extended time powered off allowed whatever had gone wrong to come right.

In a past existence I did repair on a minicomputer system which had memory daughter cards that used first generation 16k x 1 memory chips. These had small memory cell sizes that were regularly disrupted by (I presumed) alpha particle radiation. The cell size was such that a single alpha particle would upset the thresholds of the transistors and result in a memory error. If you kept running the card the memory error stayed, but if left on a shelf for a week the charge caused by the alpha particle hit would dissipate and the memory would then work fine. But if you powered it up before the week was done then the charge would remain trapped and you still had the error.

Here in the US it feels like the twilight zone has already been reached!

I have read about those random memory errors in older hardware, but I have never had to deal with that issue on any of our systems. I think that we can essentially rule that out in a modern chip, although I have learned the hard way to never say no to any theory until you check it out. Hardware/software systems are amazingly complex and can be very difficult to debug.

In fact it is quite possible that we will never figure out what went wrong in Alan's case, which for me is frustrating because there is an answer. If it is a software problem in the latest update then it will be easily fixed in a new revision.

Good luck guys - I am still holding off on this update until it is stable.

Thanks for the input.