week-old d40x built-in flash not functioning.... service advice?

Hey all,

 

I'm new here and new to my d40x that I bought two weeks ago and arrived last week, but I've had a

handful of Sony and Nikon consumer-grade digitals before. My d40x worked perfectly the first day I had

it, but since then I haven't seen its flash go off - granted, most of what I did until this weekend was bright

enough photography that I didn't think anything of it or I had the flash purposefully turned off. But now,

if I try to take a picture with flash, it pops up but doesn't do anything. Does anybody have any experience

with firmware issues with this camera? Do you think it might be software-related?

My serial number won't work (obviously) to download the d40 firmware update, but my photography

teacher seemed to think it might be a related problem. Any help would be greatly appreciated, even if it's

just information about service experiences with Nikon.

 

Thanks so much!

Hi Rebecca, do I understand you correctly that the pop-up flash on your new D40x used to work the first day you had your camera? That is, you have seen that flash going off?

Easiest way is to return to the shop and just let the shopkeeper check for you whether it's faulty or you accidentally use different shooting program.

 

I'm not sure on which page since I don't own D40, but if you read the manual, you should find the steps to how to actually activate the flash manually, so you'll know if it's working or not.

Rebecca,

 

Do this to see if the flash is working, set the camera to Manual (M) and pop the flash up. Try to take a picture, if the flash fires then its most likely ok. If it doesn't fire then it is defenitly bad.

 

Good luck,

 

Mark

I had a similar experience with my D40.

 

After a couple of weeks the built-in flash stopped working. Setting the camera to auto mode and using it in a dark area would pop up the flash, but it would not fire.

 

I associated this with a slight bump to the flash just before it stopped working.

 

I had to return the camera for service, took a month to fix it.

Hi Rebecca,if you select AUTO mode,your flash suppose to pop up by himself when the situation need extra light,in PROGRAM mode you decide if you want the flash or not,no matter what the light you have,you take the decision,all the other mode,its the camera decide the flah pop up,of course your flash not pop up in LANDSCAPE mode(example)but if your camera decide using the flash or if you decide, and its not fire.....send back the camera you have a problem for sure.

i baught the nikon d40 as a christmass present for my daughter,the camera worked fine for the first few days,then the flash stopped working.the flash would pop up but would not fire.i tried returning the settings to factory default but this did not work.i have returned the camera to nikon for service.it seems to me that this is some kind of fault with the camera design.i will leave further comments here when i get the camera back from nikon.