Hey, thanks for the reply.
Are you still looking for bricked cams?
Yes, I am.
I'm checking eBay pretty regularly for 'Hikvision not working / parts' or similar, looking for 'bricked' cameras people have given up on.
I did buy a 2332 that was being sold for spares as it had simply stopped working - but it was a LAN cable fault that I managed to fix.
On your camera - did you go direct from 5.2.5 to 5.4.5 ? If so, according to the Hikvision change log, that can cause problems.
Easy enough to do, and worth trying if you haven't already done so, is the Hikvision
tftp updater with the '5.2.5 downgrader' firmware from here :
Custom Firmware Downgrader 5.3.0 Chinese to 5.2.5 English
Use the first link, not the 4-line version. Usage instructions are included.