TenBaz ,
You may have to switch the speaker on, I have one player that I need to hold down the record button for a second or two to turn the speaker on.
The internals can vary greatly between players with different board types, chip types, LCD types etc so finding a compatible firmware can be difficult.
Unfortunatly version numbers like 3.2.16 are almost meaningless know as there are hundreds of variations of each version and only a small percentage will be compatible with your player.
I doubt it is a firmware issue and would not advise trying to change firmware as you have more chance of killing your player than fixing it.
To backup your firmware you need to use s1fwx
HERE and there is a guide to backing up
HERE. s1fwx will only work with Windows 2000 and up.
Files will play in the same order they were copied to the player which can be a pain, I have uploaded a small app called FolderSort
HERE which allows you to re-sort the files on your player by name, date etc. works great.