thank you mark, there are news:

i've found a really nice electronic professional that have replaced my fuses that are ok now and resoldered my IDE connector all for free, a great person! thanks Tony!, i'm returned to a situation like the original one (the one at the first post time), let me explain:

my display unit (with the repaired cable that i'd like to replace) is ok: i've tested the whole part with another working empeg and is pefectly functioning.

my empeg motherboard is working, * i can listen music * BUT:
the "pulsing" led is working, it pulses normally when i powerup the unit and if i press the upper-left button it pulses less (pulsing but not arriving to completely off); the main display doesn't show nothing (when in stand by and while playing music). i've tested the motherboard with another working display unit and i've the same problem.

i'm suspecting a software problem.

this is the situation:
my serial log says:
...
Mounting first music partition
Tried to mount /dev/hda4 as reiserfs but got error 19
Mounting second music partition
Tried to mount /dev/hdc4 but got error 6
Error mounting partitions (possibly already mounted)
... (complete log posted later)
i can listen music
i can connect with emplode (serial and eth)
i've tested v3alpha8 and v2 software
i've tested hijack 413 and original v2 kernel
i've removed config.ini file
IR controller is working
buttons are working
when hijack is installed FTP is working
all seems perfect but the main display is blank and the led is pulsing all the time.

any ideas ?

about the display cable, i really want to replace the repaired one but i think that desoldering the original display connector is difficult (for me) and avoidable because is really intact, i think i need a spare #ASA20K-ND to take a new "cap" for the original soldered connector as they use the same, i'll "crimp" wires one by one as i've done with the repaired one. btw, if i can't solve the main problem above and i have to ask to you to fix my empeg and you'll accept, i'll post it to you and i'll ask you to change the display connector and cable too, otherwise if there is a solution to the problem above, i'll ask you to post me two, urhmm... better three #ASA20K-ND and a length of high density ribbon cable, what do you think ?

my serial log:

empeg-car bootstrap v1.02 20001106 ([email protected])
If there is anyone present who wants to upgrade the flash, let them speak now,
or forever hold their peace...it seems not. Let fly the Penguins of Linux!

e000 v1.04
Copying kernel...
Calling linux kernel...
Uncompressing Linux..................................... done, booting the kerne
l.
Linux version 2.2.17-rmk5-np17-empeg52-hijack-v413 ([email protected]) (gcc version
2.95.3 20010315 (release)) #2 Tue Aug 17 18:05:30 EDT 2004
Processor: Intel StrongARM-1100 re
Checking for extra DRAM:
c1000000: wrote ffffffff, read e91ba9f0
NetWinder Floating Point Emulator V0.94.1 (c) 1998 Corel Computer Corp.
empeg-car player (hardware revision 9, serial number 10101588) 16MB DRAM
Command line: mem=16m
Calibrating delay loop... 207.67 BogoMIPS
Memory: 15008k/16M available (984k code, 20k reserved, 368k data, 4k init)
Dentry hash table entries: 2048 (order 2, 16k)
Buffer cache hash table entries: 16384 (order 4, 64k)
Page cache hash table entries: 4096 (order 2, 16k)
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.2
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP
TCP: Hash tables configured (ehash 16384 bhash 16384)
IrDA (tm) Protocols for Linux-2.2 (Dag Brattli)
Starting kswapd v 1.5
SA1100 serial driver version 4.27 with no serial options enabled
ttyS00 at 0xf8010000 (irq = 15) is a SA1100 UART
ttyS01 at 0xf8050000 (irq = 17) is a SA1100 UART
ttyS02 at 0xf8030000 (irq = 16) is a SA1100 UART
Signature is 67706d65 'empg'
Found custom animation at offset 0x9a790
Tuner: loopback=0, ID=-1
Scheduling custom logo.
empeg display initialised.
empeg dsp audio initialised
empeg dsp mixer initialised
empeg dsp initialised
empeg audio-in initialised, CS4231A revision a0
empeg remote control/panel button initialised.
empeg usb initialised, PDIUSBD12 id 1012
empeg state support initialised 0089/88c1 (save to d0005400).
empeg RDS driver initialised
empeg power-pic driver initialised (first boot)
RAM disk driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 4096K size
empeg single channel IDE
Probing primary interface...
hda: HTS548060M9AT00, ATA DISK drive
hda: HTS548060M9AT00, ATA DISK drive
hda: HTS548060M9AT00, ATA DISK drive
hda: HTS548060M9AT00, ATA DISK drive
hda: HTS548060M9AT00, ATA DISK drive
hda: HTS548060M9AT00, ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0x000-0x007,0x038 on irq 6
hda: HTS548060M9AT00, 57231MB w/7877kB Cache, CHS=7296/255/63
empeg-flash driver initialized
smc chip id/revision 0x3349
smc9194.c:v0.12 03/06/96 by Er

SMC9194: SMC91C94(r:9) at 0x4008000 IRQ:7 INTF:TP MEM:6144b MAC 00:02:d7:22:06:3
4
Partition check:
hda: hda1 < hda5 hda6 > hda2 hda3 hda4
RAMDISK: ext2 filesystem found at block 0
RAMDISK: Loading 320 blocks [1 disk] into ram disk... done.
EXT2-fs warning: checktime reached, running e2fsck is recommended
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem).
empeg-pump v0.03 (19980601)
Press Ctrl-A to enter pump...VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly.
change_root: old root has d_count=1
Trying to unmount old root ... okay
Freeing unused kernel memory: 4k initempeg init 0.8
I see this is a developer image!
Mounting proc
Mounting first music partition
Tried to mount /dev/hda4 as reiserfs but got error 19
Mounting second music partition
Tried to mount /dev/hdc4 but got error 6
Error mounting partitions (possibly already mounted)
Remounting first music partition read-only
Remounting second music partition read-only
No secondary hard disk
Press 'q' now to go into development mode. You Have Zero Seconds To Comply...
Starting player
Timezone: Atlantic/South_Georgia
Hijack: intercepting config.ini

hijack: removed menu entry: "Serial Port Assignment"
khttpd: listening on port 80
kftpd: listening on port 21
player.cpp : 385:empeg-car 2.00 2003/04/01.