It should not be possible to be "off by one" on the display board -- the cable is permanently attached at that end (unless your player has previously been repaired).

But on the main board, it is very common to reconnect the display cable off by one, even after double checking things.. be very careful there.

Cheers

While trying to help him via IM and walk him through a Hijack install, he is having this exact same issue.

it says 'IDE Calbe Header' ... does that have any meaning?


Oh, yes, very much so!

A common problem with these players is bad solder joints on the IDE header where the cable plugs into the mainboard.

There is quite a lot of discussion about this in the FAQ and also scattered throughout this bbs.

tanstaafl.

That wouldn't explain his display being blank or him getting no response from the serial port, so it looks like he may have more than one problem with this player.

Through IM last night, I had him try to install Hijack on the player. As a control, he installed Hijack on his "good" player using the same computer, serial cable and power supply. It worked fine on the "good player". When we tried the "bad" player, it failed. "Error status in readbyte 16"

Having the flash erased would explain the behavior of his player, but I can't figure out why we can't get Hijack on there.

Ok...another thing...Who is Bob S.? and why would the 'LINK" light stay on steady on the 'bad' unit. On the 'Good' unit, it lights up (with no cables attached to usb, ethernet or serial) for a couple of seconds, and goes out as soon as the "AC Power" screen comes up...?

Rob, not Bob.

Rob Schofiel ( schofiel here on the BBS ) is based in Holland and is the only guy doing any official support. He has the schematics.

The link LED staying on is totally in line with the CPU not being able to boot. It looka like you have a problem with either the CPU, the RAM, the flash or the bus transceivers. If it were the RAM I could fix it. If it were the transceivers, then providing I could get the part, I could fix it. I doubt I could get the CPU or the flash. At this point you're going to have to pay for it to be shipped somewhere, and pay for someone to spend some time diagnosing further. With that being the case, it's probably best to send it to the person with the best chance of fixing it - and that would be Rob.

Oh, one last thing to check... Are there any screws missing from anthing? It might be possible that a screw is trapped under the motherboard causing this issue. I'd expect it to be somewhere around the CPU/RAM/flash area (ie front edge). Long shot.

Thanks for all the info! The thread that had the identical problem, I cant seem to contact that person...bummer.

Is there any danger (other than the normal) in removing the main board to check underneath?
Thanks

Wow! I looked under the lighted magnifing glass to see what type of screw heads were involved...found out it needs the square bit...Another trip to the hardward store! Was a bit upset, and so I tapped (rather uh, firmly) on the sides and b ack of the unit. For giggles, I tried a flash again...and it started!!!! I got excited, then I got another error...this time the message read...

found empeg unit: entering program mode
manufacture=0089, product=88c1
waiting for promtp
starting erase [100%] erase ok
starting program at 8x10000 [
Error: program(10000) got code a
Prese the Enter key to continue

I can get that to repeat...but no further....is this a good sign or a bad sign?
Thanks!

That _might_ be a good sign. At first glance it appears that your CPU might be alive.

Can you try a boot with hyperterminal and see if you get anything.

I got it to finally give me a happy face...then I plugged in the display cable and dupicated it one more time...again, a 'firm nudge' was needed...then the error again then the happyface. I wait until I can get another happy face, then see if I can terminal into it...? Does that sound like a good plan?

That is a good sign, the flash memory was erased, unsucessfully programed, so there's nothing there now. You need to sucessfully complete the hijack install before anything will work.

The other thread mentioned "Well anywayz, to make a long story short, after much messing around, and numerous "Error status in readbyte 16" messages, Tony's logo editor decided to work it's magic, and Hijack suddenly installed successfully. And since then, the player has been fine."

So there I'd patiently try to install hijack multiple times. There probably is a real problem somewhere, that you can temporarily work around, like maybe a failed solder joint somewhere.

--Nathan

Finally got hijack on and was able to hyperterm over to it. Even the damn display worked.... I'm afraid to remove power and try it again...Below its the log when I booted it...remember I still have the drive tray, drive disconnected and removed from the player...anyone know what all this means? Besides that I have a bad unit?
Thanks



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 revision 11
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 10101642) 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 206f6972 'rio '
Tuner: loopback=0, ID=-1
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 d0005e80).
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...
Probing primary interface...
empeg-flash driver initialized
smc chip id/revision 0x3349
smc9194.c:v0.12 03/06/96 by Erik Stahlman ([email protected])

SMC9194: SMC91C94(r:9) at 0x4008000 IRQ:7 INTF:TP MEM:6144b MAC 00:02:d7:22:06:6
a
RAMDISK: ext2 filesystem found at block 0
RAMDISK: Loading 320 blocks [1 disk] into ram disk... done.
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem).
empeg-pump v0.03 (19980601)
Press Ctrl-A to enter pump...VFS: Cannot open root device 03:05
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 03:05

Actually, that boot looked good to me. You might want to try plugging in the hard drive(s) and power on again. Get another boot log and see how far you get.

I just skimmed that, but it all looks good.

No extra RAM:
c1000000: wrote ffffffff, read e91ba9f0

No boot drive:
VFS: Cannot open root device 03:05
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 03:05

--Nathan

Yes, your unit is working. Whatever the problem was is physical in nature, not an electonic failure.

You must find the correct screwdriver and carefully remove the motherboard. If you do have a loose screw that was causing this problem then you need to remove it before it gets somewhere else and causes permanent damage. If this is the problem, then _expensive_, or possibly _irreparable_ damage is a real risk.

Until you do this, I'd recommend disconnecting the power and leaving it so. If you want to check the disks and can carefully do so without disturbing the player physically, then that's your choice, but I personally wouldn't.

The only other cause that I can think of is a bad solder joint - but apart from the IDE header issue I don't recall ever hearing of any.

[edit] Reinforced my statement about checking for screws.

Unit just too freaky...once it heats up, it goes bonkers. Guess I'll just have a 'spare parts' machine.
Thanks, everyone for all the help! Great learning experience!

I had removed the main board and display (carefully) and it is obvious that it has be 'worked on' before. After check solder joints and everything else I could think off (no loose parts in the unit) I put it back together (carefully - display connector on correctly) it would sometimes power up sometimes not. Once it ran for 15 minutes, then quit, not light no nothing, and has not powered up since....hence the reference to 'parts machine'.