I just recieved my 2ond Empeg. I got it knowing that it did not 'work right'. When I plugged it in (AC Power) it does nada, zippo, no lights, no noise of spin up or anything. Would anyone have any suggestions of the first steps in troubleshooting, so that I don't damage it any further?
Many thanks!
Ladmo

Have you opened up the player yet? I purchased a player off of someone and the display cable was unplugged.

Ok, I got power to it. Now the machine says the usb is not working right. I get the 'standby' light on the unit and nothing else...no menus no anything else?

Try connecting it through emplode with the serial cable and playing some music. If so it's a problem with the display.

While you've got the serial cable connected...get a boot log and post it here.

at least once a bad kernel flash resulted in something which I recall was like that: do you know that it has good software on it? it may be that simple.

the boot log should tell us for sure.

Did the person who sold it to you give any clues?

I don't know how to get a boot log? Emplode with the USB doesnt recognize or see the player? I do have the upper right hand corner flashing indicator...nothing else...

You need serial (not USB) to get a boot log. Attach a serial cable, and run a terminal program.

I've been reading that FAQ but the settings it says to use for hyperterm...well it doesn't ...it references a couple of settings but does not tell which ones or what to set them to. Please forgive me but I only remember trying hypterm a couple of years or so ago...

The required settings are right there in the images - 115200, 8, None, 1, None.

Ok. Got Hyperterm working with my 'known good' player. Works as advertised. However...nothing on the 'known bad' player...Any ideas as to next step? Pop the lid?

Well, if you got nothing from the serial port, I guess it's not just a bad kernel flashed, and you have an actual hardware problem. You can open it, and see what you see, but it may need some quality time with a soldering iron and a logic probe.

Are there any schematics or drawings anywhere? Or is that all propriaity type stuff? I don't mind soldering, if I know what to solder. Any recommendations on repair sites? I don't think anyone in Colorado works on them.

It's all proprietary. Really, if you're skilled enough to solder it, you're probably skilled enough to figure out what might be fried, loose, blown or whatever. I know I'm not. You might check the FAQ for information about fuses, since if that's your problem maybe you're lucky (but not overly so). The people who are most likely to be able to guess at your problem probably aren't awake just yet.

Here are good instructions on how to open up the player. (It contains instructions on how to upgrade the player's hard drive, but is a good walk-through on opening up the case without damaging anything.

If you poke around and tell us what you see, we can probably help. There are also a few routes if you want to send the player to someone for repair.

I doubt that it's a fuse. Front LED blinking but no serial...

You were right...the fuses (If I located all three correctly) are all good....next step? Anyone? help?

Well, making the assumption that the serial port itself is fine, then it looks like the CPU is unable to load the bootloader from flash. As I see it, there are three major reasons why this wouldn't happen;

1) CPU not working.
2) Flash not working,
3) Something else that shares the data/address busses not working.

The first thing that you should probably do is verify Vdd on the CPU and flash. Given that the fuses are fine I'd expect this to be a formality, but do it anyway.

Beyond that, you'd really need a scope to test further. There isn't much on the CPU address/data lines - Flash, RAM and line transceiver. Everything else lives behind the line transceiver (Which I believe should prevent a problem with downstream components causing this particular symptom). It would be useful to check the CPU clock circuitry too.

One other test that you can try is to leave it powered up for a couple of minutes and see if any of the chips get hot. This will often indicate a bad chip (_but not necessarily the root cause_,)

Remember to take anti-static precautions when touching anything internally.

Thanks! Very helpful! Now, once I exhaust all of my limited abilities in the matter, if anyone has any recommendations for good, reliable repair people, please pm (or email) me with details?
I'm still open to try and/or look at other suggestions, if within my limited scope! As I mentioned before, I got this unit knowing it was a non working unit. For the price (almost free) I figured I couldn't go wrong, even if I just used some of the parts! (Plus it came with the remote!)

By the way, does anyone know what the reset contacts that are right above (when you are facing the front of the unit) the hard drive connector are for?
Thanks

Presumably when you short them, the CPU will have it's Reset line asserted. If they are held shorted then the CPU won't be able to run, which would produce your exact symptom...

How do I check to see if they are held shorted? I have a small little Radio Crap multimeter...
Also, the little blue light on the back underneath the word printed LINK is steady blue and the front panel power light slowly blinks...

Have you tried to install HiJack or 2.00final on the player? At least to see what error message you'd get. Maybe check the display to make sure it's plugged in properly.. not off by one pin?

The drives ARE spinning up now?

The drives are not spinning up. I can't install anything if I cant get to it, can I? Recap; Cant get to it with Hyperterminal, can't access it with emplode or jEmplode using serial, ethernet, or USB. In fact Emplode/jEmplode just sit there searching for it?

If the problem is with the disk drives, there is still a remote chance that you can at least flash a kernel onto the thing.

Here is what you do:

- Open the player, and, CAREFULLY, USING THE DRIVE UPGRADE GUIDE AS YOUR BIBLE, remove the disk drives and IDE cable.

- Make absolutely sure that the display board is plugged in correctly, not off-by-one-pin.

- Inspect the cable connecting the display board to the player mainboard to make sure it has no breaks or damage.

- With the player still open and the disk drives removed, plug in the serial cable. Start Hyperterminal, make absolutely sure its settings are exactly correct according to the hyperterminal section of the FAQ.

- With hyperterminal running, apply power to the player.

- Did you see ANY TEXT AT ALL appear in hyperterminal? Did it say "If anyone wants to upgrade the flash let them speak now or forever hold their peace"?

- If so, exit hyperterminal and apply the latest Hijack kernel using my logoeditor as described in the Hijack section of the FAQ.


If you can get that far, then it means at least the flash and CPU are OK and you're simply down to disk drive problems. See if you can get that far...

And just to make sure that all the bases are covered:

Are you sure that the proper COM port is free when you try to connect? Is it still tied to your other empeg? Is another program grabbing the serial port? Hyperterminal won't see anything if another program has control of the COM port. Programs that can hog your COM port can include emplode, jemplode, the logoeditor or any program that works with your cell phone or Palm pilot.

Are you using the same power supply for the "good" empeg and the one giving your problems?

Like Tony said, I would try to apply a HiJack to the thing, it can't hurt.

Ok...when you say display board not off by one pin, do you mean on the main board side or the display side.
Also there was a note in the box with the player that is hard to make out, but I think it says 'IDE Calbe Header' ... does that have any meaning?

Could the dimmer be at 0%? IDE header might explain the hard drive issue and the serial connection could be something else?

I'll try to attach a scan of the note that was in the box. Maybe someone with more expertise and better eyes than me can figure it out?
Thanks

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'.