G400S won't update bootloader

Then I guessed wrong :slight_smile:

You need power, reset, mode pin and loader pins, plus USB. Go back and check all these pins perhaps.

Double checked and all power is good. Mode pin is high. The failure is in not detecting onboard memory as above. It shows up as a Bossa serial device so it is being detected. The batch file fails as per above.

You are right.

“Shit happens” is a common slang phrase meaning that events (especially unfortunate) occur everyday, all the time.

inform yourself before please

Thank you for teaching us! Now please help in bringing value to this community instead of making other members uncomfortable. We would hate to lose you on this forum.

You may need SAMBA v2.18 as below:

Make sure you didn’t do any change with hardware.

Try Samba GUI instead of console application .

I’m usually one keeps forward of the adoption curve of Windows Updates, with my main machine participating in Windows Insider builds (from when I used to work at Microsoft) and I always struggled to get SAM-BA 2.12 to work and had to move forward to work on my G400-based boards…

I removed 2.12 and installed 2.18 but I now see the following error when I run the batch file so suspect something was removed with the uninstall of 2.12

The "G400/FEZ Hydra Loader Updater" cannot be found.

I am very curious about this. Can you ship is the board to try on our end?

Hi Gus. I will check what the shipping costs are first and if reasonable, I will send it to you with the schematic etc.

I am going solder the second G400S to the second board and test that next.

If GUI application, how did you see

“G400/FEZ Hydra Loader Updater” cannot be found?

You just select the binary file then the app will load it. The app doesn’t know what G400/FEZ Hydra are, as I remember. And in 2.18, should run in GUI. All instruction are here:

http://docs.ghielectronics.com/software/tinyclr/loaders/intro.html#sam-ba-bootloader

If in console mode, did you run batch file in Admin mode?

Anyway, the message above wasn’t hardware issue.

I’ve just soldered up the second G400S I have and it too shows NO RAM when I try to upload the bootloader. There is no response from USB unless I put it into SAMBA mode. Run SAMBA 2.18 GUI it reports no ram too.

Please enter the number part of the COM port of the G400.
For example: enter only the number 10 for COM10.

COM Port Number: 6

Updating...

-I- Waiting ...
-I- TCL platform : Windows NT
-I- SAM-BA 2.18  on : windows
-I- current connection is \USBserial\COM6, \\USBserial\\COM6 to be matched
-I- Retrieved arguments from command line :
-I- argv 0 : \USBserial\COM6
-I- argv 1 : at91sam9g15-ek
-I- argv 2 : Bootloader.tcl
-I- Connection \USBserial\COM6
-I- Connection : \USBserial\COM6 (target(comType) = 0)
-I- Board : at91sam9g15-ek
-I- Traces Level : 4
-I- target(handle) : 110798288
-I- sourcing board description file C:/Program Files (x86)/Atmel/sam-ba_2.18/sam-ba.exe/../tcl_lib/at91sam9g15-ek/at91sam9g15-ek.tcl
Read device Chip ID at 0xFFFFF240 --- get 0x819a05a1
-I- Found chip : at91sam9x25 (Chip ID : 0x819a05a1)
-I- Loading applet applet-lowlevelinit-sam9g15.bin at address 0x300000
-I- Memory Size : 0x0 bytes
-I- Buffer address : 0x4
-I- Buffer size: 0x0 bytes
-I- Applet initialization done
-I- Low level initialized
-I- External RAM Settings :  extRamVdd=0, extRamType=1, extRamDataBusWidth=32, extDDRamModel=0
-I- External RAM Settings :  extRamVdd=0, extRamType=1, extRamDataBusWidth=32, extDDRamModel=0
-I- Loading applet applet-extram-sam9g15.bin at address 0x300000
-E- Error during external RAM initialization.
-E- External RAM access is required to run applets.
-E- Connection abort

You can find the above log at C:\Users\DAVEMC~1\AppData\Local\Temp\GHI Electronics G400 Bootloader Update Log-8169-40.43.txt.

Press any key to continue . . .

We did receive the board you sent us and confirmed that the RAM is indeed bad. What exactly caused the failure is hard to say at this point. We’re going to replace the G400 on the board and send it on back.

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Hi John,

That’s probably the same on the other board I have here. Is it possible to replace the RAM on that one?

For your info, I have had the G400S modules on the shelf for about 4 years but both where still sealed in their little plastic bags and had never been opened. As I recall, they were supplied via Mouser.

We’re actually replacing the G400S itself, not just the RAM. Replacing that chip would be pretty risky.

Hi John, can you email me the tracking details once you ship this so I can monitor its arrival here for customs clearance. I hope the value is below $100 or I am going to be stung with customs charges and I already paid duty etc on the original parts. :wink:

We will. One last thing before we ship it out: are there any steps we can take here to verify functionality after it’s been swapped?

Yes, if you can update the bootloader in circuit and also init the graphics for a 7" Newhaven display with cap touch, that should be enough to test the design.

It needs 2 pins on the 4 pin header shorted to power it on. You can see this in the schematic.

I don’t have code for it yet. I was in the process to start porting the old G120 version over to it.

Thanks. Looks like it tested good. We’re sending it on its way. You’ll get the tracking number by email soon.

Thanks John. My oven is in need of this new controller. :slight_smile: