G400 - unable to flash

NETMF & Gadgeteer
1

Hello,

I have a board with a G400-S module which was suddenly unable to flash, so I replaced the module.
The new module is still unable to flash.
We use the UART COM1 programming interface

I have checked:

  • +3.3V
  • +1.8V
  • +1.0V
  • 12MHz Y1
  • Pin 77 receiving 0-3.3V UART data at 115200 when I push Erase in MFDeploy or Start in Visual Studio
  • Pin 76 transmitting UART data at 115200
    • When I trip the reset line, I get the text ‘RomBOOT’ at my PC, confirming the signal path, and that something on the G400 is working.
      • Note: the first packet is 0-3.3V for 750us, 200us delay, then 400us of data from 2.3-3.3V. Seems odd. It’s very consistent though. Attached below.
    • When I Erase/Start, there is NO data transmitted.
  • SAM-BA pin 75 is 3.3V
  • LDR0 pin 101 is 0V
  • LDR1 pin 38 is 3.3V

VS says “Unable to communicate with device…”
MFDeploy says “Error: No response from device”.

I have confirmed that my RS232 dongle works with other boards.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
William

RomBOOT message + garbage:

tek00077
tek000771024×768 24.8 KB

2

Address you using samba tool? This is the very first step to load the bootloader. Mfdeploy will not do anything until you have the loader on the module.

3

Typically we can just flash without any preparation. I’m not sure why this module is apparently blank.
Can you point to a document I can follow?
The only one I found is 404: https://www.ghielectronics.com/docs/336/installing-the-g400-bootloader
I was reading here https://docs.ghielectronics.com/software/netmf/bootloader.html too.

A working device booted to firmware says:

RomBOOT
G400
Version: 4.3.8.1
Debug: COM1
LCD: 480x272
.NetMF v4.3.1.0
G400, Build Date:
Mar 24 2016 12:03:09
ARM Compiler version 410713

TinyCLR (Build 4.3.1.0)

A working device booted to TinyBooter says:

RomBOOT
TinyBooter v4.3.1.0
G400 Build Date: Mar 24 2016 12:06:55
ARM Compiler version 410713
MSdbgV1 ▒Ս_▒▒+

A working device booted to SAM-BA says:
> RomBOOT
> GHI Electronics, LLC Bootloader
> -------------------------------
> OK.
Version:
v2.0.1
Side question: are there release notes for the bootloaders? I see we are 2 versions behind.

These results are not what I’d expected. I’m reading the boot mode pins from the g400-s datasheet.
LDR0 LDR1 Boot
XXXX HIGH Firmware
HIGH LOW TinyBooter
LOW LOW SAM-BA

So it’s honestly not clear how many bootloaders there are.
My understanding is, from metal upwards, on a working device I have:

  1. SAM-BA (which I can’t seem to boot to directly)
  2. GHI bootloader v2.0.1
  3. TinyBooter 4.3.1.0
  4. Application firmware

So I think I need to:

  1. access SAM-BA and install GHI bootloader - I don’t know how to do this. You said the samba tool? I installed SAM-BA 3.3.1 but I think I need some configuration info to get this working.
  2. boot to GHI bootloader and install TinyBooter - I think I need a .ghi file to do this and can’t find it.

Does that make sense?
Thanks
Will

4

you should not use v2 loader only v1, but then realized v1 was not listed new docs, so we just added it Documentation/bootloader.md at dev · ghi-electronics/Documentation · GitHub

5

Hi Gus,

  1. I checked, all our working G400s are running loader v2.0.1. I believe this is how we normally receive them from the distributor.
  2. The instructions you link show how to upload a GHI file, can you provide or link to the appropriate file please?
  3. I still can’t find instructions on using SAM-BA to install loader in the first place. Any tips?

Thanks!

6

Samba is not our tool. It had been a while since I have done this (years) but I think you install samba and then just run three batch file

Anyway, instructions are on the g400 page and the download is on the loader page. Look for g400 v1.0

7

Are those three different devices? Or they are just one but you put it in different mode?

8

Hi all,

This was caused by a hardware issue; a chip was causing the reset line to be flaky.
The below is for reference for future me when googling the boot pins on a G400.
My apologies and thanks.
Will

For reference, the G400 page is here:
https://docs.ghielectronics.com/hardware/netmf/g400s.html

The LDR pins are described differently there than the datasheet I linked above, from Mouser
The GHI document is correct, the datasheet is wrong.

Dat:
This is one device (G400-S) booted into the three modes available with the LDR0/1 pins.
The corrected terminology is

A working device booted to firmware / managed application says:
A working device booted to TinyBooter says:
A working device booted to GHI Electronics Bootloader says:

The working device does create the additional ‘Bossa’ COM port by reset while grounding SPI1_MISO pin / pin 75 (regardless of LDR0/1 pins, and regardless of the MODE pin which only applies to GHI and Tiny bootloaders). I can then connect to this port with the SAM-BA gui.

1 Like
9

Glad you have it figured out. Note that this has been greatly improved on SITCore. You will find it much easier when you switch in the future.