G400S won't update bootloader

(WHY WAS THIS MARKED BY THE COMMUNITY AS INAPPROPRIATE?) So many of you are quick to tell someone to post a new topic instead of opening up old ones. :frowning:


Brand new G400S installed on board but not detected on USB. Checked mode pin and then held SPI1MISO LOW and it came up as Bossa COM Port 14 in device manager.

Running the G400 Flash Bootloader.bat file fails with the following output.

Any ideas as Iā€™ve never had this happen before.

-I- Waiting ...
-I- TCL platform : Windows NT
-I- SAM-BA 2.12  on : windows
current connection is \USBserial\COM14, \\USBserial\\COM14 to be matched 
-I- Retrieved arguments from command line :
-I- argv 0 : \USBserial\COM14
-I- argv 1 : at91sam9g15-ek
-I- argv 2 : Bootloader.tcl
-I- Connection : \USBserial\COM14 (target(comType) = 0)
-I- Board : at91sam9g15-ek
-I- Traces Level : 4
-I- target(handle) : 146867344
Read device Chip ID at 0xfffff240 --- get 0x819a05a1
-I- Found processor : at91sam9g15 (Chip ID : 0x819a05a1)
sourcing device file C:/Program Files (x86)/Atmel/sam-ba_2.12/sam-ba.exe/../tcl_lib/devices/at91sam9g15.tcl
sourcing board description file C:/Program Files (x86)/Atmel/sam-ba_2.12/sam-ba.exe/../tcl_lib/at91sam9g15-ek/at91sam9g15-ek.tcl
-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

http://old.ghielectronics.com/community/forum/topic?id=22757

Thanks Kevin, Iā€™ll try to re-flow it tomorrow and see if that helps. It has been stored in a sealed box for about 3 years with the packaging never opened. It should not fail like this just from storage.

Do not use the old website. Here is the same topic on new forum Raptor bootloading problem

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Pretty disappointed that the G400S doesnā€™t work. It has been stored in itā€™s original packing and unopened and also in a sealed plastic box. :frowning:

I need to dig out the reflow oven to try and get this to work.

shit happens

I agree that is disappointing. Here is my guess: the DDR chip has moisture build up over the years laying around and this causes damage with heat when it was reflowed. We usually bake chips and modules that have been exposed for a while.

Language please

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It wasnā€™t re-flowed Gus, it was hand soldered to the board. Only 2 board have been made for this home project.

Iā€™ll dig out the re-flow oven when I get some time this week and see if that will work.

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.

ā€œShit happensā€ 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 didnā€™t do any change with hardware.

Try Samba GUI instead of console application .

Iā€™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 boardsā€¦

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

ā€œG400/FEZ Hydra Loader Updaterā€ cannot be found?

You just select the binary file then the app will load it. The app doesnā€™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 wasnā€™t hardware issue.