where is the image flashed to...

There are 4 replies in this Thread which was already clicked 704 times. The last Post () by loady.

    anyone who has read my thread here, will know my troubles of flashing. Long story short, i removed the winbond chip and reprogrammed it with bootloader and soldered back in and this got me back to a state where i could flash the box. i must reiterate that the usb sticks i am using are not an issue here. I cant get andy mc donalds image to flash past the bootlogo and can only flash a stock image succesfully once in about 15 times, when flashing it will change from flash to boot so quickly it does not give you time to pull it out before it starts the flash process again, to remedy this i changed the force file to noforce and when i flash it then it will change to USB after flashing...i do not take it out or switch off box, it just changes itself to boot then starts loading....once loaded i can navigate the menu setting etc to set up box but after about 5 minutes it locks up and freezes..so i power off and on but then it reverts back to boot.


    Is the image stored on the winbond chip where bootloader is stored ?...the winbond chip is the original relfashed...could this be a dodgy chip and worthy of getting a new replacement one ?..either way the box is not well....it is certainly not the usb sticks or images i am using.

    • Official Post
    Quote from loady

    anyone who has read my thread here, will know my troubles of flashing. Long story short, i removed the winbond chip and reprogrammed it with bootloader and soldered back in and this got me back to a state where i could flash the box. i must reiterate that the usb sticks i am using are not an issue here. I cant get andy mc donalds image to flash past the bootlogo and can only flash a stock image succesfully once in about 15 times, when flashing it will change from flash to boot so quickly it does not give you time to pull it out before it starts the flash process again, to remedy this i changed the force file to noforce and when i flash it then it will change to USB after flashing...i do not take it out or switch off box, it just changes itself to boot then starts loading....once loaded i can navigate the menu setting etc to set up box but after about 5 minutes it locks up and freezes..so i power off and on but then it reverts back to boot.


    Is the image stored on the winbond chip where bootloader is stored ?...the winbond chip is the original relfashed...could this be a dodgy chip and worthy of getting a new replacement one ?..either way the box is not well....it is certainly not the usb sticks or images i am using.

    Did you try another powerpack??

    The fact you can get it to boot and begin setting up some of the time, and not others, dose seem to point to a hardware issue of some sort.

    Yes my understanding (which is verylimited) is that the sop8 chip you mention is partitioned in a way to seperate, boot and flash(the e2 image)Normally the boot partition is not erased when reflashing. (unless it is corrupted somehow - wrong bootloader, loss of power etc etc)

    The bootloader (amongst other jobs) handle's bad blocks within the nand chip. Bad blocks are parts of the nand that are corrupt and can not be used, so the bootloader will assign good blocks to be used instead. It is possible that the nand has bad blocks in a part of the chip that cant be reassigned elsewhere.....

    long story short...:

    If it were me.... i would replace the sop8 chip with a new exact same chip, preflash and solder in. If it is still no good then it could be the nand or a short anywhere on the board.... at that point it would become a lost cause IMHO....

    Unless someone reading this likes to mess with these sort of things ?? Or has a better idea....

    Thanks..informative. I'm already looking at new box..have new exact replacement winbond on way..after that if it doesn't work I'll buy a new box...but I would like to go medieval on it...get that nand out and flash it with my programmer.

    Most of this is way over my head, I've jtagged several Pace boxes in the past but not a Zgemma.


    I just thought that since you've now got the box in a state where you can flash it, perhaps you could flash the bootloader again by the conventional usb method?


    The PSU mentioned is also a good call. The later all in one plug PSU's don't seem to be as good as the earlier brick type ones and have a lower output.

    the power supply is a brick type with radiuo lead, have tried several other suitable psu's. I tried flashing the boot loader via usb method but no joy, it doesnt matter what i do, its just not doing the flash even though it says it is, it goes from FLSH to boot way to quickly and remains on boot, i cant even get the stock image on now but when i did it was locking up and freezing then would revert to boot state again after powering off...really want to know where the image is flashed to, dont think its the winbond chip where boot loader is stored

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