Athena JTAG pins

[nicktgr15]

Hi.
I have done a little research about JATG pins trying to find a way to revive my dead X7500. I know it is difficult and that (possibly) a X7500 board needs to be disassembled but i wonder if it would be somehow easier to be done with X7500.

For example i saw an eten motherboard where jtag pins were easily located.
http://i591.photobucket.com/albums/ss354/son_hui/JTAGroverorsio.jpg
But i also saw the exec striped motherboard..... :D

Anyway.. what i want to say is that an effort to find the jtag pins would help many devices to become functional again.

http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s67/nicktgr15/x7500.jpg

[nicktgr15]

Well, there is a debug connector on the athena. More information about the debug connector can be found here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=2512981&postcount=12

You can see the connector on the right of the motherboard. Now i'm trying to find a way to connect my wiggler clone cable to the debug connector. The connector pins are too small to work with my soldering iron...is any other way to get connected?

That's the cable i'm using: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=350206464946#ebayphotohosting

http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s67/nicktgr15/001.jpg

and i'm planning to use pins : TDO,TDI,TMS,nTRST,TCK and the charger connected on the motherboard. Do i have to use the ground connector also...or something else?

[scholbert]

Hi nicktgr15,

maybe you'll need a smaller solder iron :p
Serious, there's no other way than to solder some thin wires to the debug pads.
Maybe you'll find some bigger contacts nearby, that belong to the same connection.

and i'm planning to use pins : TDO,TDI,TMS,nTRST,TCK and the charger connected on the motherboard. Do i have to use the ground connector also...or something else?

Yes you'll need GND too!
As your adaptor is a buffered one, you should sort out the VCC pad on the debug connector also. This voltage is needed to power up the buffer IC on your adaptor.

P.S.: the biggest problem would be to rewrite something into Athena's flash chip. As far as i know this is a G4-DoC from MSystems and there's no JTAG solution for this part :o.

Anyway, good luck for your experiments!

scholbert

[nicktgr15]

Hi Scholbert :)
Thanks for the reply. I know that this will be the hard part as i have read your adventures with universal but for the moment i just want to connect it.

I'll get a thinner tip for my soldering iron and give it a try. Unfortunately the pins around the debug port are not helping :)

I'll post my results here.
Regards
Nick

[vitali-]

I have a similar problem could possibly sealed the processor and find jtag contacts in this way.

[vma]

Just out of interest: I am used to JTAG flashing on satellite receivers (see my signature).

The pictured JTAG interface looks pretty much like the ones I often use. Regarding the power, mine use a battery to power them up or I can solder a DCC connection. I think that is safer than to get the power from the actual device.

The other thing is: it is not enough to just get the physical connection to the JTAG pins. One need to put the processor of the device in JTAG mode and then control the flash chip through this CPU.

Either you have a flash utility for the JTAG interface, or it will be completly useless.

I might me missing such a tool, in which case I would love to have a link to download it (don't need it, but just in case).

Cheers,
vma