My new toy

Been awhile since I’ve posted. Pretty busy these few days playing with my spanking new toy.

It’s an ACHI IR-Pro-SC BGA re-work station. This will enable me to rework and solder stuff I’ve previously been unable to touch, things like BGAs and QFNs will now be a piece of cake, I hope.

Still testing and developing temperature profiles, as well as trying my hand out on BGA reballing on it at the moment, should be fun.

Fixing Korean Wii 003 Unathorized device has been detected.

At the end of Semptember 2009, Nintendo pushed ver4.2 update for the Wii, one of the ‘fixes’ they implemented was a check for region changed consoles (Kor-USA usually). Usually this was done by the seller (back in the day the Won fell to an all time low, making Korea Wiis a heck lot cheaper then anything else) and the unsuspecting user when updated to 4.2 will be faced with this error message upon bootup.

Thanks to Giantpune, there is now a proper fix for this error. To fix this you need to install Ios60-v6174 onto ios slots 70,80 and 90. then never update from Nintendo again.

You’ll need these,

- 1 broken 003 Korean console, modchipped and capable of reading burned DVDs

- 1 copy of Super Smash Bros Brawl PAL.

- 1 Gamecube controller or Savemii (to put console in recovery mode).

- Depending on what region you’ve ‘converted’ your console to, you may need another game (of the same region as your console) to get super smash bros to load, if your console was region changed to PAL you wouldn’t need this. I’ve tested Carnival Games on an NTSC-U converted console and it worked out good.

Prep,

Download http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?ziawj4cinu5400g and extract it straight to a formatted SD card, SDHC will not work. This contains the exploited savegames for SSBB. (Which will trigger and run installers to fix the console.)

NTSC-U: Download http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?ziawj4cinu5400g

NTSC-J: Download http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?c8f17alwnf2271b

PAL: Patch your SSSB-iso to autoboot (Google for the right tools).

Once the right package is downloaded for your console, extract it to a folder on your PC and then follow the steps below (for pal you don’t have to do this, just make the iso autobootable and then continue, the reason why we are doing this is to make a game from another region work on the console, since you’re already PAL, you don’t have to.)

I will only go through with the Swap-disc method, there exists another method (channel install), that is a little easier (no need to swap disc etc.) but requires that the console does not already have the channel installed. Goto HERE for more info.

You’ll now need that game you’re gonna use to swap from. I’m using Carnival Games.

Dump both games as an ISO to your PC. Check with an MD5 tool to make sure you have a good dump, SSSB’s MD5 is 549C19AEFD56C3651571C32E3C32EB3. Rename your swap game to swap.iso and SSSB to sssb-pal.iso. Put them both inside the folder you extracted the above package to and run SwapDisc-PWNS.bat

In a moment wit would’ve done it’s thing (basically rename some game IDs to make them both match for the swap to be successful.), burn SSSB-pal.iso to a dual layer DVD (Use something good, Ritek G05, Taiyo Yuden and Verbatims are known to be the best). Set layer break to 2084960, also burn swap.iso to a good single layer DVD.

Once done, hookup your wii and use the gamecube controller to boot it into recovery (press and hold all 4 D-pad buttons while turning on, you may have to take apart the controller and remove the num in the middle for this to happen, you’d also need to plug it into port 4).

Stick swap disc into the drive and it should load. Let it load to the title screen (Carnival games will ask you to create a save game, just select no and continue on.) Once in, press Home and eject the disc. With carnival games you’d just have to insert in SSSB and then hit Reset and then Virtual Console will load. You may have to experiment with other games. Once VC is loaded, hit Reset again and the main SSSB game should load.

Go to the stage builder and then delete the original 3 stages, then head back to the main title screen. Now insert the SD card and then go to the stage builder, the installer should now load.

Install Homebrew channel, bootmii and then make a NAND dump. Once finished you should end up in HBC again, DO NOT TURN OFF YOUR WII, if you do you’d have to restart the process.

Eject the SD card and then download one of the following files (according to the region you want to be on).

USA-http://www.mediafire.com/?8zee9cixal38lws

Euro-http://www.mediafire.com/?c7649m5g71cdvlb

Jap-http://www.mediafire.com/?eu8g93u3xi00gdu

Copy the NAND dump in your SD card out to a safe location, and then format the card. Next extract the files from the package you’ve downloaded above to the root of your SD card. Then download this package below.

All-http://www.mediafire.com/?qzzf9iwg8z28n77

Extract this too to the root. Next put the SD card into the Wii, hit “Home” on your wiimote and then start bootmii, MultiModManager will now start, scroll to WAD Manager, press A and then press 1 to install everything. 25 wads will now install, make sure there are no errors.

Once completed scroll to System Menu 4.1, press A and then 1 to install all. 3 wads will install, make sure there are no errors.

When done, quit back out to the HBC and then lauch the Priiloader installer, install that (follow on screen instructions), and then when done, turn off the console, hold reset and then turn it back on. Scroll to System Menu Hacks, enter (press A) and then Enable "Block Disk Updates", "Block Online Updates", "Remove Diagnostic Disc Check", "Move Disc Channel". Save and exit back to system menu.

Congratulations, you’ve just fixed your Wii, as well as prevent it from being updated in the future. Remember to never update your Wii from Nintendo.

Repairing Mac HFS+ Partition table

Had one of these recently, was a WDGreen power 1.5TB drive that had suffered some media damage (perhaps the issue with 8sec head parking might have attributed to it? I tried reading the SMART data but the load/unload cycles were masked).
Before I even began I used ddrescue to sector-sector clone the HDD to another drive. Ubuntu rescue remix is good for this. http://ubuntu-rescue-remix.org/. I won’t go into details on how to use ddrescue, that is covered elsewhere. You need to be careful about the commands you enter, copying the destination drive to the source can have dire results.
Once that’s sorted. Bootup MacOSX (I tried this in Vmware with the cloned drive as an attached physical drive on the virtual machine). Grab a copy of Testdis, http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk, and plonk it on your machine. You might have to have Rosetta installed for this to work properly (You can find this on the MacOS install DVD).
Do a partition scan (MAC) on the HDD (/dev/rdisk*), you should eventually reach a screen similar to this.

Next we’ll use PDISK to initialise the partition table. Keep that window handy while you open up another terminal.
- ‘sudo pdisk /dev/rdisk*’(* = wadever was for your HDD). Issue command 'i'.
It’ll enquire about block sizes and total size of device. Just hit enter through (3 times).
Now we’re gonna need that partition info. Type the command ‘c’ and it’ll ask where your 1st partition starts, how long it will be and what name you want for it. You have to repeat this for as many partitions as you have found on Testdisk.
For my case it’d be
‘c’
First block: 40
Length in blocks: 409600
Name of partition: EFI
‘c’ (again)
First block: 409640
Length in blocks: 2929605344
Name of partition: HFS
There might be error messages telling you about “Requested base and length not in existing free partition”. For the moment just ignore them.
Once you’re sure you have it right. Issue ‘w’ and then it’ll prompt you if you want the structure written. Once done, I like to use Testdisk again on the HDD to make sure I have it correctly set up. If it is, Finder should automatically try to mount the drive, if the damage wasn’t too bad.
In my case it wasn’t so easy though, even after I’ve got the partition structure right (I checked and rechecked), the bloody thing still wouldn’t mount. I believe the journal area was corrupted enough to not let it work (fsck didn’t do anything as well, it was so broken it didn’t do anything). A run through with Diskwarrior was done and that made the data visible again.

Mac OSX 10.6 (Snow Leopard) on VMware. (Win7)

Interested to try OSX out on your PC without all the other ‘hassles’ of partitioning and having a configured bootloader? Got random mac partitioned HDDs you need to grab data off from (I fall into this category)? Just follow these easy steps below to get Snow Leopard on your PC.

Pre-reqs

-PC with an intel processor, virtualisation might be required, I used a q6600 without problems.

-VMware installed (I used version 7)

-Retail copy of 10.6 (I don’t encourage torrenting)

-Downloaded a pre-made modified version of Snow Leopard.vmdk and darwin_snow.iso, basically a pre-made version of the virtual machine. Get it here.

Steps

-Start VMware and open the vmx file you’ve downloaded (and extracted). Edit the virtual machine settings to use darwin_snow.iso on the DVD drive.

-You can edit the other memory/processor settings to improve performance, else proceed to power on the virtual machine and quickly hit F8, which should now enable a boot menu.

-Before proceeding, point the virtual machine (again under virtual machine settings) to the OSX retail DVD instaed of darwin_snow.iso.

-Now select the C option (boot DVD) and the grey apple boot screen should show.

-Wait a little for the installation setup to show. Complete the Installation.


-After it’s done, point the DVD drive back to darwin_snow.iso and boot up the machine.

You should now have Mac OSX working =p. It does suck a fair amount of system resources, I have it set at 2GB of ram and to use all 4 cores of my proc, even then it still does take awhile to bootup.

Updating PSP and run into DRNFFFFFFCD,DRNFFFFFFCE,D RNFFFFFFB9 + other cryptic error messages?

Was trying to update a CFW’d PSP today and ran into this weird error message on the official sony 6.35 updater. Did some research and this is what I came up with.
These errors are generated by the hidden updater module sceChkDegeneration, used to detect a patched IdStorage on a TA-082
In order to help you guys out, here's a list of the errors so you can work out what needs to be done to fix your PSP.
DRNFFFFFFD8 = key 0x4 missing
DRNFFFFFFD7 = key 0x4 header is not "n y r B" (in hex: 6E 79 72 42)
DRNFFFFFFCE = key 0x5 missing
DRNFFFFFFCD = key 0x5 header is not "g k l C" (in hex: 67 6B 6C 43)
* to fix this, get KeyCleaner - then let it clean key 5, run it again and tell it to UNPATCH key 5
DRNFFFFFFC4 = key 0x6 missing
DRNFFFFFFC3 = key 0x6 header is not "r d D M" (in hex: 72 74 44 4D)
DRNFFFFFFB9 = key 0x7 header is not "D a P A" (in hex: 44 61 50 41) - ta-086+ only
DRNFFFFFFB0 = key 0x8 missing ta-086+ only
DRNFFFFFFAF = key 0x8 header is not "p D C L" (in hex: 70 44 43 4C) - ta-086+ only
* to fix this, get IdStorage Manager and click and change key 08 to
70 44 43 4C 01 00 00 00 0C 00 00 00 76 FC 19 C8 0A 00 19 00 10 00 0D 00 07 00 02 and all zeroes after that
CTA80000025 = region key (0x100) is damaged or missing (irrecoverable unless you have a backup)
Other errors:
FFFFFFFE = critical error at the end of the update - flash1 related, try restoring default settings

Most of these problems can be fixed using the excellent KeyCleaner and IdStorage Manager by Chilly Willy. (Google for Keycleaner, I think it’s up to 1.4 right now), a lot of these errors were due to early downgrader work on the TA-082 boards I believe (Patching key 05 instead of using a custom IPL for eg.)
Good luck =p.

Opel TIS

 

Ever need to know how to renew your timing chain on your Opel vehicle? What’s the right torque on those cylinder head bolts?

Opel TIS is the best thing since sliced bread. The system is chocked full with lotsa vehicles. To do a search you simply have to plug in the VIN, don’t even have to know the other details and it’ll do a search for ya, listing out the correct engine and vehicle options installed. Here’s an overview.

Before you can do that, you’d need to install TIS on a PC. I did that on VMware (not too sure if it’ll run properly on Win7). My installer had problems initiating the JSDK install process, so I manually downloaded that and afterwards it ran properly.

So yeah, this is really cool if you ever need data for Opel/Vauxhall vehicles.

VMware Can’t Connect to Host USB

 

Had this stupid problem today, when I was trying to get VMware to work with a thumbdrive.

Recently hooked up a Sony Ericsson smartphone to my PC, so I figured out that might’ve been the cause. Anyways here’s the cryptic error message Vmware throws out @ you.

To fix that I simply rolled back my USB root hub drivers from the SE ones back to the original Microsoft stuff and hey presto, VMware started working normally again.

Don’t know if the SE phone will now let me update it’s firmware with the M$ drivers, but that remains to be tested another day. I really hope the VMware people will fix this. *shrugs*

Seagate FreeAgent|Go

 

Got one of these passed to me to try and pull data off it. HDD was dying (1st symptom was that it wouldn’t let you write files to it). Initially thought it was some kinda cable/interface issue. Turned out to be the HDD was developing bad sectors (actually over 2000 of them already).

Luckily though the drive managed to move all the affected data to spare sectors and using just the standard windows cut + paste operation I was able to move all the data to a spare HDD I had lying around (200GB of data took like 9hrs to move). In between transfers it froze a couple of times and I had to restart the process, pretty nerve wrecking I’d say, but I got all the data out fine.

Quite amazing no data was lost in the process, am now creating a RMA to send this back to Seagate for repair/replacement. Within it is some kinda Momentus drive I believe. Hopefully this process doesn’t take too long (I’ve had pretty fast response from them previously) and then I’d need to move all the data back in…ah well…

Tearing up and Fixing your Hailea chiller. (HC-150)

 

This is from awhile back, putting it up if someone ever needs it.

*Disclaimer, be careful working around mains voltages. Water and 220VAC do not mix well together. Although unit is pretty well sealed with plastic shrink tubing and RTV on splices, its possible water may enter connections and electrocute you if you’re not careful. You’ve been warned.*

Had a unit in that was thermal cycling, compressor and condenser coil were getting real hot, compressor kept resetting with a constant burp burp burp sound (according to him, I never did run the unit enough till it reached that state, leaving the compressor to cycle like this is a sure way to end its life prematurely.)

Bought unit home, together with a loaner pump to test the system out and hopefully fix it (still don’t quite know what’s wrong yet, for all I know, it might be the compressor. Was lucky this time though.

The victim. I think this has a 1/10HP compressor.

The pump, pretty solid unit, I just submerged it and fed the output into the chiller.

Tools you need, yes that’s an ice-cream stick. You need something that’ll not damage the plastic later, a plastic or wooden dowel will work as well. The test pen on top left is optional. You can tell a lot by feel and sound. A small rubber mallet is way better than whacking with a hammer.

To remove the outer plastic shell. First undo the screws near the base around, there should be 7, 3 on either side and one on the back.

Next you need to remove the fittings on top. As well as take out the lock ‘nut’. This is accomplished using the Popsicle stick and mallet as shown here.

Gently ease the bugger out, the back end of a plier would probably work also, don’t use the pliers’ jaws as it’ll damage the plastic.

Do the other side and then slide the cover off gently, don’t yank too hard as the control panel is still connected.

To disconnect panel, press on tabs and pull apart firmly, grasp by the connectors and not the wires. Pulling out the wires will not be fun.

Removing the panel is easy, just push on the 2 tabs on each side of the panel and slide the whole assembly out. Like so.

A close-up of the tabs here. To get a better idea.

Once out it should look like this.

Connect the panel back temporary for the testing phase. Setup the test bed now; I used a clothes peg to hold the tubing. You need to provide some flowing water, without water the evaporator coil would probably freeze up pretty quickly.

If the unit was ever turned over (upside down) at any point during the disassembly phase, it’s a good idea to let it sit (right side up of course) for at least 30mins to let the refrigerant settle down.

Here’s what it looks like inside.

It uses a fixed orifice system, pretty normal for a small setup like this, and yes it does have a $$$ non-copper evaporator (titanium probably).

The compressor uses R134A refrigerant, no valves for filling/manifold gauge attachment. No idea how much refrigerant is supposed to be in there (usually fridges or such will have a refrigerant weight stick or label somewhere, sight glasses also don’t work to quantify the charge level on fixed orifice systems, some guesstimation might be in order if you ever need to fill yours).

My test setup.

Turn the power on and let it run, set the required temperature to something low, say 18deg, after a bit, a relay in the control panel should click and the compressor will hum to life.

This is where it gets important. Look carefully at the fan; it should start spinning the second the compressor comes on. If it doesn’t its broken. You can later confirm by disconnecting the fan and measuring the resistance across the 2 wires. If it’s infinity (open, like on mine), the fan’s broken.

If the compressor doesn’t startup, it might be the relay, loose connections, the startup PTC located near the compressor, or a broken compressor.

If you blow a fuse it’s likely the compressor (or it’s startup PTC) or fan is shorted, disconnect the fan temporarily and let it run, 2-3mins of running and it doesn’t blow the fuse again should mean the fan is borked (can re-confirm with a multimeter), if it still does, try swapping in a known good PTC, else the compressor is the culprit. No real way to fix it unless the compressor is replaced, probably non-economical.

Remember to unplug the power before working on the inside (removing fan etc.)

To remove the fan, undo the 4 screws holding the fan. You might need to use a 6mm spanner to break it loose.

Here’s the broken fan.

Locate a close enough replacement (current required, blade design and dimensions). Splice the wires in, heat-shrink the wires for water-proofing, cleanup the stuff, put it all back together and it should run good again.

Airconditioning Conduit Condensation

 

Woke up in the morning to find the A/C trunking had some serious condensation dripping off the bottom. Didn’t take a picture as I immediately wiped it off LOL.

Pried off the cover (had to use quite a fair bit of force) and the problem became apparent. A section of the insulation had collapsed (probably due to compression from squeezing it inside the trunking), and water was forming due to the temperature difference. Here where humidity is high, it doesn’t take a too big temp diff to make water form. I think a 10ish deg C diff will result in problems. Anyways here’s a section of the tubular insulation I removed.

And a cross section view, you can see the left side is noticeably thinner. I’d have gone with super thick insulation if I could, but then will end up with a shoe-box sized trunking LOL. Aesthetics vs function..mmmm.

Here you can see some moisture already re-condensing on the cold copper tube. The green stuff is likely some corrosion due to the increased moisture content. Wiped that crap off and then bought out a spare section of insulation.

Here it is, some spare, I had to slit it to get it to go in without disconnecting the tubes. Hopefully the RTV I’m applying later will make it close properly. This stuff is probably better then the stuff that’s fitted in. Popular brand names include Armaflex and Insulflex. Don’t buy into that “Grade wadever” crap that installers will try and baffle you with, the grade of the material has nothing to do with how well it insulated, it’s gotta do with how lamely it (retards) burns. Unless you’re running it over your stove I don’t think it’d really matter. (Unless your country/place has strict laws in place that require you to meet.)

And here the splice is made, plenty of tape to keep moisture laden air out of the system.

Next was to close up the trunking and then test it out. It’s been a week, and I’m glad that the fix seems to be holding out. Sure beats trying to re-insulate the entire length of the tube.

Nokia E51 Keypad Repair

 

B0rked E51 keypad, some keys weren’t functioning (right function key, 1, 2,3 and *). Decided to try and fix it.

Still got the box… LOL. To disassemble the phone, pull the battery and sim, then undo the 4 torx screws on the back.

This will release the front panel. Resulting in the below

Then undo the top 2 torx screws on this side, and then pull the metal shield downwards (there are 2 metal tabs hanging over the board that hold it in), and then carefully flip the shield over, exposing the keypad connector.

Using a non-conductive (preferably non sharp as well to avoid scratching the PCB accidentally) tool, free the keypad connector, becareful to not let the phone flop around as the LCD is now free to move, those darn flex circuits are bloody easy to tear in 1/2.

Upon closer inspection. I found the problem. It’s some kinda corrosion that went through the covering Pyralux or Kapton coating into the copper traces below, should be due to lame manufacturing. Here’s my try at cheap-ass macro photography (flipped a lens around).

Can’t see it very well, but it’s a break. The dark thing on top is actually the tip of a pencil, that’s how small this trace is.

Next I carefully (using a sharp scapel) scrapped the coating above the trace off, exposing the raw copper below.

The break is now a lot clearer, measuring with a DMM (digital multi meter) confirmed there was no continuity. I then patched it with some fine wire and a little solder.

The trick to soldering onto flex circuits is to not to heat it for too long and use minimal heat (25W soldering pencil is my weapon of choice), you can’t tin the trace all that well also, the coating around seems to break down before the solder melts, covering the trace with a gooey mess that prevents the trace from taking solder properly.

What I did was lightly flux the trace, tin the piece of wire, form a L shape with the wire, lay it exactly on top of the trace I wanted to patch, and then apply heat and hope for the best. After that, inspect the joint and lightly tug on the wire to make sure it’s firm, then trim the remaining wire off. It’s butt ugly, but it works.

Next I put the phone back together again (humpty dumpty would be proud) and all the keys now freaking work. xD

Xbox DVD Laser Replacement

Had a SDG-605B Samsung DVD drive for the Xbox with a weak optical pickup. It uses the SOH-D16 pickup that as of 2010 was still available in Singapore (Just need to search alittle).

Here’s a shot of both the new and replacement pickups. The new pickup doesn’t come with the drive gear, so we gotta transfer that over.

And then next is a shot of the ESD protection solder joint. To protect the pickup during transport (the laser diode is really ESD sensitive), they’ve added this shorting joint. Gotta remove that before putting the pickup in.

The new pickup even comes with tape on the objective lens to stop it from flopping around and getting scratched during transport.

Here I’m removing the screw that secures the drive gear.

Here’s it totally out, there’s a spring that takes up backlash, be careful to not drop it.

I then put on a tiny drop of loctite to keep the screw in place.

Here the gear’s now on the new pickup, ready to go into the drive.

Taking the drive apart. These 4 screws hold the cover on.

Remove both top and bottom covers, then get ready to eject the tray.

Ejecting the tray for better access, on Samsung drives there's a lever you can push here to make the tray slide out.

Tray out and everything dusted. Clean out all the buildup and dust you find within. Wouldn't want it falling into the new pickup.

Flip the drive around and remove the control board assembly, 2 clips hold that in place.

Board out and flipped up, you don't have to disconnect everything, just the laser interface cable is enough.

Next undo the fasteners that hold the guide rails in place and set them aside. Then clean them to get rid of the old lubricant.

After the drive is prepped, and you've discharged wadever static buildup (wrist-strap or just touching a grounded equipment prior). Desolder the ESD joints on the pickup.

Here it's desoldered. A quick swipe across with a hot soldering iron will do the trick.

Guide the new pickup in place, some creative angling may be required. You could pull the entire rail out and slot them back in later, but I prefer to disturb them as little as possible.

A close up of the non geared side.

Make sure the drive gear engages with the worm screw on the motor before pressing everything down.

Pickup assembled in place.

The guide rail retainers can only go in 1 way, a set of slots and tangs on the bottom ensures that.

Retainers installed.

Side shot of the retainer, make sure there's no gap between the rail and the retainer, if there is a gap, you've installed the retainer wrong, rotate it until the tangs match the machined grooves in the base.

Using a syringe and a little bit of oil, I lube the rails.

Next a little dab of grease on the worm gear. Don’t use more then needed, grease tends to trap dust.

Board back in.

Next flip the drive over and disengage the locking lever.

Push and guide the interface cable in, then lock the lever while holding the cable in place.

Here it is locked, just make sure the lock lever is totally flat.

Afterwhich remove the tape that's holding the lens down.

I then swab the lens to remove any tape residue, with a little window cleaner.

Everything properly assembled.

If you have problems with the drive not opening properly, now may be a good time to clean out this drive pulleys, as well as fit a new band or clean the existing one.
Oil or dirt can cause the band to slip, resulting in a stuck drive.

Next assemble the covers back on.

Sticking the drive in a test Xbox. Now reads everything like a new drive should. (CDs DVDs etc.)

Good luck. xD