Mailing List Archive: Re: ROM DUMP from ACER 500

Re: ROM DUMP from ACER 500

Jul 5, 2009, 6:22 AM

Post #1 of 4 (3669 views)

On Sun, 2009-07-05 at 11:49 +0100, Steve Firth wrote:
> Andy,
> please find attached /var/log/messages and dmesg for my acer
> aspire 500.

Good - the change worked and your card load correctly.

> I was not sure
> if I could put the ROM's into the public domain or not.

No that's not a problem.

I don't know what the encoding means though:

Jul 5 10:05:14 Cinema kernel: [ 11.784423] cx18-0: eeprom 00: 00 ab 12 18 07 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
Jul 5 10:05:14 Cinema kernel: [ 11.784436] cx18-0: eeprom 10: 5a 00 55 aa 8b cc 55 03 00 1b 10 01 00 00 00 00
Jul 5 10:05:14 Cinema kernel: [ 11.784449] cx18-0: eeprom 20: 02 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
Jul 5 10:05:14 Cinema kernel: [ 11.784461] cx18-0: eeprom 30: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
[...]
Jul 5 10:05:14 Cinema kernel: [ 11.784615] cx18-0: eeprom f0: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff

Jul 5 10:05:14 Cinema kernel: [ 12.176060] cx18-1: eeprom 00: 00 ab 12 18 07 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
Jul 5 10:05:14 Cinema kernel: [ 12.176073] cx18-1: eeprom 10: 5a 00 55 aa 93 c8 55 03 00 1b 10 01 00 00 00 00
Jul 5 10:05:14 Cinema kernel: [ 12.176085] cx18-1: eeprom 20: 02 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
Jul 5 10:05:14 Cinema kernel: [ 12.176098] cx18-1: eeprom 30: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
[...]
Jul 5 10:05:14 Cinema kernel: [ 12.176248] cx18-1: eeprom f0: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff

Obviously the "ab 12 18 07" at offset 01 is just a copy of PCI Subsystem
Vendor ID and Product ID for the MPC718 (12ab:0718).

There's a minor difference for the two cards EEPROMs at offset
0x14-0x15, which may be either part of a revision or serial number.

As more users with these boards report what they have, maybe I can
figure out what some of the other bytes mean.

> I think this is what you needed?

Yup. I'm going to push a cleaned up set of changes for the cx18 driver
to dump out the eeprom for MPC718 boards.

Thanks for all the desoldering, photos, and testing. DVB-T for this
board wouldn't have been working without your efforts.

Regards,
Andy

> Steve

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Re: ROM DUMP from ACER 500 [ In reply to ]

firth650 at btinternet

Jul 6, 2009, 10:00 AM

Post #2 of 4 (3441 views)

Permalink

Andy,
one final question (which I really should know the answer to, to be honest!)

I've seen various attempts on the web to get the ACER aspire 500/510 working with MythTV and I'd
like to be able to assist if possible. As a first pass I'll probably just create a list of steps needed.

As well as the ivtv stuff, I've had to add various other bits and pieces of code/firmware for example the b43 (wifi) drivers,
correct lirc files etc. So, I've somewhat lost track of what I REALLY needed to do and what was just a "false path" experiment.
I can track down most things in my records, but one file that I'm not sure about is the xc3028.fw file.

Is this part of kernel or do users have to find it elsewhere on web ?

>>There's a minor difference for the two cards EEPROMs at offset
Interesting : certainly one card is better at picking up weak (UHF) signals than the other, at first I thought it was the
difference in the internal coaxial wirings, but swapping them over suggests that this is probably not the case: Maybe there is
an updated revision? Of course it could just be due to simple manufacturing tolerances. I'd be interested to know if anyone
else out there sees any difference.

Steve

> Andy,
> please find attached /var/log/messages and dmesg for my acer
> aspire 500.

Good - the change worked and your card load correctly.

> I was not sure
> if I could put the ROM's into the public domain or not.

No that's not a problem.

I don't know what the encoding means though:

Jul 5 10:05:14 Cinema kernel: [ 11.784423] cx18-0: eeprom 00: 00 ab 12 18 07 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
Jul 5 10:05:14 Cinema kernel: [ 11.784436] cx18-0: eeprom 10: 5a 00 55 aa 8b cc 55 03 00 1b 10 01 00 00 00 00
Jul 5 10:05:14 Cinema kernel: [ 11.784449] cx18-0: eeprom 20: 02 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
Jul 5 10:05:14 Cinema kernel: [ 11.784461] cx18-0: eeprom 30: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
[..]
Jul 5 10:05:14 Cinema kernel: [ 11.784615] cx18-0: eeprom f0: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff

Jul 5 10:05:14 Cinema kernel: [ 12.176060] cx18-1: eeprom 00: 00 ab 12 18 07 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
Jul 5 10:05:14 Cinema kernel: [ 12.176073] cx18-1: eeprom 10: 5a 00 55 aa 93 c8 55 03 00 1b 10 01 00 00 00 00
Jul 5 10:05:14 Cinema kernel: [ 12.176085] cx18-1: eeprom 20: 02 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
Jul 5 10:05:14 Cinema kernel: [ 12.176098] cx18-1: eeprom 30: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
[..]
Jul 5 10:05:14 Cinema kernel: [ 12.176248] cx18-1: eeprom f0: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff

Obviously the "ab 12 18 07" at offset 01 is just a copy of PCI Subsystem
Vendor ID and Product ID for the MPC718 (12ab:0718).

There's a minor difference for the two cards EEPROMs at offset
0x14-0x15, which may be either part of a revision or serial number.

As more users with these boards report what they have, maybe I can
figure out what some of the other bytes mean.

> I think this is what you needed?

Yup. I'm going to push a cleaned up set of changes for the cx18 driver
to dump out the eeprom for MPC718 boards.

Thanks for all the desoldering, photos, and testing. DVB-T for this
board wouldn't have been working without your efforts.

Regards,
Andy

> Steve

_______________________________________________
ivtv-devel mailing list
ivtv-devel[at]ivtvdriver.org
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Re: ROM DUMP from ACER 500 [ In reply to ]

awalls at radix

Jul 6, 2009, 10:58 AM

Post #3 of 4 (3445 views)

Permalink

On Mon, 2009-07-06 at 18:00 +0100, Steve Firth wrote:
>
>
> Andy,
> one final question (which I really should know the answer to,
> to be honest!)
>
> I've seen various attempts on the web to get the ACER aspire
> 500/510 working with MythTV and I'd
> like to be able to assist if possible. As a first pass I'll probably
> just create a list of steps needed.
>
> As well as the ivtv stuff, I've had to add various other bits and
> pieces of code/firmware for example the b43 (wifi) drivers,
> correct lirc files etc. So, I've somewhat lost track of what I REALLY
> needed to do and what was just a "false path" experiment.
> I can track down most things in my records, but one file that I'm not
> sure about is the xc3028.fw file.
>
> Is this part of kernel or do users have to find it elsewhere on web ?

AFAIK, XCeive never permitted bundling the XC2028, XC3028, and XC3028L
firmware images with the Linux kernel. (The case apparently may be
different for the XC4000 and XC5000).

Users have to get XC3028 firmware following the process here:

http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Xceive_XC3028/XC2028#Firmware_Information

> >>There's a minor difference for the two cards EEPROMs at offset
> Interesting : certainly one card is better at picking up weak (UHF)
> signals than the other, at first I thought it was the
> difference in the internal coaxial wirings, but swapping them over
> suggests that this is probably not the case: Maybe there is
> an updated revision? Of course it could just be due to simple
> manufacturing tolerances. I'd be interested to know if anyone
> else out there sees any difference.

There are lots of variables to consider.

1. Aspire internal cables (you've probably eliminated)
2. Propagation conditions when performing the tests (different weather,
time of day, time of year, etc.)
3. Board revisions
4. Board manufacturing differences, tolerances, and defects
5. Electrostatic discharge damage due to handling
6. Parts tolerances and lots/versions (especially the XC3028 and MT-352
in this case)
7. Physical damage to connectors and connector mounting due to
insertions/removals.
8. How busy was the PCI bus when the card was being initialized (later
linux kernels really hammer the PCI bus at startup)

I wouldn't take anything to heart without a local DVB-T test signal
generator, a signal measurement device (e.g. spectrum analyzer), and an
assortment of similar cards.

You may want to see if you get similar performance differences between
cards in Windows.

So ignoring all that, it's a good thing that MythTV lets you set
recording priorities on which card to use so you can avoid using the
inferior card for typically weak channels. :)

Regards,
Andy

> Steve
>
>
>
>
> > Andy,
> > please find
> attached /var/log/messages and
> dmesg for my acer
> > aspire 500.
>
> Good - the change worked and your
> card load correctly.
>
>
> > I was not sure
> > if I could put the ROM's into the
> public domain or not.
>
> No that's not a problem.
>
> I don't know what the encoding
> means though:
>
>
> Jul 5 10:05:14 Cinema kernel:
> [ 11.784423] cx18-0: eeprom 00: 00
> ab 12 18 07 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
> ff ff ff
> Jul 5 10:05:14 Cinema kernel:
> [ 11.784436] cx18-0: eeprom 10: 5a
> 00 55 aa 8b cc 55 03 00 1b 10 01 00
> 00 00 00
> Jul 5 10:05:14 Cinema kernel:
> [ 11.784449] cx18-0: eeprom 20: 02
> 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 ff ff ff ff ff
> ff ff ff
> Jul 5 10:05:14 Cinema kernel:
> [ 11.784461] cx18-0: eeprom 30: ff
> ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
> ff ff ff
> [...]
> Jul 5 10:05:14 Cinema kernel:
> [ 11.784615] cx18-0: eeprom f0: ff
> ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
> ff ff ff
>
>
> Jul 5 10:05:14 Cinema kernel:
> [ 12.176060] cx18-1: eeprom 00: 00
> ab 12 18 07 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
> ff ff ff
> Jul 5 10:05:14 Cinema kernel:
> [ 12.176073] cx18-1: eeprom 10: 5a
> 00 55 aa 93 c8 55 03 00 1b 10 01 00
> 00 00 00
> Jul 5 10:05:14 Cinema kernel:
> [ 12.176085] cx18-1: eeprom 20: 02
> 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 ff ff ff ff ff
> ff ff ff
> Jul 5 10:05:14 Cinema kernel:
> [ 12.176098] cx18-1: eeprom 30: ff
> ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
> ff ff ff
> [...]
> Jul 5 10:05:14 Cinema kernel:
> [ 12.176248] cx18-1: eeprom f0: ff
> ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
> ff ff ff
>
>
> Obviously the "ab 12 18 07" at
> offset 01 is just a copy of PCI
> Subsystem
> Vendor ID and Product ID for the
> MPC718 (12ab:0718).
>
> There's a minor difference for the
> two cards EEPROMs at offset
> 0x14-0x15, which may be either part
> of a revision or serial number.
>
> As more users with these boards
> report what they have, maybe I can
> figure out what some of the other
> bytes mean.
>
>
> > I think this is what you needed?
>
> Yup. I'm going to push a cleaned up
> set of changes for the cx18 driver
> to dump out the eeprom for MPC718
> boards.
>
>
> Thanks for all the desoldering,
> photos, and testing. DVB-T for
> this
> board wouldn't have been working
> without your efforts.
>
> Regards,
> Andy
>
> > Steve
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> ivtv-devel mailing list
> ivtv-devel[at]ivtvdriver.org
> http://ivtvdriver.org/mailman/listinfo/ivtv-devel
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> ivtv-devel mailing list
> ivtv-devel@ivtvdriver.org
> http://ivtvdriver.org/mailman/listinfo/ivtv-devel

_______________________________________________
ivtv-devel mailing list
ivtv-devel@ivtvdriver.org
http://ivtvdriver.org/mailman/listinfo/ivtv-devel

Re: ROM DUMP from ACER 500 [ In reply to ]

firth650 at btinternet

Jul 6, 2009, 1:11 PM

Post #4 of 4 (3459 views)

Permalink

Andy,
Many thanks for the fast reply, all understood on the xc3028.fw front.

>There are lots of variables to consider.

.....................snip-----------

>I wouldn't take anything to heart without a local DVB-T test signal
>generator, a signal measurement device (e.g. spectrum analyzer), and an
>assortment of similar cards.

Ah, at last we've found my field! Yep all understood, I do have access to the equipment that you specify
and I've already eliminated a lot of the variables you mention. Maybe I'll have a dabble one day in the "shed",
purely for my own interest, or maybe it would be easier just build my own myth box! ... a project
for another day ............

Meanwhile many thanks for all your support over the past month

All the best

Steve

----- Original message -----
Sent: 2009/07/06 17:59:14
Subject: Re:Re:Re: ROM DUMP from ACER 500

Andy,
one final question (which I really should know the answer to, to be honest!)

I've seen various attempts on the web to get the ACER aspire 500/510 working with MythTV and I'd
like to be able to assist if possible. As a first pass I'll probably just create a list of steps needed.

As well as the ivtv stuff, I've had to add various other bits and pieces of code/firmware for example the b43 (wifi) drivers,
correct lirc files etc. So, I've somewhat lost track of what I REALLY needed to do and what was just a "false path" experiment.
I can track down most things in my records, but one file that I'm not sure about is the xc3028.fw file.

Is this part of kernel or do users have to find it elsewhere on web ?

>>There's a minor difference for the two cards EEPROMs at offset
Interesting : certainly one card is better at picking up weak (UHF) signals than the other, at first I thought it was the
difference in the internal coaxial wirings, but swapping them over suggests that this is probably not the case: Maybe there is
an updated revision? Of course it could just be due to simple manufacturing tolerances. I'd be interested to know if anyone
else out there sees any difference.

Steve

> Andy,
> please find attached /var/log/messages and dmesg for my acer
> aspire 500.

Good - the change worked and your card load correctly.

> I was not sure
> if I could put the ROM's into the public domain or not.

No that's not a problem.

I don't know what the encoding means though:

Jul 5 10:05:14 Cinema kernel: [ 11.784423] cx18-0: eeprom 00: 00 ab 12 18 07 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
Jul 5 10:05:14 Cinema kernel: [ 11.784436] cx18-0: eeprom 10: 5a 00 55 aa 8b cc 55 03 00 1b 10 01 00 00 00 00
Jul 5 10:05:14 Cinema kernel: [ 11.784449] cx18-0: eeprom 20: 02 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
Jul 5 10:05:14 Cinema kernel: [ 11.784461] cx18-0: eeprom 30: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
[..]
Jul 5 10:05:14 Cinema kernel: [ 11.784615] cx18-0: eeprom f0: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff

Jul 5 10:05:14 Cinema kernel: [ 12.176060] cx18-1: eeprom 00: 00 ab 12 18 07 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
Jul 5 10:05:14 Cinema kernel: [ 12.176073] cx18-1: eeprom 10: 5a 00 55 aa 93 c8 55 03 00 1b 10 01 00 00 00 00
Jul 5 10:05:14 Cinema kernel: [ 12.176085] cx18-1: eeprom 20: 02 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
Jul 5 10:05:14 Cinema kernel: [ 12.176098] cx18-1: eeprom 30: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
[..]
Jul 5 10:05:14 Cinema kernel: [ 12.176248] cx18-1: eeprom f0: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff

Obviously the "ab 12 18 07" at offset 01 is just a copy of PCI Subsystem
Vendor ID and Product ID for the MPC718 (12ab:0718).

There's a minor difference for the two cards EEPROMs at offset
0x14-0x15, which may be either part of a revision or serial number.

As more users with these boards report what they have, maybe I can
figure out what some of the other bytes mean.

> I think this is what you needed?

Yup. I'm going to push a cleaned up set of changes for the cx18 driver
to dump out the eeprom for MPC718 boards.

Thanks for all the desoldering, photos, and testing. DVB-T for this
board wouldn't have been working without your efforts.

Regards,
Andy

> Steve

_______________________________________________
ivtv-devel mailing list
ivtv-devel[at]ivtvdriver.org
http://ivtvdriver.org/mailman/listinfo/ivtv-devel"]http://ivtvdriver.org/mailman/listinfo/ivtv-devel