Brand New Gp2x Freshly Bricked Aswell, Need Assistance, Will Pay.


juliodm

Still Fresh
Joined
May 1, 2006
Messages
35
I just received my GP2X on monday last week and it didn't take me a week to brick it. The 2.0 firmware came out and sure enough, I tried it with several things wrong, but of course I'm an idiot, so I didn't check before trying and bricked my unit. Here's what I did:
1)My SD card is an Integral 2gb card formatted to Fat16. Which worked for simple use, but according to the sd card guide, it cant be used for firmware upgrading.

2)NO psu, I used brand new freshly charged batteries I specifically bought at radio shack. The psu they had that fit, wasn't compatible with my unit, so I attempted it with the batteries alone.

3)The initial instructions on GP2X's web site said to start the unit with start & select pressed, as I later found out, this was wrong. First your supposed to just turn the power on, the unit will automatically detect the upgrade, then when the green screen is there, that's when you wait 15 seconds, then turn it off, then back on with start & select pressed. Well, too late, I waited 45 minutes with the chip screen on, the updating firmware screen, and then the batteries died. Now all I get is colored lines. From trying the unbricking guide, I think I destroyed u-boot.

So now, i've been contacting the company that sold it to me, and seeing if they are nice enough to assist, but if they cant, I need to learn more about this j-tag thingy. I have a cable that fits my gp2x perfectly, it goes from the serial port of the GP2X to USB, via a chip in the center by prolific. Can that be used as jtag, or is jtag something else altogether? I downloaded this linux software that runs on pc's in a floppy disc, that supposedly sees the jtag interface and forces the GP2X to re-right an older version of u-boot... but I have two problems,
1) I don't know how to read schematics.
2) I don't own a pc, I have a Mac G4.

So these are my questions to you guys, the GP2X gurus....
A) Is one of you willing to fix my unit at a fee?
B) If not, is there a servicing center I can send it to that will?

I appreciate any and all info regarding this and I thank you whole heartedly in advance.
Julio DM
juliodm@earthlink.net
 
juliodm posted on May 1 2006 at 08:53 PM said:
I just received my GP2X on monday last week and it didn't take me a week to brick it. The 2.0 firmware came out and sure enough, I tried it with several things wrong, but of course I'm an idiot, so I didn't check before trying and bricked my unit. Here's what I did:
1)My SD card is an Integral 2gb card formatted to Fat16. Which worked for simple use, but according to the sd card guide, it cant be used for firmware upgrading.

2)NO psu, I used brand new freshly charged batteries I specifically bought at radio shack. The psu they had that fit, wasn't compatible with my unit, so I attempted it with the batteries alone.

3)The initial instructions on GP2X's web site said to start the unit with start & select pressed, as I later found out, this was wrong. First your supposed to just turn the power on, the unit will automatically detect the upgrade, then when the green screen is there, that's when you wait 15 seconds, then turn it off, then back on with start & select pressed. Well, too late, I waited 45 minutes with the chip screen on, the updating firmware screen, and then the batteries died. Now all I get is colored lines. From trying the unbricking guide, I think I destroyed u-boot.

So now, i've been contacting the company that sold it to me, and seeing if they are nice enough to assist, but if they cant, I need to learn more about this j-tag thingy. I have a cable that fits my gp2x perfectly, it goes from the serial port of the GP2X to USB, via a chip in the center by prolific. Can that be used as jtag, or is jtag something else altogether? I downloaded this linux software that runs on pc's in a floppy disc, that supposedly sees the jtag interface and forces the GP2X to re-right an older version of u-boot... but I have two problems,
1) I don't know how to read schematics.
2) I don't own a pc, I have a Mac G4.

So these are my questions to you guys, the GP2X gurus....
A) Is one of you willing to fix my unit at a fee?
B) If not, is there a servicing center I can send it to that will?

I appreciate any and all info regarding this and I thank you whole heartedly in advance.
Julio DM
juliodm@earthlink.net

Dude, I'll tell you upfront that I'm probably not going to be a big help, but I can imagine how down you are right now, so I'll give it what I've got. I know on the Spanish site (GP32Spain) there was a thread with pics on how to build your own J-Tag, so if you've got any notion of Spanish, you could try there. I'm also shure that sombody has put up a "how to" J-Tag in English (might even want to check out this forum) so you could try that too. Wish I was of more help dude, wish you all the best, and hey, it could have happened to anybody, don't kick yourself anymore, H.G.
 
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hired gun posted on May 1 2006 at 06:06 PM said:
juliodm posted on May 1 2006 at 08:53 PM said:
I just received my GP2X on monday last week and it didn't take me a week to brick it. The 2.0 firmware came out and sure enough, I tried it with several things wrong, but of course I'm an idiot, so I didn't check before trying and bricked my unit. Here's what I did:
1)My SD card is an Integral 2gb card formatted to Fat16. Which worked for simple use, but according to the sd card guide, it cant be used for firmware upgrading.

2)NO psu, I used brand new freshly charged batteries I specifically bought at radio shack. The psu they had that fit, wasn't compatible with my unit, so I attempted it with the batteries alone.

3)The initial instructions on GP2X's web site said to start the unit with start & select pressed, as I later found out, this was wrong. First your supposed to just turn the power on, the unit will automatically detect the upgrade, then when the green screen is there, that's when you wait 15 seconds, then turn it off, then back on with start & select pressed. Well, too late, I waited 45 minutes with the chip screen on, the updating firmware screen, and then the batteries died. Now all I get is colored lines. From trying the unbricking guide, I think I destroyed u-boot.

So now, i've been contacting the company that sold it to me, and seeing if they are nice enough to assist, but if they cant, I need to learn more about this j-tag thingy. I have a cable that fits my gp2x perfectly, it goes from the serial port of the GP2X to USB, via a chip in the center by prolific. Can that be used as jtag, or is jtag something else altogether? I downloaded this linux software that runs on pc's in a floppy disc, that supposedly sees the jtag interface and forces the GP2X to re-right an older version of u-boot... but I have two problems,
1) I don't know how to read schematics.
2) I don't own a pc, I have a Mac G4.

So these are my questions to you guys, the GP2X gurus....
A) Is one of you willing to fix my unit at a fee?
B) If not, is there a servicing center I can send it to that will?

I appreciate any and all info regarding this and I thank you whole heartedly in advance.
Julio DM
juliodm@earthlink.net

Dude, I'll tell you upfront that I'm probably not going to be a big help, but I can imagine how down you are right now, so I'll give it what I've got. I know on the Spanish site (GP32Spain) there was a thread with pics on how to build your own J-Tag, so if you've got any notion of Spanish, you could try there. I'm also shure that sombody has put up a "how to" J-Tag in English (might even want to check out this forum) so you could try that too. Wish I was of more help dude, wish you all the best, and hey, it could have happened to anybody, don't kick yourself anymore, H.G.

Thanks, I speak and write spanish, horribly , but I do. I just left a note on their forum... I keep hoping.... A nice guy on the GP2X main site told me that even with freshly charged brand new 1800mah batteries, the system might see them as uncharged and thus give me the colored lines. I ordered the european psu and 2600mah batteries today rush. I'm praying he's right. The thought of messing with a jtag doesn't excite me. All I can think is that if I screw up, I could fry the board.
 
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I do believe a more knowledgeable person can link you to an english page with instruction to build your own jtag. PM me if you need it and ill search it out. :)

good luck man, I sympathize with ya.
 
EvilDragon will unbrick your '2x for you, if you can pay shipping to Germany and back..I'm sending mine to him soon :)
 
k3nn posted on May 2 2006 at 05:08 PM said:
EvilDragon will unbrick your '2x for you, if you can pay shipping to Germany and back..I'm sending mine to him soon :)

yes... I contacted him earlier today.... the man is an angel as far as I'm concerned... where the world turned their backs to re-flashing my gp2x, he stepped up.

Thank you to all of you who gave of their time and helped me out. I appreciate it more than I can say.

Julio.
 
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