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DS Flash Equipment > My never ending story with PassMe and Jtag cable.

#65683 - blackd0t - Wed Jan 04, 2006 11:46 pm

Hi, everyone!

I got my NDS with SuperCard and PassMe on Christmas. It was a silver console and I was happy PassMe would work with it with no problem. But I was mistaken. When I plugged in the SC and PassMe, I saw the welcoming NDS screen, the health warning and then... two white screens.
I tried to ask people what may be the cause of this as the console is silver and some said the PassMe works, but it can't communicate with the SuperCard and some said I have the new firmware.

I was very confused, but finally found some post on some forum that in such situations I should upgrade the SC firmware to the newest version, so I did this. I waited with curiosity what would happen when I was launching my DS and... bang!... two white screens. Defeated again, I did not surrender.

I was quite sure by that time, I have the new firmware on my DS and I learned I can upgrade my PassMe1 to PassMe2 with the JTAG cable I have to build myself. I was very happy and I bought the needed parts right away. I soldered everything taking natrium's tutorial as reference. I launched the Xilink iMPACT program, 3 times "Next" and... BANG!... "Too many unknown devices found. Do you want to continue?"

"DAMN" I thought... and here I am. I think this forum is my last chance to not lose my mind. Here is what I found out.

I tried disconnecting each cable at the time from the PassMe soldered to the JTAG and I found out that the error only changes to something else when I remove the 3rd (TDO), 4th (GND) or 5th (VCC) connection. The other ones seems to not have any effect on the error. That's why I checked numerous times the connections and solders on that cables on both sides.

Now I'm sitting here thinking that maybe my PassMe is broken or something like that and I would like to hear from someone who has any suggestions to my problem.

Thank you in advance.
Regards,
Black Dot

#65684 - tepples - Wed Jan 04, 2006 11:49 pm

blackd0t wrote:
I got my NDS with SuperCard and PassMe on Christmas. It was a silver console and I was happy PassMe would work with it with no problem. But I was mistaken. When I plugged in the SC and PassMe, I saw the welcoming NDS screen, the health warning and then... two white screens.

Do you get yellow screens when you follow this procedure?
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.

#65685 - blackd0t - Wed Jan 04, 2006 11:53 pm

Tepples, ahh, it's Yellow so I need PassMe2 badly :(
Thank you for this post, now I'm know for sure in what situation I am.

#65744 - blackd0t - Thu Jan 05, 2006 12:00 pm

Ok, this morning I resoldered everything once again with the new cable to make it look like a professional work. I still get an error about too many unknown devices being detected, but now I know this is not the cable's fault.

I think that maybe it may be the pins on my Passme that may differ from the ones in Natrium's tutorial although it has those significant "1" and "6" on each side of the pins.

Here is how my Passme look from the outside, in the evening I'll post some photos how it looks like inside.

[Images not permitted - Click here to view it]

And here is the package it was in:
[Images not permitted - Click here to view it]

P.S. The device must be ok as the chip on the Passme says "Xilink".

#65791 - blackd0t - Thu Jan 05, 2006 7:39 pm

As I promised I post the photos of my Passme interiors. Tell me what you think about the JTAG pins. Do you think they are placed in the same manner as they are on Natrium's Passme?

TOP
BACK #1
BACK #2

#65838 - blackd0t - Fri Jan 06, 2006 1:18 am

IT WORKS!!!

Finally my story reached the happy ending (everybody likes them, right?). I managed to successfully flash my Passme. It appeared that the placement of my Passme's JTAG pins was slightly different from the placement in the Natrium's Cheaptag tutorial. I posted the photos of how my Passme looks like above and now I'd like to post the information about the pin placement for it, for other people who may possibly have problems with this model.

Big thanks go to Natrium, for telling me I can map the pins of CPLD to JTAG pins and for the idea about making a multimeter consisting of battery and a LED (it was invaluable!!!).

Here are the tech details:

1. TCK
2. TMS
3. TDI
4. TDO
5. VCC
6. GND


Big regards to everyone!

#66064 - qw3rty - Sun Jan 08, 2006 12:08 am

blackd0t, you are my HERO !
Thank you :)

#66080 - blackd0t - Sun Jan 08, 2006 2:46 am

Hah, no problem :). I'm really glad I could help!
_________________
Regards,
Black Dot