Hacking PXA270 internal USB HOST

[travel73485]

X50v, A02 ROM:
http://ftp.dell.com/utility/R92020.EXE

[bigbop]

hey bigbop, if you can find me a link to a rom image that contains a USB Host driver for WM5.0, i can disassemble the rom and extract the drivers (as long as i can Identify them)...

Unfortunately, I'm working with an X50v. I need the entire ROM re-installed but since I'm at A05, I can't go back to A02, unless someone has an A02 ROM backup I can download from somewhere - you can restore a previous backup but you can't install a prev ROM (using the Dell installer).

[rohanch]

If you have the previous Dell download couldn't you create an SD Card image using this tutorial and then flash it to the Axim manually using this guide?

Edit: sorry, I don't think that would work actually, I just re-read the first link and it's x51 only :(
Unless you can work out how to make (or get a copy of) .nb0 images yourself.

Alternatively, you could install Linux I suppose. It claims to have USB support, built in (and of course because it is Linux you'd be able to get more information about how things are being detected/or not).

[InitialDriveGT]

Sorry to beat the hardware part with a stick, but someone mentioned that the ipaq's were now being made by HTC. The link: [link]http://handhelds.org/moin/moin.cgi/HpIpaqHx4700Hardware[/link] at the bottom shows the "Internal card edge connector covered by black foam." Looking at it's pictures, and the Dell's, i saw the connections were both on the edge of the board, and both consisted of 16 contacts.

[bigbop]

Sorry to beat the hardware part with a stick, but someone mentioned that the ipaq's were now being made by HTC. The link: [link]http://handhelds.org/moin/moin.cgi/HpIpaqHx4700Hardware[/link] at the bottom shows the "Internal card edge connector covered by black foam." Looking at it's pictures, and the Dell's, i saw the connections were both on the edge of the board, and both consisted of 16 contacts.

OUCH:rolling: stop hitting me with that stick

Good observation. I'll see if the JTAG pins match up.

EDIT - I removed the X4700 JTAG list so it would ne be taken as the X51v JTAG pinouts, which are different.

I have found four of the 5 standard JTAG pins:

Looking at the top of the PCB with the CPU shield facing you (battery contacts facing down) and the sync connector to the left, the row of square contacts along the edge of the board closest to you, starting from the left:
TCK, TMS, TDI, TDO

I have not found nTRST as it is probably not a direct connection to the CPU but goes through a reset debounce circuit.

If anyone here has JTAG experience and would like to find nTRST through trial & error - go wild. Your JTAG equipment needs to have the PXA270 defined as well as the flash memory.

[CaUcHy]

Unfortunately, I'm working with an X50v. I need the entire ROM re-installed but since I'm at A05, I can't go back to A02, unless someone has an A02 ROM backup I can download from somewhere - you can restore a previous backup but you can't install a prev ROM (using the Dell installer).

There is a slight problem. I have already try using a previous backup from another axim and when it `s about to start, a message pop up saying that can not restore because it is not the original ppc from which the backup was made from.

But there are other options. I saw some where that by changing some lines with an hexa editor you could fool the installer.
Another option is to get A02 rom image using an sd rom dumper, from someone who has a backup.
SD Dump how to...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=238945
After that you could use the image using the SD Image Loader method.
http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?t=112012

I hope this helps.

[Mystik]

X50v, A02 ROM:
http://ftp.dell.com/utility/R92020.EXE

thanks for the linkage. worked great.

i now have the X50v A02 ROM.

though, i'm curious if the drivers would work in the x51... probably not due to the fact that they'd need tag files for trust... wm2003 didn't need that, but WM5.0 does.

so getting the files for x51 could be a bit of a trick.

as for me, i've gotta dig up the link to the guide to make a dump from this badboy... i think afarre linked it before... if i can only find the posting.....

-=edit=-

found it!

For download Dell x50v rom A02 see here :
Dell Axim X50v VGA System Update for Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition, Utility, Pocket PC 2003, English, Axim X50 / X50v, v.WWE, A02http://ftp.us.dell.com/utility/R95345.EXE

Great Job and thanks to you all to discover the USB side of things on the Aximx 50v.
IMHO it would be best to have all electrics in the cable connector and its lead connecting to an external mini usb hub (on external power), so that many of us w/o soldering/tecnical skills don't mess up the innards of the Axim. Then a couple of diodes therein should protect the Axim from wrong voltages.
In other words , no IC's, diodes, etc. in the Axim itself, but everyhing contained in the connecting cable plug. Would that be possible?

Pieter

Pieter

[forests_gump]

Unfortunately, I'm working with an X50v. I need the entire ROM re-installed but since I'm at A05, I can't go back to A02, unless someone has an A02 ROM backup I can download from somewhere - you can restore a previous backup but you can't install a prev ROM (using the Dell installer).

Bigbop, your wish is granted


Kindly download my X50V English A02 ROM backup (done sometime ago) from Here.

Glad to do my small part for this project!
All the best, we will be waiting for good news (i hope)
EDITED: I managed to use my usual file host now.

[bigbop]

Originally Posted by travel73485
X50v, A02 ROM:
http://ftp.dell.com/utility/R92020.EXE

Originally Posted by Mystik

thanks for the linkage. worked great. i now have the X50v A02 ROM. though, i'm curious if the drivers would work in the x51... probably not due to the fact that they'd need tag files for trust... wm2003 didn't need that, but WM5.0 does. so getting the files for x51 could be a bit of a trick. as for me, i've gotta dig up the link to the guide to make a dump from this badboy... i think afarre linked it before... if i can only find the posting..... -=edit=- found it!

No good - that is the A00 X50v ROM image.
The A02 image is http://ftp.us.dell.com/utility/R95345.EXE

[bigbop]

For download Dell x50v rom A02 see here :
Dell Axim X50v VGA System Update for Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition, Utility, Pocket PC 2003, English, Axim X50 / X50v, v.WWE, A02http://ftp.us.dell.com/utility/R95345.EXE

Great Job and thanks to you all to discover the USB side of things on the Aximx 50v.
IMHO it would be best to have all electrics in the cable connector and its lead connecting to an external mini usb hub (on external power), so that many of us w/o soldering/tecnical skills don't mess up the innards of the Axim. Then a couple of diodes therein should protect the Axim from wrong voltages.
In other words , no IC's, diodes, etc. in the Axim itself, but everyhing contained in the connecting cable plug. Would that be possible?

Pieter

Pieter

Unfortunaely, that is not possible as the USB host point were only brought to two test points on the circuitboard. I had to connect a couple of wires to the two testpoints and bring them to the sync connector. I needed a special microscope and soldering iron to perform this - it comes in handy that I work for a large tech company.

If this actualy works out - maybe PC Techs can offer a mod service. Who knows.


I updated post 215 with X51v JTAG info this morning...... http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showp...&postcount=215

[Mystik]

ermm, i'm having trouble extracting the files from the x50 rom. the last rom i dumped was an x51 rom with had a full tutorial... i'm confident i can do it, it's just gonna take some time and effort.

i'll get back on it tonight when i have some free time.

[Mystik]

Quick update with a *bump* :D

i don't seem to have all the right utils to decode the imgfs for WM2003... the x50v img file is proving to be much more difficult to produce a dump from. this compounded by me not finding a direct walk-throuh of how to do it yet... causes delays, compounded by the busy work-week and not having enough free time to do it.... you get the idea.

i'll work on it more on the weekend definately, also, if anyone knows tools or apps that may help, please post. thx.

[bigbop]

Quick update with a *bump* :D

i don't seem to have all the right utils to decode the imgfs for WM2003... the x50v img file is proving to be much more difficult to produce a dump from. this compounded by me not finding a direct walk-throuh of how to do it yet... causes delays, compounded by the busy work-week and not having enough free time to do it.... you get the idea.

i'll work on it more on the weekend definately, also, if anyone knows tools or apps that may help, please post. thx.

You want to read this: http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?t=112267

I was unable to restore the A02 RIS backup image from forests_gump as it checks the serial number to make sure it's your backup and not someone elses.

At this time, I need to do a little searching to see how to change the serial# embedded in the file so I can restore it to my unit.

Also found this site that has pre-built images for Linux and CE5: http://www.phytec.com/products/softw...ce-pxa270.html
and this - oh my - doesn't this unit's specs look familiar... http://www.intrinsyc.com/support_mes/cerfpod270m/

Also checking this thread http://www.eten-users.net/index.php?showtopic=4328 out regarding an ETEN M600 USB host enable - not sure if it's got a similar structure to the X50/X51 series.

UPDATE: Nope, the M600 uses a Samsung ARM chip, but here's a great list of what CPU is running inside of a given PDA: http://www.calculator.org/devices.html

[Mystik]

this whole driver thing is inspiring me to look in odd places for answers, and i'm turning up some really interesting things, mostly questions.

first, i looked at the platform builder link that bigbop posted (very very interesting link btw) which inspired me to think... what if we recompiled a more efficient version of WM5.0 and applied it to the ax? we could put in the features we use most... basicly custom tailor the OS to fit our personal needs... which would be cool (maybe take a while to find the right modules to include so it wouldn't be buggy as all hell, but if the PDA works fast, and the way you want it when you're done, wouldn't that be worth it?)

and that inspired me to think about the available memory on my ax (typically about 25MB)... which, for a 64MB (ram) device, seems WAY too low. but i'm sure Dell (or HTC) has incorporated a lot into the OS, to load, on boot, that gobbles up ram... for no good reason, maybe features that are never used, etc etc... things you could cut back on... but then i looked carefully at my total available ram, which is 49.... wait. 49? i just kinda shook that off before, like w/e, but i paid for 64! why can i not use all 64? (even if the OS gobbles up 30+MB of it :P ) which made me think that they might be allocating it to video, so i looked carefully at the chips on the board from afarre's X51v internal pictures, looking up the chips, the 2700G processor does, in fact, have a dedicated 16MB RAM chip, all to itself... so where's that 14-15 MB? so i checked the infineon RAM on board too (main system memory) yup. 64MB... so why doesn't it clock at 64MB?

i'm lost. i understand i lose ~60-75MB of ROM due to the OS, but i'm ok with that... 190MB is more than i'll ever use on the device. but RAM? disappearing? i can see it being occupied, but gone?

*shakes head*

i also found other interesting things... when doing Windows CE research... there was a table of the advantages of CE6.0 over CE5.0(which WM5.0 is based on)

among the improvements were an increase in the capable virtual memory from 32MB to: total available memory, and an increase in the possible CPU threads from 32(??!?) to 32768(!!)

so i learned that the virtual memory is 32MB on a WM5.0 device (which could cause performance issues if your available device storage drops below this), and you can only have 32 CPU processes at once.

anyways, back on topic here... i've (re)installed my copy of Visual Studio 2005 EE, and i'm hoping that in the Windows CE 5.0 IDE there's a utility to compile (and specificly, DEcompile) img files designed for WM5.0 Device platforms.