Hi everyone,

I'm in a panic because my beloved empeg is crashing, or something. It is 100% repeatable. The player does everything just fine until I hit the *right* button, which causes it to stop immediately with a slight click, as if the power supply is shutting down. I have not verified that is the case, its just what it sounds like. If in the car (where I have a tuner module installed), the player goes silent and I get low volume static through the speakers.

I had been running 2.0 final with HiJack with the ext3 patches. Also running was Palantir.

This is what I've done:

1. Checked the FAQ.

2. Verify that the problem is not related to the car, tuner or tuner loopback by repeating the problem both in my Mark Lord dock and with AC.

3. Switch back to ext2 & test.

4. Remove Palantir startup & test.

5. Reinstall 2.0 final software & test.

6. Install latest HiJack (without very high hopes, I might add).

I have not run the builder and I hope to avoid it. It doesn't seem like that would be appropriate for this kind of malfunction.

So, if anyone has any idea what's going on, please help. I'm an engineer, but not an electrical engineer. I'm guessing I have a hardware issue of some sort and I can do some testing, but probably not in a ton of detail.

Finally, what are my options to get it fixed now that support is shut down? Are any of you guys interested/available in doing some moonlighting for repairs that I can't handle? Are parts even available? Basic parts swapping I can handle, but SMT soldering is beyond me for something so important to me as my empeg.

Thanks in advance. Sadly,

Jim

You mean the right-hand button on the faceplate? Interesting. Never heard this one before.

One thing to check:

Is it only with the faceplate button, or does it also happen when you press the Next Track button on the remote control, too?

You've tried it with different shuffles? In other words, it's not a specific faulty song that happens to be the next song in the current playlist and you haven't gotten past that song yet because it keeps crashing?

Tony,

Yes, I mean the right-hand button of the 4 button cluster on the faceplate. Not the knob button.

Excellent suggestions. Here are the results:

1. The player seems to function normally using the remote. Specifically, the right button scrolls right through menus and advances to the next track, as it should.

2. I have verified that the problem is independent of the running playlist or shuffle mode. It also doesn't matter which track is currently playing.

Good tests, thanks.

Jim

Hook up something to the serial port so that debug messages can be observed and traced. Look for anything at the moment of failure.

Repeat with the following in config.ini (requires Hijack kernel):

    [hijack]

    ir_debug=1

And then post the resulting trace here for us to look at.

Thanks

Here is the capture with ir_debug=1. The first log was normal and neither show anything at the moment of failure. Nothing.

Thanks everyone for looking in to this with me.
Jim

empeg-car bootstrap v1.02 20001106 (hugo@empeg.com)
If there is anyone present who wants to upgrade the flash, let them speak now,
or forever hold their peace...it seems not. Let fly the Penguins of Linux!

e000 v1.04
Copying kernel...
Calling linux kernel...
Uncompressing Linux..................................... done, booting the kernel.
Linux version 2.2.17-rmk5-np17-empeg52-hijack-v339 (root@ibbm) (gcc version 2.95.3 20010315 (release)) #2 Thu Jun 12 12:58:10 EDT 2003
Processor: Intel StrongARM-1100 revision 11
NetWinder Floating Point Emulator V0.94.1 (c) 1998 Corel Computer Corp.
empeg-car player (hardware revision 9, serial number 40104024)
Command line: mem=16m
Calibrating delay loop... 207.67 BogoMIPS
Memory: 15016k/16M available (976k code, 20k reserved, 368k data, 4k init)
Dentry hash table entries: 2048 (order 2, 16k)
Buffer cache hash table entries: 16384 (order 4, 64k)
Page cache hash table entries: 4096 (order 2, 16k)
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.2
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP
TCP: Hash tables configured (ehash 16384 bhash 16384)
IrDA (tm) Protocols for Linux-2.2 (Dag Brattli)
Starting kswapd v 1.5
SA1100 serial driver version 4.27 with no serial options enabled
ttyS00 at 0xf8010000 (irq = 15) is a SA1100 UART
ttyS01 at 0xf8050000 (irq = 17) is a SA1100 UART
ttyS02 at 0xf8030000 (irq = 16) is a SA1100 UART
Signature is 206f6972 'rio '
Tuner: loopback=0, ID=-1
empeg display initialised.
empeg dsp audio initialised
empeg dsp mixer initialised
empeg dsp initialised
empeg audio-in initialised, CS4231A revision a0
empeg remote control/panel button initialised.
empeg usb initialised, PDIUSBD12 id 1012
empeg state support initialised 0089/88c1 (save to d0005b80).
empeg RDS driver initialised
empeg power-pic driver initialised (first boot)
RAM disk driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 4096K size
empeg single channel IDE
Probing primary interface...
hdb: IC25T060ATCS05-0, ATA DISK drive
hda: IC25T060ATCS05-0, ATA DISK drive
hdb: IC25T060ATCS05-0, ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0x000-0x007,0x038 on irq 6
hda: IC25T060ATCS05-0, 57231MB w/1768kB Cache, CHS=7296/255/63
hdb: IC25T060ATCS05-0, 57231MB w/1768kB Cache, CHS=7296/255/63
empeg-flash driver initialized
smc chip id/revision 0x3349
smc9194.c:v0.12 03/06/96 by Erik Stahlman (erik@vt.edu)

SMC9194: SMC91C94(r:9) at 0x4008000 IRQ:7 INTF:TP MEM:6144b MAC 00:02:d7:28:0f:b8
Partition check:
hda: hda1 < hda5 hda6 > hda2 hda3 hda4
hdb: hdb1 < hdb5 hdb6 > hdb2 hdb3 hdb4
RAMDISK: ext2 filesystem found at block 0
RAMDISK: Loading 320 blocks [1 disk] into ram disk... |/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\done.
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem).
empeg-pump v0.03 (19980601)
Press Ctrl-A to enter pump... VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly.
change_root: old root has d_count=1
Trying to unmount old root ... okay
Freeing unused kernel memory: 4k initempeg init 0.8
I see this is a developer image!
Mounting proc
Mounting first music partition
Tried to mount /dev/hda4 as reiserfs but got error 19
Mounting second music partition
Remounting first music partition read-only
Remounting second music partition read-only
Press 'q' now to go into development mode. You Have Zero Seconds To Comply...
Starting player
Hijack: intercepting config.ini

hijack: removed menu entry: "Hard Disk Detection"
hijack: removed menu entry: "Tuner RDS Control"
hijack: removed menu entry: "Serial Port Assignment"
khttpd: listening on port 80
kftpd: listening on port 21
player.cpp : 385:empeg-car 2.00 2003/04/01.
Poll wait
Poll fail
Prolux 4 empeg car - 2.1434 Mar 26 2003
Vcb: 0x408ac000
Poll wait
Poll fail

A mechanics view would be check the board is tight on its mounts as it might be wobblying and shorting something.

Sounds hardware but try instead of using button to skip enter a menu using a remote or something and then pressing it.

The buttons i don't belive are smt and are available from non empeg sources

Nothing funny from that log. If it's software, it's happening in the device driver then, but really looks like a hard fault of some kind.

Take off the faceplate and coloured lens and button caps, and then try again with pressing just the raw (white) buttons themselves.

Cheers

Have you dropped this unit, even gently? Looking at the circuit diagrams, even a defective (electrically) switch wouldn't do this: it sounds like a cracked display PCB or something else shorting. For the unit to reboot, it's likely to be something to do with the 5V supply.

Thank you for all of the comments, guys.

I figured out the problem and came up with a hack to fix it. I think it could happen to other players, so I wanted to share this with the group. I also feel it could be related to faulty IDE cables many are experiencing.

The IDE cable comes very close to the display board. Of course, this is not a short problem because the cable is insulated. However, some of the solder points on the back of the display board are very sharp. In particular, the buttons are through-hole soldered and the connections are very sharp and extremely close to the IDE cable. There is enough slack in the IDE cable for it to come into contact with those sharp solder points.

Although I missed it at first, I eventually noticed an extremely small pin hole in the IDE cable right over a conductor. The IDE cable insulation had been punctured by one of the solder points of the left button. When the button was closed (pushed), it apparently resulted in a short, causing the drive to immediately shut down. That was the click I was hearing.

I "fixed" it by pulling the IDE cable away from the display board and gluing it down with a liberal dose of hot melt glue to the top of both drives.

I checked the cable very closely and can only find one pin hole on a single conductor. Since multiple IDE conductors were not damaged and since the cable is now secured a safe distance from any potential short, I did not replace the cable. I suppose a drop of hot melt glue would seal it, but I don't see the need.

The next time you have your player apart, it may be worth ensuring that the IDE cable is secured away from the display board so that vibration during mobile use doesn't evenutally wear the cable if the slack is sufficient for it to touch the board.

Thanks again for all of the kind help.

Jim

The unit never rebooted. It just shut down and locked. It required a full power cycle to reboot.

You guys were very close. It was a short. It was related to the display PCB.

I think it could happen to others...

Jim

Cool, I'm glad you got it resolved. AFAIK, that is the first reported symptom of a worn IDE cable. There have been a couple of reports of frayed/punctured insulation, but I can't remember anyone having any functional problems because of it.

Me too! Those who've had a (hopefully temporary) malfunction with their player know that awful sinking feeling. I'm very attached to my empeg. I knew that, but I never *knew* that...

Hang on - do you mean the (narrow) display cable, or the (wide) IDE drive cable? I can't see how it can be the drive cable as the only part of it that comes near the display board is the back of the drive connector on the hard disk.

The display cable, yes - it can be pinched by the drive tray which would cause this. I was going to suggest that the next thing to look at would be the display cable for chafing.

Yeah, weird. It was definitely the wide IDE cable. The connector on the left drive is slightly below the solder points for the switch. It was contacting the solder points as it bent upward from the connecter to its position on the top of the drive.