This guide is a work in progress.
Please be patient as I work on completing this guide, as I work full time and am a full time student.
You can find the original discussion thread for this topic here!
DISCLAIMER: I am not responsible for any damage to yourself, your Kindle, or other property incurred by following any or all parts of this guide. Proceed at your own risk.
WARNING: Do not attempt to follow this guide unless you are fairly familiar with soldering and Linux commands. Serious harm to yourself, your Kindle, and/or your computer can result if you are not careful.
Q. What devices will this work on?
A. This how-to works for the Kindle Fire 2 only. (There are other methods of restoring a bricked original Kindle Fire; refer to the FAQ for that device)
Q. Why won't this work for KFHD7"/8.9"?
A. The motherboard designs for the KFHDs are different. That means that the entire process of finding all the solder points for those motherboards (including desoldering the e-MMC) has to be repeated before the same method for fixing hard-bricks on them can be used. (Note: If you have a hard-bricked or otherwise broken KFHD7"/8.9" that you'd be willing to donate for this endeavor, please PM me)
Q. Under what circumstance does will this guide help?
A. This guide is intended to restore the KF2 that was previously thought to be beyond restoring, or hard-bricked, as a result of flashing the incorrect image to your ROM. This means a KF2 that does not display anything on the screen and does not light up the power LED when the power button is pressed (i.e. it appears dead even after charging). If your KF2 still shows signs of life but is not working, please try one of the other methods of repairing it. Might I suggest Q16-23 of the FAQ?
Q. Is there any way to do this without all the soldering?
A. At this time, no; however, I am in the process of developing a device to do this that does not require soldering.
Q. I don't feel comfortable doing this myself. Can I have you fix it for me?
A. Send me a PM and we'll work out the details.
Required materials:
Hard-bricked Kindle Fire 2
USB SD card reader (one with only one slot, NOT the multi-card readers)*
30 AWG wire (I found mine at Radioshack)
solder (the smaller the diameter, the better)
soldering iron (pencil iron will work, but soldering station is better)
plastic opening tools
a small Phillips screwdriver (mine came with my plastic opening tool kit)
a computer with Linux (a live CD of a distro should theoretically work, but I used an installed copy of Ubuntu 13.04)
*For cheap card readers near me (literally three blocks up the road), I found this one from Microcenter and this one from Tigerdirect. Go with whatever is cheapest for you.
Suggested materials:
Helping hands tool
A good light source
Magnifying glass/magnifying visor (I used a x7 magnifying glass with built-in light)
Desoldering pump/wick (in case you mess something up, need to desolder the SD card reader, or want to clean up your board after you're done)
Lots of patience
Preparing the motherboard
Warning: Take care to protect sensitive electrical components (like the ones found on your KF2) from ESD.
1. Remove the motherboard from the Kindle. If you need directions on how to do that, please refer to ifixit (stop at step 8). Note: You do not need to remove the battery from the case.
2. Take a moment and familiarize yourself with the layout of the motherboard.(Solder points are marked. Keep these images handy for reference)
Front:
(Click for larger image)
This is just an FYI (not required to do this): When you first take out the motherboard, the e-MMC will be covered by a piece of grey foam. Underneath that is a sticker that covers the chip information.
Back:
(Click for larger image)
Note: For CMD and DAT1, you will be soldering to the marked leads of the SMD components. All other soldering will be to the marked copper pads.3. Place it to the side in a safe location
Preparing the SD card reader
There are a few different variations when it comes to SD card readers. In addition to through-hole vs. SMD, there may be variation in the location of the card-detect switch pins. All other pins (DAT0-3, Vcc, GND, CMD, and CLK) will always have the same location relative to each other.
Examples:
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
SMD with card detect switch at the top
Through-hole with card detect switch in the middle (Front) (card connector removed)
Through-hole with card detect switch in the middle (Back)
1. Remove your reader from the package.
It should look something like this:
2. Remove the plastic housing and any metal shielding from the SD card connector.
You're left with this:
3.There are two ways to proceed from here: (a) For through-hole, use the pads (b)For through-hole or SMD, solder directly to the connector pins.
4. (a) Carefully desolder all the pins from the card connector. (b) Skip this step.
5. Cut your wire. You will need 10 pieces. 9 of them need to be long enough to get from the MB to the card reader (I went with about 6-8 inches) with 6 of them the same length (for DAT0-1, CMD, and CLK to minimize chance of signals arriving at different times). The last wire should be long enough to jump the card detect switch (CD_SW) to ground (GND).
6. Carefully strip about 0.5-1 cm of the insulation each end of all the wires.
7. (Refer to example images at beginning of post) Take your small wire and jump CD_SW to GND by (a) placing the wire through CD_SW and GND and soldering or (b) soldering one end of the wire to the CD_SW connector pin and the other to a GND connector pin.
8. (Refer to example images at beginning of post) Take your 6 wires of equal length and solder one each to DAT0-3, CMD, and CLK (a) through the hole or (b) to the card connector pins.
9. (Refer to example images at beginning of post) Take one of the remaining wires and solder it to GND by (a) or (b) as above.
10. (Refer to example images at beginning of post) Take your last two remaining wires and twist one end of the exposed wire together. Solder this end to Vcc by (a) or (b) as above. These will be used to connect to Vcc and VccQ on the motherboard.
11. Your finished product should look something like this (for a):
Front:
Back:
(Blank)
Connecting it all together
Soldering to the copper pads is tricky. The solder doesn't like to stick, and when it does, you have to be very careful not to move the wire until it cools. Also, if you have to attempt to solder the same pad more than once, lacquer tends to build up. Keep something handy (like tweezers) to scrape it off if it gets in the way
Reference photos:
Front:
(Click for larger image)
Back:
(Click for larger image)
Card reader:
1. Solder the wire from the card reader to the corresponding pads as marked in the images above. Using the helping hands tool to hold the board and the reader makes things much easier. It's probably easiest if you solder DAT0 on the front first, then turn the board over and with audio jack, etc. on the left, solder each spot from top to bottom, left to right. Note: Solder one Vcc wire from the card reader to one Vcc pad on the board and the other to VccQ.
Once finished, it should look like this:
Next Step?
Wanna try this with my bricked kf 2nd gen. But I need to research more on it first...
On what state will the tablet be when you plug in the finished product to the computer?
can you please put the next steps ?
Thanks!
What's next??
Hello there... I was reading your steps to repair my dead KF2 on your post... and I noticed you said on the requirements that we need a Linux PC, preferably with Ubuntu, to proceed... but There are no more steps after you show how to solder.
Can you tell me, please, What's next? What happens when I connect the logic board with the soldered wires to the SD adapter, to the linux PC? how do I revive it?
Please, help me... I want to give that Kindle as a gift to someone on my church who needs it, And I want to try to fix it!!
Thanks for your time and sharing your knowledge. God bless you.
-----
kurohyou said:
This guide is a work in progress.
Please be patient as I work on completing this guide, as I work full time and am a full time student.
You can find the original discussion thread for this topic here!
DISCLAIMER: I am not responsible for any damage to yourself, your Kindle, or other property incurred by following any or all parts of this guide. Proceed at your own risk.
WARNING: Do not attempt to follow this guide unless you are fairly familiar with soldering and Linux commands. Serious harm to yourself, your Kindle, and/or your computer can result if you are not careful.
Q. What devices will this work on?
A. This how-to works for the Kindle Fire 2 only. (There are other methods of restoring a bricked original Kindle Fire; refer to the FAQ for that device)
Q. Why won't this work for KFHD7"/8.9"?
A. The motherboard designs for the KFHDs are different. That means that the entire process of finding all the solder points for those motherboards (including desoldering the e-MMC) has to be repeated before the same method for fixing hard-bricks on them can be used. (Note: If you have a hard-bricked or otherwise broken KFHD7"/8.9" that you'd be willing to donate for this endeavor, please PM me)
Q. Under what circumstance does will this guide help?
A. This guide is intended to restore the KF2 that was previously thought to be beyond restoring, or hard-bricked, as a result of flashing the incorrect image to your ROM. This means a KF2 that does not display anything on the screen and does not light up the power LED when the power button is pressed (i.e. it appears dead even after charging). If your KF2 still shows signs of life but is not working, please try one of the other methods of repairing it. Might I suggest Q16-23 of the FAQ?
Q. Is there any way to do this without all the soldering?
A. At this time, no; however, I am in the process of developing a device to do this that does not require soldering.
Q. I don't feel comfortable doing this myself. Can I have you fix it for me?
A. Send me a PM and we'll work out the details.
Required materials:
Hard-bricked Kindle Fire 2
USB SD card reader (one with only one slot, NOT the multi-card readers)*
30 AWG wire (I found mine at Radioshack)
solder (the smaller the diameter, the better)
soldering iron (pencil iron will work, but soldering station is better)
plastic opening tools
a small Phillips screwdriver (mine came with my plastic opening tool kit)
a computer with Linux (a live CD of a distro should theoretically work, but I used an installed copy of Ubuntu 13.04)
*For cheap card readers near me (literally three blocks up the road), I found this one from Microcenter and this one from Tigerdirect. Go with whatever is cheapest for you.
Suggested materials:
Helping hands tool
A good light source
Magnifying glass/magnifying visor (I used a x7 magnifying glass with built-in light)
Desoldering pump/wick (in case you mess something up, need to desolder the SD card reader, or want to clean up your board after you're done)
Lots of patience
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Once you have a Linux PC up and running or even just a Ubuntu live is will do, download the boot loader for your kindle, I don't have links at the moment, but one place you can get it is download the latest official update for your device from Amazon's support section, I am pretty sure Linux should automatically recognize it as a zip file even though it ends in .bin, if not just changes the end to .zip. Extract the file called u-boot.bin to wherever you find convenient, for my convenience I will say extract to the home folder( the terminals default to that directory so it makes things simpler). Now plug in the USB adapter you have soldered to the kindle. If it mounts anything I suggest unmounting it just to be on the over protective side. You will now need to determine the device path that is given to the kindles emmc, easiest way is to check in gparted or disks, or by running the mount command from a terminal if you haven't yet unmounted the other partitions and know what you are looking for. Once it has been determined you should run a command similar to this in a terminal:
Code:
sudo dd bs=1 if=u-boot.bin of=/dev/sdb2
take note to replace sdb2 with the device name your PC assigned to the device, but remember to leave the 2 so it only flashes that to the second partition instead of over the entire emmc. Once you run this and it succeeds, you should eject the device or just shut the PC down, disconnect your wires and try powering on the kindle. @kurohyou did I leave anything important out? I will probably make this formatted better later on when I am actually on a PC.
Sent from my Amazon Kindle Fire HD running CM10.1 Tablet UI using xda-developers app
Looks good to me. The semester is almost over and someone is sending me a KF2 to fix, so once it arrives, I'll go through and take screenshots of the process and finish up the guide. At that time, I'll ask the mods to clean up this topic (delete posts) so it flows well.
super！
but if you know how the AMAZON lab126 guys fix it you will know it‘s very easy
y.
Yes but they have signed files we don't have access to that are necessary for reflashing it with usbboot/aboot or w/e that utility is called.
Sent from my Amazon Kindle Fire HD running CM10.1 Tablet UI using xda-developers app
Has anyone managed to write up a walk through on exactly what to do once you've gotten the board soldered up and ready to go? I have Linux up and running, and the soldering shouldn't take more than 20 minutes, but I'm holding off on doing this until I know I can do the software side of things. I am a complete noob with linux, and don't want to make things worse by making a mistake. Part of me really wants to try this out but not knowing what to do after I'm wired up keeps me from trying this.
Some great news!
First off, a very big thank you to @kurohyou and @stunts513 for all their efforts, all their suggestions in all their posts helped me get to the end, thank you guys!
Right, here's my story, had a Kindle Fire 2 flashed with the wrong bootloader a few months back, forgot about the device till 2 days back when i came across the
original post by kurohyou, with the idea of getting direct access to the eMMC and flashing the bootloader, then followed up on his post with the how to's, decided to
give it a shot.
Started off with the soldering on the Kindle motherboard, it was a pain, but what helped in attaching the solder to the points was a good paste, i used solder paste on
the points, then dabbed a little solder with flux on the tip of the soldering iron and kept the tip on the point for a few seconds at a time, sometimes more than once,
once all the points were tinted, i tinted the ends of the cables i was going to use with the same solder with flux, the cables i used were from an old HDMI cable which
i stripped up, they were thin and flexible. For the SD card reader, i used one similar to kurohyou's, except i didn't have the points on the other side, so i soldered
the cables directly to the legs of the SD reader slot without removing the slot, also, i did not short ground and CD_SW, instead i just left a blank SD adapter in the
slot, which did the trick.
Now once everything was soldered on, i used the ubuntu-12.04.3-desktop-i386.iso to create a UBUNTU live CD and booted from that, once in UBUNTU attached the SD reader
and voila, eMMC detected! Now to get to the flashing of the bootloader, i read a numerous amount of posts suggesting to flash the u-boot.bin file from the original
Kindle firmware, and the suggested version was the 10.2.4, so i downloaded the firmware (in .bin format) from the amazon site, right clicked on the file, open with,
used Winrar, there extracted the u-boot.bin file. To flash the bootloader i used the dd command suggested by stunts513, which was:
sudo dd bs=1 if=u-boot.bin of=/dev/sdb2
The first time i ran that command, i had an input/output error, i ran the command another 3 or 4 times till it flashed successfully, i got an error message when
ejecting the SD, so shut down the machine, detached the SD reader and connected up the Kindle, no life, tried usb, fastboot and mains charger, no signs of life.
Disconnected everything and attached the SD reader again, now UBUNTU recognized the eMMC, but as 1 disk with no partitions! So thought ok, il reboot the system and try
again, tried all the different USB slots i had on the laptop, all giving the same result, so i left the SD reader out for a few minutes, while i figured out what to do
next, then when i re-attached it, it picked it up again with all the correct partitions, however, nothing was mounted, i read stunts513's suggestion of unmounting to
be safe, so i though that was fine, ran the dd command again and same thing, input/output error, tried a few times and it flashed successfully, again detached and
connected up the Kindle, no signs of life, didn't really know what to do next, decided to ponder on the Kindle folder i had on my drive, with the backups, there i found 'otter2-u-boot-prod-10.2.4' which was 227KB, the same size as u-boot.bin, thought lets give this file a go, again reconnected up till all the partitions were detected correctly and ran the dd command with otter2-u-boot-prod-10.2.4.bin, detached everything and connect the Kindle up, plugged in the USB and got an orange light!
A few people got the orange light without the kindle actually booting the OS, so never had my hopes up too high, let the kindle charge for a few mins and then it started up, stuck on the kindle logo boot loop, as i started reading the forum, i came across a post about the kindle boot loop, where stunts513 suggested flashing via fast boot, i attached the kindle to the fast boot cable and was waiting for the laptop to recognize the kindle, suddenly i get a blank screen, i left it like that for a few minutes then decided to press the power button, no response, i kept the power button pressed in till i saw the kindle logo again, took a few seconds but this time, it booted the OS! I don't know if the fast boot cable had anything to do with that, im sure stunts513 and kurohyou will be able to shed some more light on that.
My apologies for the long post, but im trying to put down as much detail as possible to help all the other guys with the bricked Kindle fire 2's, im also attaching the boot file i used.
Again, a big thank you to kurohyou and stunts513 for all their efforts!
Bit of an interesting one if anyone could try and shed some light onto it. Connect everything up as usual but with VccQ every time it is connected something must short and fries the SD card reader, without VccQ connected the light on the SD card adaptor flashes continually but it's not recognised by Ubuntu.
Thank you!
I just wanted to drop by and say a HUGE thank you to @kurohyou for starting this thread and for all who have contributed to it
BEFORE I CONTINUE, PLEASE BE MINDFUL THAT THE PARTITION NUMBER/DESIGNATION BEING SHOWN AND WRITTEN TO IN THIS THREAD, BY MYSELF AND OTHER PEOPLE, WILL NOT NECESSARILY BE THE SAME WHEN YOU CONNECT YOUR KINDLE eMMC TO YOUR SD CARD READER AND FLASH THE CORRECT BOOTLOADER, TO DE-BRICK IT. LINUX ASSIGNS DIFFERENT PARTITION NODES BASED ON VARIOUS CRITERIA, SO YOU MUST ALWAYS ENSURE YOU ARE "dd'ing" TO THE CORRECT PARTITION, OTHERWISE YOU COULD BE WRITING TO *ANY* DEVICE ON YOUR PC, POSSIBLY YOUR MULTIPLE TERABYTE FAMILY PHOTO ARCHIVE... ARGH! DO *ALWAYS* ENSURE YOU ARE WRITING TO A 256KB PARTITION - REFER TO MY PHOTOS, BELOW; THEY SHOW A PARTITION LISTING AND WHERE THE BOOTLOADER PARTITION IS, AND IN WHICH ORDER THE PARTITIONS ARE.
I bought a pristine, boxed *DEMO* Kindle (2? Gen 2? "Otter2" anyway the 7" one, 600x1024) from eBay for just £6.99, and when I tried to flash the bootloader with my fastboot cable, as soon as I rebooted... it DIED. Being a long time qualified electronics engineer, this kind of disassembley is all part of life for me, and doesn't phase me one iota, but the soldering of wires is a VERY precise and delicate operation - PROCEED VERY VERY SLOWLY, DOUBLE CHECK AND THEN AGAIN, ALL YOUR PIN DESIGNATIONS AND SOLDER JOINTS OR THERE'LL BE TEARS BEFORE BEDTIME!
Anyhow, I simply booted into 32 bit Ubuntu (I have a huge repository of ISOs to hand, so that was no big deal, and bash commands I can do in my sleep) so I flashed the bootloader to the relevant unmounted partition @mohibr attached to this post: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=49549083&postcount=13
... using "dd" command, et VOILA! it works! (I knew it would, this is hardly rocket science, but still an extremely joyful moment to behold, seeing my less-than-one-day-old KF revived!)
I'm rather too tired to expand thoroughly on all the details, but if anyone needs any help, let me know soon before this whole episode is lost and forgotten (you've no idea HOW much of this kind of thing I do weekly, to myriad devices).
Here's my witness photos - please feel free to add me to the testimonys of people who took their time and revived their KF(2? not sure that it's a "2", just that it's a later version using "otter2", whatever that pertains to.)
Photos---> https://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/albums/72157660358184524
Thank you so much, and God bless you all and have a lovely Christmas
Matthew.
Vcc location on mobo?
Trying to find a Vcc point on the fire gen2 mobo. multimeter took a crap and im getting scary readings. anyone have a picture of location so i can short to ground. My gen2 is currently stuck at "boot, then blackscreen". its not a loop and windows doesnt recognize the device at all.
Any pictures of the location would be greatly appreciated. ciao.
On a side note, i apologize for reviving this thread. I accidentally flashed a zipped boot image to my kindle. its been sitting for a few weeks. just finally ordered a fastboot cable.
Related
Hello everyone, I would like to take the time to say that this is my first post, as normally any queery I have a simple search of the site or google would produce a result. Please take the time to read the WHOLE of the following post as there are already similar topics but not exactly the same symptoms showing all at once.
I have a Experia E15i, the phone came with generic (world) software and has only ever been on a stock rom.
The complaint is that when you turn the phone on the post (Sony ericson) comes up as if it were booting, then the screen goes out (including back light) but you can press the menu button and press apps in the app drawer and feel the feedback via the vibrator.
Now I have read a couple of threads on various sites saying that there is a hardware issue and reference to a new screen has been made.
HOWEVER this is where this phone differs when you go in to 'my computer' it shows up as a CD drive and a flash drive (the sd card) but you can't access the 'cd drive' as it asks you to "insert disk".
Now I have done the following thing to try and rectify.
First of all I used the SE "pc companion" and used the 'repair' function and still the exact same problem exists.
Secondly I installed the new 015 baseband (and matched it with the stock 2.1.1.A.0.6 and then did a reboot, the phone still shows up as this fault.
Thirdly I downgraded the baseband to the older one for 2.0.2.A.0.24, and still it stays the same.
I have also done a B.I.T.E test and it seems that the display is U/S I have been able to mirror another phone and the display does not work, so it seems that the screen can't cope with displaying the OS, but when you charge the phone the screen works perfectly.
I have got a hold of all the diagrams required to tracing the system and will update tomorrow when I wake up. But it still doesn't explain the CD drive phenomenon.
I have been in the phone to see if I can see any obvious signs of damage the only signs I can see is on the top side (with the heat shielding) the top left and chip (can't remember it's name) as a slight marking on the outer coating, now normally this would not cause any issues with the chip, unless it has cracked underneath, but then if it had the whole phone wouldn't work, as I believe it to be the rom chip. I have been in there with the appropriate alcohol based cleaner and cleaned it up as best I can with out de-soldering the heat shield.
The only reason I am holding back on buying a new screen is that I can't see how it can be a physical screen error as the controller clearly works (other wise SE wouldn't show) and I can't see how that would effect the fact it is now showing it's a cd drive.
Now if anyone can shed any light on this issue, or combined issues I would be very grateful.
First morning tests
In reply to my own post for clarity, there is stby power present on the correct pin and there is stby return on the correct pin, I am also seeing a date out put in the pins aswell, so it seem to be that the screen in U/S which is good news, as they are easy enough to come by, however it would be nice to find the wiring diagram for the screen (I know sony don't make them and they are a peripheral item) and they are a disposable item so why would they bother, but for the sake of one chip being to blame it would be a lot cheaper for me to replace the chip than the whole screen/display.
As for the phone been seen as a Cd drive, I have still yet to work this out, however the screen is wired in from the second NAND CHIP N1500 [MSM7227/-MDDI] VIA R7000 and R7001 which is where the bootloader is held (this phone is 11w12 and appears to be an unlocked bootloader; could this be clashing with something inside the N1500 and N2400 NAND Chips?) or is it just changing how the pc sees the chipset and assigns a cd drive label to it?
Well I shall order a new screen and keep you all posted how it goes. In the mean time if any one can help then please let me know
Recently I've got Amazon Kindle Fire HD 7"
It comes at 11.3.2.1 stock rom, which still have not root exploit.
Guided by useful Gran PC's post, i've rooted this device, and boot to normal mode ok.
After that, I decide to flash CM 10 from this thread
After step 5, device going to reboot, but never wakes up again. Nothing happends when I press power, long or short.
I sure i've checked all md5, device was fully charged, I use working fastboot cable.
Anyway, I've got my KFHD7 hard bricked.
There nothing at all: device not detected on USB bus (dmesg say nothing), does not show anything on screen.
I know there is a way to recover such a dead devices by reflashing them. I read same topic for unbrick KF2 and realize that is not a hard work.
So, I open my kindle and discover that:
* CPU unit works (heat a little) till I disconnect battery.
* Flash (data storage + controller) implemented at SanDisk SDIN8DE4-16G chip dataseet avaliable
* chip has low work pin count, but BGA packaging, so it hard to remove&install
* There is 6 test pads near this iNAND chip (this can be DAT0..DAT3 + CMD + CLK signals) + 1 test pin near (image attached)
* There is unsoldered: debug connector (5 pins), reset button pad, USB boot button pad
I soldered MMC side of reader, but not pretty sure which pins I should choose at board.
6 pads near NAND may be MMC interface, I take big photo(attached), but signs are illegible.
Look like names: TP1486, TP1487.
Two pins have 1.8V when device powered: 1st and 5th from left to right, others have 0.
Anyone have information about:
* This nand chip reading via SD card adopter (it's implements MMC, i'm pretty sure it's possible)
* Test pin pads pinout and MMC pinout
* Using debug/usb boot to recover
PS: I have oscill/soldering station/exp/microcontrollers to work, but additional information required.
PPS: Latest thing I want to do is rebolling this chip (e.g removing&installing).
You flashed a ROM for Tate... Tate is the 2012 kindle fire hd. The 2013 bootloader is still locked. Your device might be ruined.
Sent from my Kindle Fire HD 7 running PAC-man
Kurohyou has done work like what you are attempting, but on his method he usually sacrificed the first board by unsoldering the emmc and the finding what pads were matched with the emmc pins so we could do the sdcard hookup. Hasn't mapped them out on a 7” 2013 or 2013, but he did map them out on a 8.9, so if it is in anyway similar boardwise, the. Take a look at his unbricking thread for 8.9" devices, it might lend some clues to soldering pads, also might short something out faik since it is not the same device.
Sent from my Amazon Kindle Fire HD using Tapatalk
Just for future information, 8.9 topic lies here, but board looks pretty different (KF2 boardtoo).
So, maybe I try to repeat Kurohyou heroic study
I'm waiting for a free day to take action...
I've done the same misstake
Do you have any new ideas?
Enwony said:
Recently I've got Amazon Kindle Fire HD 7"
It comes at 11.3.2.1 stock rom, which still have not root exploit.
Guided by useful Gran PC's post, i've rooted this device, and boot to normal mode ok.
After that, I decide to flash CM 10 from this thread
After step 5, device going to reboot, but never wakes up again. Nothing happends when I press power, long or short.
I sure i've checked all md5, device was fully charged, I use working fastboot cable.
Anyway, I've got my KFHD7 hard bricked.
There nothing at all: device not detected on USB bus (dmesg say nothing), does not show anything on screen.
I know there is a way to recover such a dead devices by reflashing them. I read same topic for unbrick KF2 and realize that is not a hard work.
So, I open my kindle and discover that:
* CPU unit works (heat a little) till I disconnect battery.
* Flash (data storage + controller) implemented at SanDisk SDIN8DE4-16G chip dataseet avaliable
* chip has low work pin count, but BGA packaging, so it hard to remove&install
* There is 6 test pads near this iNAND chip (this can be DAT0..DAT3 + CMD + CLK signals) + 1 test pin near (image attached)
* There is unsoldered: debug connector (5 pins), reset button pad, USB boot button pad
I soldered MMC side of reader, but not pretty sure which pins I should choose at board.
6 pads near NAND may be MMC interface, I take big photo(attached), but signs are illegible.
Look like names: TP1486, TP1487.
Two pins have 1.8V when device powered: 1st and 5th from left to right, others have 0.
Anyone have information about:
* This nand chip reading via SD card adopter (it's implements MMC, i'm pretty sure it's possible)
* Test pin pads pinout and MMC pinout
* Using debug/usb boot to recover
PS: I have oscill/soldering station/exp/microcontrollers to work, but additional information required.
PPS: Latest thing I want to do is rebolling this chip (e.g removing&installing).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Coincidentally Gran PC is currently developing a tool which can restore your kindle to stock firmare (unbrick it), root it and install a recovery. its preety sweet and he's planning to release it around tomorrow. just saw this thread so id thought id give you a heads up my kindle's bricked too, so i cant wait for the release. link below.
https://plus.google.com/114394427275904523996/posts/PSjSm1LVBNi
That fixes soft bricks... Not hard bricks...
Sent from my Amazon Kindle Fire HD using Tapatalk
im in the same boat. tried to contact Kurohyou to see if he was able to work out a fix or even sacifice mine for the greater good. havnt heard any thing from him yet. stunts513 any ideas?
Eh I really don't want to be the one to try to map the pins out. I probably could assuming I have the emmc pin pattern handy and my mom let's me borrow her toaster oven. I have the tools handy but the kindle would be taking a one way trip to permabrick. I doubt I could resolder the emmc, much less test out if I got the pinout correct since I don't have a USB sdcard reader handy or any small gauge wire that below 24 gauge.
Sent from my Amazon Kindle Fire HD using Tapatalk
stunts513 said:
That fixes soft bricks... Not hard bricks...
Sent from my Amazon Kindle Fire HD using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
oops sorry, my bad
stunts513 said:
Eh I really don't want to be the one to try to map the pins out. I probably could assuming I have the emmc pin pattern handy and my mom let's me borrow her toaster oven. I have the tools handy but the kindle would be taking a one way trip to permabrick. I doubt I could resolder the emmc, much less test out if I got the pinout correct since I don't have a USB sdcard reader handy or any small gauge wire that below 24 gauge.
Sent from my Amazon Kindle Fire HD using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i would be willing to send you my board if you wanted to try to map it out. if it gets ruined, it gets ruined. i willing to sacrifice mine for the betterment of the commuity. mine might be and easier hardbrick to fix. it doesnt turn on but if you plug it in, the screen gives a quick flashs before it goes black. makes me think i could get it into fastboot. ive tried with no luck.
MMC pinout
Last weekend I just cheked MMC pinout - it's looks like I can reach data pins without resoldering and guess/check where they go (hope that would be test pins).
Unfortunately, I had no time to deal with it, maybe next weekend.
Enwony said:
Last weekend I just cheked MMC pinout - it's looks like I can reach data pins without resoldering and guess/check where they go (hope that would be test pins).
Unfortunately, I had no time to deal with it, maybe next weekend.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
good deal. hope you can get it. thanks for the hard work.
Ah good, saves me from having to map it. xD
It's more that I haven't ever unsoldered a chip like the emmc before so I don't wanna mess something up when someone donates a board to the cause, would be a bit of a waste. Most of the soldering I do deals with normal components and wiring.
Sent from my Amazon Kindle Fire HD using Tapatalk
would this work http://mascote.me/blog/2013/02/19/new-life-for-a-dead-kindle-fire-hd/
not sure on how to compile the program. seems like it worth a shot.
That only works on a kf1, not the HD, you would need a signed aboot file that only amazon has a won't release for that method to work.
Sent from my Amazon Kindle Fire HD using Tapatalk
i was just want to know if the files he links to would work or how to compile them to work. i understand about the signed files. the board he shows if for the kfhd 7" 2012 model.
Well yes that part mentioned is true, we can stick it into the omap mode that that program detects, but that's about all we can do. I don't know the specifics, I'm just mentioning what I remember hashcode saying.
Sent from my Amazon Kindle Fire HD using Tapatalk
gotach. only if we could do firekit on this model. get twrp working and side load the system back into it like on the kf1.
new information
Finally, I've got some time to explore this issue.
My first idea was that test pins shown related to sandisk flash.
Datasheet says that DAT0-DAT3 pins located at top-left side of chip and can be reached with small wire.
Unfortunatelly, this idea failed: there is no electrical contact between this test pins and sandisk flash.
So, I remove flash chip with ail soldering station, and track required signals.
Result picture attached (It's part of mainboard under main processor module). It's just test version, I do not check myself.
I do not look for power pin - I need to figure out, witch pin I should look for? External supply required? Should we disable internal supply? I need some investigation about this.
Anyway, there is a little step to win.
I have a KF2 which I managed to get twrp on, but the partitions seem to be messed up in some way. When I boot to recovery and do an adb shell, ls /dev/block, there are only loop and ram devices shown. The emmc chip seems OK though, since I can transfer a CM rom to it, but I can't write it to become 'working'.
When I try to wipe or factory reset from recovery, I get an error to the effect that none of the partitions can be mounted. IE
unable to mount /data, /cache, /system, /efs, storage, /data/media during gui startup
also:
unable to find partition size for /boot, /recovery, /bootloader
So I should probably describe how I got here. I was sold a KF2 as a KF1 so assumed it was KF1 and hence bricked it (didn't check for the otter2 id). I opened it, soldered to the main board as described in other threads, dd'ed the working otter2-u-boot-prod-10.2.4 file directly to /dev/sdf2 on the emmc from my ubuntu desktop. Then put it back together and used fast boot to get otter2-twrp-2.6.3.1-recovery.img and otter2-freedom-boot-10.4.6.img on it. Then transferred CM rom to /sdcard with adb push. Rebooted and tried to continue the CM install but when I get to the wipe part, it fails with the above errors. Even from 'advanced wipe' it still says the same (unable to mount etc). Factory reset the same too.
So I took it apart again, connected it back to the computer, and used gparted to examine the file system. It seems OK, it had an error at first (primary gpt corrupt or something, using backup - I think gparted fixed that for me) fairly consistent with what the guys in the emmc soldering thread see. Then back to the kindle boot, same thing happening as before. Eventually I reformatted each ext4 partition using gparted (from the desktop) to try to fix it, still no joy.
So reading lots of threads here by soup and hash, I tried several of their solutions, like fastboot oem format (I had to put the device ID in there to make it work). None of them have worked.
So when I do a:
adb shell parted /dev/block/mmcblk0 print all
I get:
Error: Could not stat device /dev/block/mmcblk0 - No such file or directory.
(and /dev/block/mmcblk0 does not exist - the only files in that dir are ram0, ram1 etc, and loop0, loop1 etc)
That seems like the problem to me. Twrp is not seeing the emmc at all it seems - even though its loaded off the emmc AFAIK? Which seems weird. Surely the device is able to see the emmc and the first few partitions if its booting to twrp - but once in twrp, none of the partitions - or even the device mmcblk0 - is showing up at all. But when I connect it back to the PC, gparted is happy with it all - although all the partitions show up as microsoft type which seems odd. But I can mount them and browse them (the ext4 ones).
Anyone throw any light on this? BTW the wiring is unlikely to be causing this problem because I disconnect all the wires from any 'interconnections' when I put the kindle back together. Although the wires are still connected to the main board, there are no bridges between dat0, dat1 etc, as I am using a connector to isolate them.
EDIT: And theres this in dmesg, which seems suspicous:
<4>[ 1.053588] mmc0: host doesn't support card's voltages
<3>[ 1.053588] mmc0: error -22 whilst initialising MMC card
<4>[ 1.067321] wifi_set_power: 1
<4>[ 1.118896] mmc1: card claims to support voltages below the defined range. These will be ignored.
Thanks, Pete
Well I fixed it, thought I should post back here as its an interesting fault.
Turned out 2 of the pullup resistors were open circuit, obviously my fat fingers and bad soldering! I found it because looking through the datasheet for the emmc chip last night, I noticed that the chip needs pullup resistors on several of the pins (last page of KLM8G2FE3B datasheet which you can find online). Thinking back to the mainboard in the KF2, I remembered the grid of resistors and thought maybe they were the pull up ones. Reason I was thinking about this at all was I wondering if the chip can be ripped out and replaced with a very large SD card, but thats for another day.
Anyway I thought I might buzz out the data lines and CMD as these are the ones with the pullup resistors, to check my soldering. IE I should see the same resistance on each (with respect to +ve). Well 3 of them were 10k, which seems about OK although the datasheet recommends 50k, but this seems in the right range. But 2 were 450k ish. Far too high. If the resistors were blown then this is the kind of resistance I expect to see, back through the memory chip rather than through the pull up resistors to +ve. The bad lines were data1 and CMD btw. Really hard to solder, and I ended up having to solder to the resistor on both, with the result that the resistors blew.
The reason the emmc chip seemed ok when plugged into the computer is probably because the SD card reader provides these pull up resistors in it, making the ones on the board redundant. When the SD is unplugged, there is no pullup on those lines, and the chip is hence not readable - although I am still confused as to how it booted at all, maybe initial boot is only at a reduced data rate which didn't need the pullups, I don't know.
Anyway I put a couple of 10k resistors I had laying around between the still soldered on SD adapter and +ve, so effectively replacing the on board pull up resistors with the external ones. I was then able to install CM and get the tablet running. Since there was not room in the tablet for these large resistors etc, I spent several hours today trying to solder on tiny wires, and solder a couple of smt 10k resistors in place of the test ones. I succeeded eventually, with the wires coming from the rear of the main pcb where most of the wires connect in the 'rescue kf2 with soldering to chip' thread, and then the wires go round the pcb edge to the other side (that you see when you take the back off the tablet). Theres more room this side, and I soldered the new smt resistors on to the wires, and eventually got it working again.
I didnt replace the smt resistors where the old ones went because I simply can't solder this small. It was hard enough connecting those 2 wires to the 2 solder pads. Took hours. Not worth it considering I only paid 13 quid for this tablet but satisfying to fix.
I put this here in case anyone ever finds it useful - perhaps for other things. I still wonder very much could the emmc chip be ripped out - perhaps a large soldering iron held on the back of it for a couple of mins would allow it to float off - and could a micro SD be connected to the 8 solder points used for the rescue project? Looking at the emmc datasheet it seems exactly like an SD card. It can be read and written like an SD by an external computer as we can see from the success of the recovery project. I have made microcontroller circuits (atmega etc) which read and write SD cards and its not rocket science. Part of me wishes this KF2 had been unrecoverable so I could try it. Its something I might try if I pick up another kf2 sometime. But for now enjoying tinkering with this one. I intend to study the datasheet a bit more, see if its completely compatible with the SD protocol, and if so try it. Might post another thread sometime asking some of the more experienced guys here if they have any idea if it will work.
@peterpion you probably saved my day! been pulling my hair trying to figure out why fastboot would work with flash but TWRP wouldn't see the MMC card at all. I essentially destroyed one of the pull up resistors during soldering. Must be this!
As the title says.
Attempted to boot from a USB stick with a 64 bit version of Windows 10 on my Air III 32gig. Blue screen came up saying there was a problem and Windows needed to restart.
After that, it shutdown and now it won't turn on.
I had tried the 32 bit before and it refused to boot from the USB.
Has anyone else experienced this? Did I use the wrong OS version? Any fixes?
Lord_Santa said:
As the title says.
Attempted to boot from a USB stick with a 64 bit version of Windows 10 on my Air III 32gig. Blue screen came up saying there was a problem and Windows needed to restart.
After that, it shutdown and now it won't turn on.
I had tried the 32 bit before and it refused to boot from the USB.
Has anyone else experienced this? Did I use the wrong OS version? Any fixes?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi, did you solve it?
It happened to me exactly the same.
Greetings.
juanr2 said:
Hi, did you solve it?
It happened to me exactly the same.
Greetings.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You should have read before you did that, this teclast BIOS has a "64bit anti-install protection", that means the tablet will brick itself when you trying to boot any 64bit OS.
The only solution here is to flash bios with a tool following this GUIDE
Unbrick bios after Windows 10 64 bit (Solved)
Same thing happened to me. I was in a rush and flashed the wrong Windows version. The previous post with a link to instructions isn't helpful, but for future reference and anyone else that encounters this problem the hardware/software fix is not too difficult.
To fix a hard bricked device (doesn't power up at all) you need to do the follow:
Buy a CH341A USB 24 25 Series EEPROM Flash BIOS Programmer.
Buy a 1.8v flash SPI adapter.
Buy a flash chip socket adapter.
Download the CH341A BIOS programmer software. Use the latest version. Version 1.29 was the only version that worked for me.
Download the BIOS file for your device. I used a dual boot version 2.02 without any problems.
Disclaimer. I take me responsibility if you brick you device even more bricker by improperly flashing your device.
You can obtain the flash hardware from either AliExpress or Ebay and it should be less than $10 including s&h.
The chip adapter is mostly for convenience unless your into removing the BIOS chip from the motherboard and into soldering.
The process:
Assemble your flasher. Follow the diagrams on the flash components. My flash chip W25Q64FW is a 25 Series EEPROM, so I aligned the parts according to the diagrams on the flasher. All the parts are plug and play, and assemble by number, so no soldering is necessary.
Remove the back cover from your Teclast device. It's just plastic clips no components are attached to the cover.
All the YouTube videos recommend to disconnect your battery, so it's probably best to disconnect it. I found it's easiest to cut the positive wire at the soldering point, and just re-solder after flashing is complete.
DON'T attempt to flash or read your BIOS without using the 1.8v regulator. You will fry your BIOS chip, brick your device even more and will need a new BIOS chip to fix your device if that's possible.
Insert your flasher into your Windows computer. Install the flashing program drivers. Run the flashing program.
Attach the flash clip to your BIOS chip. The red lead wire on the clip should attach to the dot indentation on your chip. The indentation should have a painted dot, but just in case the they are not in the same place use the indentation and not the painted dot.
Use the flash program to erase, verify it's blank, program, and verify the program was successful.
Disconnect the clip from the BIOS chip. Temporarily attach the battery lead wire to verify the device is working. If all works solder the battery wire, attach the back cover, and your done.
There are YouTube videos explaining the entire process if you need additional help. The entire process should take less than 15 minutes.
Hope this is helpful to someone in the future. Enjoy.
i used these just last week to get out of a Win10-x64 flash brick :
CH341A 24 25 Series EEPROM 24C02 24C08 24C16 Flash BIOS USB Programmer UK STOCK
SOIC8 SOP8 Test Clip For EEPROM in-circuit programming cable + 2 adapters - UK
no regulator needed, i did desolder BAT+, used flashing program v 1.18.
There's 2 tricky bits...the back cover comes off way more difficult than I had expected... Without a plastic spudger or a guitar plectrum it would be near inpossible. Even with the proper tools, a couple of the plastic tabs snapped off. The tablet still closed fine though.
Another tricky thing is getting the flash clip / test clip seated properly onto the BIOS chip. Clip it on, and push detect button in the flash program. If it returns $FF under the button, reseat the clip onto bios chip, press detect again...repeat untill there is no more $FF under the button. Only then proceed with the flashing.
Good luck, don't hesitate to ask questions.
Tommmii said:
no regulator needed, i did desolder BAT+, used flashing program v 1.18.
There's 2 tricky bits...the back cover comes off way more difficult than I had expected... Without a plastic spudger or a guitar plectrum it would be near inpossible. Even with the proper tools, a couple of the plastic tabs snapped off. The tablet still closed fine though.
Another tricky thing is getting the flash clip / test clip seated properly onto the BIOS chip. Clip it on, and push detect button in the flash program. If it returns $FF under the button, reseat the clip onto bios chip, press detect again...repeat untill there is no more $FF under the button. Only then proceed with the flashing.
Good luck, don't hesitate to ask questions.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the info, I did use same hardward and revived with X98 Air 3G from failed update to 2.05.
Initially I ordered the 1.8v Adapter as well, but for some reason the seller didn't send it. Then I just TRIED without it, and WORKS.
I know it's dangerous to overvoltage, but since it's bricked and another new W25Q64FW is just about $5, if anything...
My X98 Air 3G is happy with v2.05 + Win10 x86 1909 now
Hi,
Is it possible to use the test clip to avoid the desoldering/soldering with this method... I also tried to install a 64bit version on windows. Ive seen tutorials on youtube where someone uses this clip to make contact with chip and programmer.. so no need to remove the chip. Also how does the 1.8v regulator fit to the CH341? I cant see any tutorials on this part.
John
PS Sorry for bringing an old thread to life...
Wallace4793 said:
Is it possible to use the test clip to avoid the desoldering/soldering with this method...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is exactly the method people on here are using.
Wallace4793 said:
Also how does the 1.8v regulator fit to the CH341? I cant see any tutorials on this part.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As the person right before your post has said, you don't need the regulator.
Ok, I'm going to start off by saying I'm not big on doing how to threads, but one doesn't exist for this at all that I could find on Google, so I'll share how I did it. Open your console, there is a screw under the sticker on the bottom inside the hole, it's easy to miss. 5 total screws. Remove the board, controller port, front panel and power jack as one since they are soldered together. Look on the board for 6 pin holes, and notice they are marked the same as an adafruit micro USB breakout board, then forget it because those cost money and take a month in the mail and I'm cheap. I mention it because it's an option. What I did instead was take a micro USB cord, and cut the micro tip off and exposed some wire. Solder white to dm, green to pm, black to vss, otherwise known as d- d+ and ground. Do not connect the red 5v wire. Cap it or tape it. The board and PC USB have power already. Once those 3 wires are connected plug the board in and plug the USB into PC and turn the Atari on. If connected properly it shows up as composite device and you can now use adb to connect to it, because it's running Android 4.4. the folders we need are system/atgames for the all-games.ini file and system/atgames/Atari for roms and PNG files(game case). Roms need to be a26, bin works but you must change the file extension to a26, use prompt and type rename romname.bin romname.a26, the photos need to match the rom name, romname.a26.png.
I'm not going to explain adb as many tutorials exist. Before you do anything pull the ini file and make a copy in a safe place. Also keep a copy handy to edit it. As you add games you push the a26 rom and PNG to the atari folder, then you go into the ini and add the game info at the bottom, be sure to leave a space between games and read the ini to see the format to use, it starts with [rom name] and then has some defining traits below it. You can copy one and paste it, simply changing the info to match the new rom added. Save the ini and push it back to the atgames folder, rom and PNG to Atari folder, reset the system and it will show up. There are several variations for cords also, I used a ten foot cord and have it retract into the console, you could buy a USB extension cord and remove the male end, solder those wires and add a hole in the case for the female USB as an example. If you want it to read a flash drive you will need the 5v wire and I haven't tried that. I made the hole for my USB cord in the rear by heating a Phillips head screwdriver driver and pushing it through the plastic then pulling it back out quickly to ensure any excess plastic was on the inside, then used an blade to trim the excess plastic away. You will notice it ends up sitting the same as the power cable. Photos below. Hope this helps someone out there. Also, I'd like to note I don't advocate piracy, I am however an Atari fan and several big games got left out, and since I own the carts I decided I'd add them to my flashback so I could preserve the original copies. I forgot, you need to use this command: adb shell mount -o rw,remount,rw /system to make the system files writeable.
Reserved, take notice of the photo below showing an Android recovery. I'm gonna explore.
Some pictures of the project and results.
Unknown USB Device
Hello, when I connect the USB to the pc, the "Unknown USB Device" appears with an error and I don't see it from "adb devices", do I have to install any drivers in windows so that it detects the ATARI flashback-8-gold "? Thank you very much for your help
i0601889 said:
Unknown USB Device
Hello, when I connect the USB to the pc, the "Unknown USB Device" appears with an error and I don't see it from "adb devices", do I have to install any drivers in windows so that it detects the ATARI flashback-8-gold "? Thank you very much for your help
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes, you need adb and those drivers installed on your pc