General Stuff(tm)

[rubber_jonnie]

I sort of want a broken one, I quite enjoy the repairing :lol:

Me too!!

[stephen_usher]

Today's win: Fixing a £3K NAS box with a 5p resistor.

The workaround for the failing output driver on the Intel Atom C2000 series is to stick a hard pull-up on the clock output line, as in ~100 ohm. This is Synology's official fix by soldering the resistor onto the pads on a diag socket. This is the same on the whole suite of NAS boxes from 2015/2016 which use the Atom processor.

[rubber_jonnie]

Today's win: Fixing a £3K NAS box with a 5p resistor.

The workaround for the failing output driver on the Intel Atom C2000 series is to stick a hard pull-up on the clock output line, as in ~100 ohm. This is Synology's official fix by soldering the resistor onto the pads on a diag socket. This is the same on the whole suite of NAS boxes from 2015/2016 which use the Atom processor.

Wow, that's kind of mad. What is the issue it fixes?

[stephen_usher]

Apparently the output driver on the chip for the two clock pins just dies. Intel's errata for the chip says no fix. The hard pull-up brings the signal up to a level that the other chips can use. In this case to drive the synchronous EPROM output so the machine can boot.

[rubber_jonnie]

Apparently the output driver on the chip for the two clock pins just dies. Intel's errata for the chip says no fix. The hard pull-up brings the signal up to a level that the other chips can use. In this case to drive the synchronous EPROM output so the machine can boot.

Wow, that's a pretty bad fail!

[derkom]

Today's win: Fixing a £3K NAS box with a 5p resistor.

Oh wow, wish I'd known that a few years ago when my own NAS/router (DIY) with the same bad chip died. Unfortunately I had too much other stuff going on at the time to figure out a redesign, and so reluctantly bought another of the same buggy board. So far it hasn't failed, as far as I know, but due to the nature of this failure, one doesn't know about it until the next reboot. Uptime currently 311 days. :?

[stephen_usher]

The fix is to find a 12 pin unpopulated header location and put a ~100 ohm resistor between pin 1 and pin 6 and bingo!

[derkom]

The fix is to find a 12 pin unpopulated header location and put a ~100 ohm resistor between pin 1 and pin 6 and bingo!

This would probably be a Synology-specific header, though, wouldn't it? Mine is a DIY system, I think with an ASRock board IIRC. I didn't throw out the dead board (do I throw out anything?), so maybe this is a good project, so I can have a fixed board ready for when the current one fails. :D

[stephen_usher]

Yeah, it would be a Synology debug connector probably.

[stephen_usher]

On a different front, the replacement key post for the ZX Spectrum+ has arrived so I should be able to finish the renovation tonight. I can also try the tiny springs on the Return key post to see if they make it less floppy and more likely to spring back up rather than jamming.