Author Topic: The Dark Side of the Rigol Hack -- Bricked Scope & How to Fix it...  (Read 147143 times)

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Offline dimlow

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Re: The Dark Side of the Rigol Hack -- Bricked Scope & How to Fix it...
« Reply #25 on: October 20, 2010, 04:06:58 pm »
I wonder if someone should approach Rigol and just ask them how they stand on this. It would be interesting to see what they have to say about the hack/ undocumented feature. Its obvious that they know about it.
 

Online Mechatrommer

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Re: The Dark Side of the Rigol Hack -- Bricked Scope & How to Fix it...
« Reply #26 on: October 20, 2010, 05:17:53 pm »
I wonder if someone should approach Rigol and just ask them how they stand on this. It would be interesting to see what they have to say about the hack/ undocumented feature. Its obvious that they know about it.
i bet they wont reply. thats their "pant". and they know we keep peeping it, and so they will be busy try covering it. they forgot... thats the thing that makes us interested at them. ;)
« Last Edit: October 20, 2010, 05:20:13 pm by shafri »
Nature: Evolution and the Illusion of Randomness (Stephen L. Talbott): Its now indisputable that... organisms “expertise” contextualizes its genome, and its nonsense to say that these powers are under the control of the genome being contextualized - Barbara McClintock
 

Offline driegTopic starter

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Re: The Dark Side of the Rigol Hack -- Bricked Scope & How to Fix it...
« Reply #27 on: October 20, 2010, 05:19:03 pm »
@suppersready
If you purchased it from China, then sending the mainboard to me will be surely cheaper & faster solution (I'm from EU too). Drop me an email if you need my help...
Bricked Rigol? This thread might be of any help.
 

Offline Fraser

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Re: The Dark Side of the Rigol Hack -- Bricked Scope & How to Fix it...
« Reply #28 on: October 20, 2010, 09:03:33 pm »
In my experience manufacturers take a dim view of any attempted 'hack' of an equipments BIOS. They can probably see what was being attempted by the legacy corrupted data that remains in the memory chip  :( That is not to say that they will not repair it but in every case I have seen, the manufacturer has charged either an administration/handling fee or a 'calibration' fee. Neither is cheap and I have seen charges of between GBP50 and GBP400 quoted for such work. As soon as the OS memory area is corrupted by a user, the warranty is effectively invalidated as this is considered self inflicted unless proven otherwise. I agree that the user should not be able to accidentally damage the 1052E via RS232 but lets not kid ourselves..... Rigol knows that users are regularly attempting to hack the BIOS via this port so I doubt anyone would succeed in convincing them it was an accident.

Many manufacturers refuse to issue firmware updates. I have asked some why this is and had a similar response in each case "we do not wish to handle fault calls from users who have corrupted their equipments firmware due to poor practice or procedure". Such companies will often suggest that a firmware upgrade is normally required only if a problem exists that a later FW version fixes and the equipment should be sent to them for update and calibration.... Credit Card number please...... :'(

OT but relevant ...... I own an ICOM PCR1000 monitoring receiver that uses an unprotected EEPROM containing unique and very important calibration data. It was found that third party control software could and did corrupt the EEPROM data by accident and in an unpredictable fashion. ICOM never admitted any liability in the UK or USA and charged a hefty re-calibration fee. Their view was that the user shouldn't be messing with 3rd party software or the proprietary command set.

Drieg is probabably the only person who can help with a bricked Rigol and we are fortunate indeed that he wishes to use his time to help others.
« Last Edit: October 20, 2010, 09:06:48 pm by Aurora »
If I have helped you please consider a donation : https://gofund.me/c86b0a2c
 

Offline beerhunter

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Re: The Dark Side of the Rigol Hack -- Bricked Scope & How to Fix it...
« Reply #29 on: October 20, 2010, 09:24:13 pm »
I wonder if someone should approach Rigol and just ask them how they stand on this. It would be interesting to see what they have to say about the hack/ undocumented feature. Its obvious that they know about it.

I actually asked the sales engineer at Rigolna about fixing a bricked scope and they said sure they can fix it but your warranty is shot and whats you credit card number? He also said they know all about the mod and told me to be very careful doing it as he knew what I was doing to it. He was very nice though.
« Last Edit: October 20, 2010, 09:28:04 pm by beerhunter »
 

Offline sonicj

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Re: The Dark Side of the Rigol Hack -- Bricked Scope & How to Fix it...
« Reply #30 on: October 21, 2010, 07:20:44 pm »
manufacturers shouldn't take offense to customers trying to make better use of their products, they should take note! if the thing was perfect, people (most) wouldn't be dickin' around in the insides. "ohh, well apparently no-ones uses our product the way we thought they would and everyone thinks our user interface is garbage" etc.

i got greedy with my spektrum dx7 transmitter. 20 hours of runtime between charges wasn't enough (first gen w/nicads was 4hr) so i replaced the lm317 with a recom 7803 switching regulator. everything went great! until.... i was measuring current consumption of the new regulator and instead of flipping the unit off with the switch, i pulled the probe off the contact. whammy! blew out the eprom. the switch hard cuts power to eprom where as pulling the probe (battery) lets voltage slowly sag over about 5 seconds which apparently kills the thing.

im going for the good customer approach... im sending it back with 3 other genuine warranty claim items. hopefully they won't ream me a new one!
-sj
 

Offline Time

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Re: The Dark Side of the Rigol Hack -- Bricked Scope & How to Fix it...
« Reply #31 on: October 21, 2010, 07:23:14 pm »
PC LOAD LETTER!?  WHAT THE ^&%* DOES THAT MEAN!?
-Time
 

Offline TheDirty

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Re: The Dark Side of the Rigol Hack -- Bricked Scope & How to Fix it...
« Reply #32 on: October 22, 2010, 12:14:41 pm »
Mark Higgins
 

Offline sonicj

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Re: The Dark Side of the Rigol Hack -- Bricked Scope & How to Fix it...
« Reply #33 on: October 22, 2010, 07:21:06 pm »
well, the funny thing is the costumes :D if they are wearing the EEVBlog T-Shirt, that will become slightly a different picture. i was about to do that with my Rigol before Drieg comes to rescue.
you haven't seen The Best Movie Evaar?
-sj
 

Offline marianoapp

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Re: The Dark Side of the Rigol Hack -- Bricked Scope & How to Fix it...
« Reply #34 on: October 22, 2010, 10:23:40 pm »
you haven't seen The Best Movie Evaar?
the company where I work is certifying the ISO 9000 standards for quality management systems, so I'm gonna be filling TPS-like reports in no time  >:(
 

Offline driegTopic starter

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Re: The Dark Side of the Rigol Hack -- Bricked Scope & How to Fix it...
« Reply #35 on: October 23, 2010, 08:23:40 am »
Please guys, no off-topic in here. I'd like to keep this thread useful and small as possible...
Thanks  ;)
Bricked Rigol? This thread might be of any help.
 

Offline .o:0|O|0:o.

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Re: The Dark Side of the Rigol Hack -- Bricked Scope & How to Fix it...
« Reply #36 on: October 23, 2010, 05:12:13 pm »
In my experience manufacturers take a dim view of any attempted 'hack' of an equipments BIOS.

Then again, if you consider how popular the DS1052E has become as a consequence of being (not-so-)easily upgradable, how many have been purchased, destroyed or repaired (and the business that follows), and how the Rigol name now fills the eBay columns, Internet pages and the wet dreams of nerds world wide, you might be forced to conclude that if the "weakness" were intentional, "it well worked" as a pretty successful marketing strategy!

.o:0| 8) |0:o.


 

Offline suppersready

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Re: The Dark Side of the Rigol Hack -- Bricked Scope & How to Fix it...
« Reply #37 on: November 04, 2010, 10:04:41 pm »
Hi all,

Drieg revived my Rigol scope after an unsuccesfully firmware update.


Thank you Drieg
 

Offline Meiner

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Re: The Dark Side of the Rigol Hack -- Bricked Scope & How to Fix it...
« Reply #38 on: November 06, 2010, 06:21:49 pm »
Hi All,

a while ago I reported about bricking my DS1052E while attempting to downgrade. I then had some tries of my own to fix it, but then I bought a second scope and lost track of the bricked one, because I was frustrated and busy with my project for which I use the scope.
Thanks to Drieg it's today alive again. Another Driegol enhanced.... Thank you very much, Drieg!!!
 

Offline tyblu

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Re: The Dark Side of the Rigol Hack -- Bricked Scope & How to Fix it...
« Reply #39 on: November 07, 2010, 07:07:00 pm »
Could someone of repute, one we can trust to transfer the funds, setup a Paypal donation account for Dreig?
Tyler Lucas, electronics hobbyist
 

Offline watermeary2

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Re: The Dark Side of the Rigol Hack -- Bricked Scope & How to Fix it...
« Reply #40 on: November 08, 2010, 03:55:59 am »
   
The Dark Side of the Rigol Hack,it is very useful,thanks
chanel handbags are the most famous luxury brand bags in the world.
 

Offline Polossatik

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Re: The Dark Side of the Rigol Hack -- Bricked Scope & How to Fix it...
« Reply #41 on: November 08, 2010, 11:50:08 am »
Could someone of repute, one we can trust to transfer the funds, setup a Paypal donation account for Dreig?

The best person to do that is Drieg :)
If you're in the Euro zone then simply ask him his IBAN account nr (do not post it somewhere) and transfer what you want.
In contrast to Paypickpocket (for a $1 donation he will get only $0.67) it will mean that he get actually the amount you transfer and not amount minus    2.2% + $0.30 costs.
« Last Edit: November 08, 2010, 11:52:21 am by polossatik »
Real Circuit design time in minutes= (2 + Nscopes) Testim + (40 +120 Kbrewski) Nfriends

Testim = estimated time in minutes Nscopes= number of oscilloscopes present Kbrewski = linear approx of the nonlinear beer effect Nfriends = number of circuit design friends present
 

Offline driegTopic starter

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Re: The Dark Side of the Rigol Hack -- Bricked Scope & How to Fix it...
« Reply #42 on: November 09, 2010, 12:15:31 pm »
Could someone of repute, one we can trust to transfer the funds, setup a Paypal donation account for Dreig?

The best person to do that is Drieg :)
If you're in the Euro zone then simply ask him his IBAN account nr (do not post it somewhere) and transfer what you want.
In contrast to Paypickpocket (for a $1 donation he will get only $0.67) it will mean that he get actually the amount you transfer and not amount minus 2.2% + $0.30 costs.
Thanks guys for bringing up this topic.

I don't charge anything for my help or repair service, only the postage is to pay (if sending a flash chip is necessary). Of course, there is some work behind it, so if someone whom I helped with his broken scope offers me a small donation, then cool, I gladly provide my paypal account info. I must say, usually people are nice in this regard and most of them already donated me after we managed to fix their problem. Anyway, this is something totally voluntary and of course I'll help to anyone who is in trouble regardless of that. However, anybody who will support my development will not regret ;)
« Last Edit: November 09, 2010, 03:14:15 pm by drieg »
Bricked Rigol? This thread might be of any help.
 

Offline dimlow

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Re: The Dark Side of the Rigol Hack -- Bricked Scope & How to Fix it...
« Reply #43 on: November 09, 2010, 05:36:01 pm »
I have to admit i forgot to send him something, will be doing very soon.
 

Offline webrider99

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Re: The Dark Side of the Rigol Hack -- Bricked Scope & How to Fix it...
« Reply #44 on: November 10, 2010, 02:46:48 am »
Looking forward to an unopened box brick fix. I am still awaiting my scope delivery and am hoping not to need this fix but will donate to help get this fix accomplished even if I never need it..
 

Offline teixeluis

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Re: The Dark Side of the Rigol Hack -- Bricked Scope & How to Fix it...
« Reply #45 on: November 17, 2010, 12:09:00 am »
Hi Drieg,

I have reported an issue I'm having, in this topic:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=553.255

I'm woundering if given the type of behaviour experienced, upgrading to FW 2.04 SP1 could be the solution in this case, considering that the HW version is unknown (it is blank after the
hack), and that the factory FW version was 2.02 SP2.

Is it possible to dump the full flash through JTAG? With a dump of the flash you could attempt a correction?

Thank you.

Regards,

lteixeira
 

Offline driegTopic starter

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Re: The Dark Side of the Rigol Hack -- Bricked Scope & How to Fix it...
« Reply #46 on: November 18, 2010, 11:47:47 am »
Hi lteixeira,
unfortunately you've corupted some of your factory calibration data (blame it on your fingers).
Drop me and email and hopefully we will find some solution...
Bricked Rigol? This thread might be of any help.
 

Offline M84AB1

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Re: The Dark Side of the Rigol Hack -- Bricked Scope & How to Fix it...
« Reply #47 on: November 19, 2010, 05:26:46 am »

  • Exhibits repetitive noise at high sampling rates after self calibration


Would you be able to provide us with a picture so that we can see what is considered repetitive noise? The trace on my Rigol 1052E has always had some noise and it is never just a straight trace. I have seen the same with other people's Rigols on youtube. I have recently hacked my Rigol to 100Mhz and it behaves the same the way it did before the hack. I would therefore love to see a picture so that I can know if the noise I am talking about is the same one that you are talking about.

Thanks in advance :-)
 

Offline teixeluis

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Re: The Dark Side of the Rigol Hack -- Bricked Scope & How to Fix it...
« Reply #48 on: November 25, 2010, 10:52:54 am »
Thanks to Drieg the problem with my scope is now fixed. Hardware version and missing calibration parameters are now recovered/recreated.
While 2.04 SP1 firmware fixed the noise at time base below 500 ns/div, other not so obvious issues were still present, and all deriving from
a BW hack through the serial port. So, for those willing to attempt the BW increase, forget about the serial port method (don't get infected by
the enthusiasm expressed by Dave Jones's video). It's better go for more reliable methods such as USB, using the NI VISA tools.

lteixeira
 

Offline msh959

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Re: The Dark Side of the Rigol Hack -- Bricked Scope & How to Fix it...
« Reply #49 on: December 11, 2010, 10:31:40 am »
Hi, I have or it's better to say I had DS1102E.When I press "Yes" button to update it's firmware it went blank and after that when I restart it there wasn't anything to saw in screen except some colored line.How can I repair it?Is this only way to sent DS1102 motherboard to Drieg?
 


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