Author Topic: The Siglent SDG2042X Thread  (Read 550493 times)

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Offline Timpert

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Re: The Siglent SDG2042X Thread
« Reply #500 on: July 30, 2016, 02:42:53 pm »
My SDG2042 just arrived back on my doorstep. It was fixed by Siglent for a very reasonable fee (€ 100 excluding VAT). The guys at eleshop.nl have arranged the repair for me, because the original vendor (Elektor) did not follow up on the request for a repair. So that's a big  :-+ for eleshop from me!
 
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Offline pascal_sweden

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Re: The Siglent SDG2042X Thread
« Reply #501 on: July 30, 2016, 04:02:10 pm »
Interesting to learn that Elektor provides such a bad service.
Aren't they the one behind the Elektuur magazine (Elektor magazine), which is promoting DIY electronic projects? So not providing support for a repair seems like a contradiction to their entire DIY philoposphy!
Good to know that they are no good! Lesson: Stay away from Elektor and don't buy any stuff from them!
« Last Edit: July 30, 2016, 04:13:09 pm by pascal_sweden »
 

Offline Timpert

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Re: The Siglent SDG2042X Thread
« Reply #502 on: July 31, 2016, 10:01:00 am »
Quote
Lesson: Stay away from Elektor and don't buy any stuff from them!
I would'n put it that harsh. Out of a bunch of publishers in the 80s, they are the only ones who managed to survive while staying in the DIY electronics field. All the other Dutch publishers in this field either left it or quit entirely. They must be doing something right.

They are publishers first and foremost. Their shop has evolved from a service to support their DIY articles (you could buy boards, front panel foils and the occasional piece of unobtanium) in a time when many somewhat specialized parts were really difficult to get. So there was almost no after-sales care required. The shop has always been a side activity to rake in some (currently probably hard needed) extra cash, and in cases like this it shows: when it comes to selling, you'll get the stuff you ordered. They're not the fastest shop on the planet, but they do have interesting offers every now and then which makes it worth the effort to check them out. They're simply not equipped for acting like a proper dealer for goods that might require after sales service. This is not only my conclusion, but others (most notably on Dutch forums such as circuits online and their own forum) draw this conclusion as well.
 

Offline pascal_sweden

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Re: The Siglent SDG2042X Thread
« Reply #503 on: July 31, 2016, 10:15:41 am »
Fair enough! You have a point!
I was a bit surprised at first sight, but given your explanation I do understand their position.
So please do consider Elektor for your electronic projects, but don't expect the same after sales service as a real distributor. But then again your main focus of buying from Elektor is not T&M test equipment.
 

Offline Timpert

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Reflection time...
« Reply #504 on: July 31, 2016, 10:33:54 am »
I think this mostly shows how dealers add value: several dealers are active on this forum, and they relay findings and suggestions to Siglent (Tautech and Siglent America spring to mind). I don't think we would have gotten the latest and greatest firmware update without the efforts of these people. Also, they enable your device to get serviced if you break something by accident. I might consider paying for that instead of hunting for the cheapest bargain.
 
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Offline ian.rees

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Re: The Siglent SDG2042X Thread
« Reply #505 on: August 03, 2016, 08:05:54 am »
This evening I was playing around with the busybox install in my new SDG2042X and found out about a really neat feature: If you reboot with a micro SD card inserted, it automatically blows away the flash! |O

Any chance someone might be able to help me restore the flash?  I have some of the files from the 2.01.01.21R2 firmware upgrade including u-boot.img, but don't have the u-boot-spl.bin that the TI docs refer to for doing a UART boot.  I don't (yet) have an adapter to get my JTAG (Bus Blaster) connected.  Thanks in advance!  -Ian-
 

Online tautech

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Re: The Siglent SDG2042X Thread
« Reply #506 on: August 03, 2016, 08:48:58 am »
This evening I was playing around with the busybox install in my new SDG2042X and found out about a really neat feature: If you reboot with a micro SD card inserted, it automatically blows away the flash! |O

Any chance someone might be able to help me restore the flash?  I have some of the files from the 2.01.01.21R2 firmware upgrade including u-boot.img, but don't have the u-boot-spl.bin that the TI docs refer to for doing a UART boot.  I don't (yet) have an adapter to get my JTAG (Bus Blaster) connected.  Thanks in advance!  -Ian-
I do not have the files you seek, hopefully another member can extract them out of their unit for you.
Good luck.
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Offline ian.rees

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Re: The Siglent SDG2042X Thread
« Reply #507 on: August 03, 2016, 10:57:39 am »
Thanks!  After reading/thinking a bit more; just building U-Boot is probably the way to go.  I have a cross compiling environment for a BeagleBone anyways, seems to be the same family SoC.

Would then need to get the flash layout and a copy of the filesystem from a working unit, plus likely some things I'm not thinking of yet...  Will get there eventually.  -Ian-
 

Offline Timpert

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Re: The Siglent SDG2042X Thread
« Reply #508 on: August 03, 2016, 12:19:17 pm »
Let us know how you manage to recover it... I know that sinking feeling when you realize you just broke your new toy  ;)
 

Offline McBryce

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Re: The Siglent SDG2042X Thread
« Reply #509 on: August 03, 2016, 01:36:30 pm »
Is it possible to connect to a working unit via the LAN port and copy the files across that you need? If so let me know what you need and I do a CP *.* of my unit. It's a 2042X that I've "liberated" up to 120MHz. However, I think I updated the firmware since then, so I may not be able to mount the drive any more.

McBryce.
30 Years making cars more difficult to repair.
 

Offline billfernandezTopic starter

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Re: The Siglent SDG2042X Thread
« Reply #510 on: August 03, 2016, 02:11:13 pm »
This evening I was playing around with the busybox install in my new SDG2042X and found out about a really neat feature: If you reboot with a micro SD card inserted, it automatically blows away the flash!

Ian, a few questions:  By BusyBox do you mean the Linux utility suite?  If so, how do you install it on the SDG2042X?  And why?  Also, how/where do you insert a micro SD card?  I only see a USB connector for a flash drive.
 

Offline McBryce

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Re: The Siglent SDG2042X Thread
« Reply #511 on: August 03, 2016, 03:26:23 pm »
This evening I was playing around with the busybox install in my new SDG2042X and found out about a really neat feature: If you reboot with a micro SD card inserted, it automatically blows away the flash!

Ian, a few questions:  By BusyBox do you mean the Linux utility suite?  If so, how do you install it on the SDG2042X?  And why?  Also, how/where do you insert a micro SD card?  I only see a USB connector for a flash drive.

Take a look at the teardown video, there's a Micro SD slot on the PCB inside the case.

McBryce.
30 Years making cars more difficult to repair.
 

Offline Timpert

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Re: The Siglent SDG2042X Thread
« Reply #512 on: August 03, 2016, 06:36:17 pm »
In post 472, I described the boot order and how you can change it. Busybox is installed from the factory. If you log into the stock R17 firmware via telnet and you type "busybox", you get a list of available commands. Has anyone tried adding a user before upgrading to R21,  to see if the user still exists after the upgrade?
 

Offline janekivi

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Re: The Siglent SDG2042X Thread
« Reply #513 on: August 03, 2016, 08:06:54 pm »
Of course. But all files from update file is updated and your passwd and shadow file
contains only data what there is written from factory.
I'm trying to edit .ads file and replace some files in it...
 

Offline ian.rees

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Re: The Siglent SDG2042X Thread
« Reply #514 on: August 03, 2016, 09:03:46 pm »
Is it possible to connect to a working unit via the LAN port and copy the files across that you need?
Yes, that should be straightforward once there's a terminal and a network connection available.  I'm not too familiar with UBI (the system used for the flash filesystem), so need to figure out how to get the information about the flash layout.  I'll use a BeagleBone as a test platform and put together a set of instructions.

Two questions: What OS is your real computer using?  Does the stock firmware have tar available?  "#tar --version"

By BusyBox do you mean the Linux utility suite?
I think your questions got answered, but thanks for asking!  Somehow, I had it in my mind that BusyBox was a linux distribution, but now can see it's more of a toolset.

Has anyone tried adding a user before upgrading to R21,  to see if the user still exists after the upgrade?
As janekivi wrote, it's not quite that simple because the upgrade process overwrites the relevant configuration files.  But, I think it's not much more complicated.  For instance; if one were to cause the system to not reboot after the upgrade, they might have a good opportunity to add the users ;).  Note that the firmware upgrade script behaves differently when the root filesystem is rw...

Thanks for the notes on the boot order - good to understand.  Unfortunately I didn't read that post and understand the ramifications before popping in a microsSD - ironically, to make a backup.  Mine currently tries to boot over the UART accessible at J9 (can tell because it sends a 'C' a couple times per second).
 

Online tautech

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Re: The Siglent SDG2042X Thread
« Reply #515 on: August 03, 2016, 09:09:33 pm »
Also we have a SDG805 user that is in a similar bind, can anybody help him too:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/the-sdg1000-and-sdg800-thread/msg996935/#msg996935
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Offline McBryce

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Re: The Siglent SDG2042X Thread
« Reply #516 on: August 04, 2016, 12:45:25 pm »

Two questions: What OS is your real computer using?  Does the stock firmware have tar available?  "#tar --version"


I have Linux (SuSE 13.something) and/or windows 7 or 10. Not sure about the second question, I didn't check.

McBryce.
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Offline new299

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Re: The Siglent SDG2042X Thread
« Reply #517 on: August 04, 2016, 03:25:39 pm »
Thanks!  After reading/thinking a bit more; just building U-Boot is probably the way to go.  I have a cross compiling environment for a BeagleBone anyways, seems to be the same family SoC.

Would then need to get the flash layout and a copy of the filesystem from a working unit, plus likely some things I'm not thinking of yet...  Will get there eventually.  -Ian-

I've been trying to do this on the SDG805, but not getting anywhere. I can't seem to get the SPL up and running. I figured it might be useful to summarise what I've done so far though:

The AM335x has a ROM boot loader, this will accept the u-boot spl over UART one (which is exposed on the PCB) using xmodem. There are a few binary builds of the u-boot spl around, from the TI AM335x SDK and elsewhere. However none of them work for me. I suspect that the DDR memory isn't configured correctly.

If you look in the TI SDK the DDR init function read an EEPROM on the TI evaluation board, and beagle bone and set the DDR configuration and power management settings accordingly. I doubt this would work on the Siglent instruments. While they seem to have copied a lot of things from the TI SDK, I kind of expect the EEPROM and DDR config to be different. The sdg800 u-boot does refer to the beagle bone in places though, so it's possible many things are similar.

The DDR memory used on the SDG805 is a k4b1g164gg this is largely similar to a chip that's already in the ddr_config.h (IIRC). TI have a guide to setup new DDR chips in u-boot and I followed that.

I also removed some of the beagle board checks to allow the board to init the TPS65910 power management IC.

There's another thing in there that worries me, which is that on the beaglebone there's a GPIO which enables the DDR memory. I'm guessing there might be something similar on the SDG800s but without knowing which GPIO(s) to toggle it might be though figure it out.

Anyway, none of my current attempts have worked. The spl gets loaded over xmodem and I can see it display it's version header but then it just hangs. You should be able to load the reset of U-boot over Y-modem at this point. I'm back to trying to find a original siglent spl. This would all be a lot easier if Siglent followed the GPL and shared their u-boot changes as they are legally required to do.

Anyway, now I've been trying to extract a copy of the spl from the firmware update packages. No luck so far, but it does look like it's around. I'll post an update if I get anywhere.

Failing any of these options, I'm going to buy another SDG805 anyway. When I get it I'll extract the u-boot spl (and hopefully a complete copy of the rest of the flash) I'll let you know. Before I hosed my system I think I did get a copy of the kernel image, but the FS images I downloaded were corrupt.

I'd hope the SDG800 and SDG2000 are similar enough that binaries will work across both systems.
 

Offline janekivi

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Re: The Siglent SDG2042X Thread
« Reply #518 on: August 04, 2016, 06:02:08 pm »
A while ago I did some experiments and add user which was gone, but I'm not a Linux guy.
Update is clearing some of the directories and write new files but can someone add somewhere
couple of commands or script which stay there and add user or something useful?
 

Offline new299

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Re: The Siglent SDG2042X Thread
« Reply #519 on: August 05, 2016, 07:11:17 am »
I've been able to recover my SDG805 to u-boot using files another user posted. I believe the same procedure should work for the SDG2042X. My notes are here: http://41j.com/blog/2016/08/sdg800-recovering-from-a-hosed-u-boot/
 

Offline janekivi

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Re: The Siglent SDG2042X Thread
« Reply #520 on: August 05, 2016, 09:02:25 pm »
I'm trying to edit .ads file and replace some files in it...
Got it finally. My user is root and password is... what You think...
 

Offline ian.rees

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Re: The Siglent SDG2042X Thread
« Reply #521 on: August 06, 2016, 05:49:23 am »
Got mine recovered!  I think the problem was that the SoC wasn't actually trying to boot off the microSD card (regardless of whether J16 was shorted).  The process I used was:

0) I had copied some files from the upgrade process, before I bricked the signal generator
0+) A helpful person provided the attached uEnv.txt file
1) Strip the first 520 bytes off the MLO file (per new299's post)
2) Format an SD card FAT32, copy uEnv.txt, original MLO, and all other files mentioned in it (the names are after the fatload instructions) to SD card.
3) Get setup to provide the modified MLO and original u-boot.img over UART as described at the end of http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/Linux_Core_U-Boot_User's_Guide#Using_UART
4) Jumper J16 (not sure this was actually necessary)
5) Insert SD card in to signal generator, turn it on
6) Once the modified MLO and u-boot.img have transferred, open up the TTY in a console so you can monitor progress (or I suppose just wait a few minutes)
7) Remove jumper and SD card

As for the source of the files in step 0 - I haven't followed closely, but it sounds like janekivi can extract those from the firmware upgrades now?   -Ian-
 

Offline new299

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Re: The Siglent SDG2042X Thread
« Reply #522 on: August 06, 2016, 06:19:08 am »
Got mine recovered!  I think the problem was that the SoC wasn't actually trying to boot off the microSD card (regardless of whether J16 was shorted).

Congrats ian! I take it you had a copy of the MLO per upgrade? Out of interest does it differ from the SDG800 MLO?
 

Offline ian.rees

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Re: The Siglent SDG2042X Thread
« Reply #523 on: August 06, 2016, 06:30:07 am »
Yes, it's totally different from the one from the blog post you referenced a few messages back.

I'm a bit leery of playing too much more with mine - seems like something might be screwy with the flash memory as I'm getting UBI errors when I try to remount / as rw now.  The boot loop it was in while I was trying to get it to load off the SD card had it talking to the flash, so I guess it might've worn out part of the memory.  -Ian-
 

Offline new299

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Re: The Siglent SDG2042X Thread
« Reply #524 on: August 06, 2016, 07:08:02 am »
Yes, it's totally different from the one from the blog post you referenced a few messages back.

I'm a bit leery of playing too much more with mine - seems like something might be screwy with the flash memory as I'm getting UBI errors when I try to remount / as rw now.  The boot loop it was in while I was trying to get it to load off the SD card had it talking to the flash, so I guess it might've worn out part of the memory.  -Ian-

Yea, it seems to do a crazy amount of flash erases/rewriting partitions during upgrades as well. Good thing is that the TSOP48 flash chip doesn't look too difficult to replace and we can recover from a clean flash now. :)

 


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