Develop Bugs

Htc Universal Memory Upgrade.

Hi
I Need Information About Upgrading The Ram Memory Of My Xda Exec.i'll Realy Appreciate A Do It Yourself Info.along With The Actual Tipe Of Memory And How Much Would Be The Maximum I Can Upgrade It To.any Info Will Be Well Appreciated!
Thanks!

the only thing I can think of is, that the Universal has some empty places for memory on the pcb.
if you are good in soldering SMD mounted memory you can check, if this is possible and where you must solder them in the universal by looking in the service manual (which also explains how to take apart the device).
the service manual you can find in the ftp of xda-developers.com.
if you do not know what is SMD etc. then just forget it as you will for sure screw up your device.
for what do you need more memory?

it has been tried, and you can find a forum post on this site about 8 - 10 months old.
there is a spare slot on the main board. it was done and added, but the OS didnt recognise the extra addition.
i find it odd. it was proposed that M$ OS limited its use, however, my wife has an IPAQ running WM5, and she has about 130mb of program memory (cant check she isnt here). Sure its not a phone, doesnt have 3G or GPRS etc, but as PDA, its fast, never runs out of memory, and has more than what mine does. So it isnt M$, it must be HTC manufacturer.
In summary, no matter how good you solder, it aint gonna work.

I also remember reading somwhere that with the extra memory the battery will drain way to fast thus rendering the upgrade utterly useless

Bro u shld really forget this thght coz as it is mentioned above dat even v know dat there is an empty slot provided by the hardware manuf. but there is no support recognized by our M$ OS .

So let's get this straight once and for all:
I've read through a lot of threads regarding this, and some ppl say that the limitation lies with WM, some say that it does NOT lie with WM, some say that you have to get the hardware correctly hooked up, some say that the soldering has to be correct.........
It seems nobody has been able to settle the issue conclusively one way or the other.
so, does a pocketpc device exist that:
a) is based on the same CPU as the uni
b) has more than 64MB of RAM (128/256)
c) has WM5/6 and it sees all of the RAM??
If such a device exists, then in theory no ROM change should be necessary, and the answer should lie with hooking up the additional/replacement chips correcctly.
Thoughts along this road?
D.

Develo said:
So let's get this straight once and for all:
I've read through a lot of threads regarding this, and some ppl say that the limitation lies with WM, some say that it does NOT lie with WM, some say that you have to get the hardware correctly hooked up, some say that the soldering has to be correct.........
It seems nobody has been able to settle the issue conclusively one way or the other.
so, does a pocketpc device exist that:
a) is based on the same CPU as the uni
b) has more than 64MB of RAM (128/256)
c) has WM5/6 and it sees all of the RAM??
If such a device exists, then in theory no ROM change should be necessary, and the answer should lie with hooking up the additional/replacement chips correcctly.
Thoughts along this road?
D.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it cant be a limitation of the "os" as atena has 128 mb ram

Think most if not all the WM6 models are now 128mb at least aren't they? Would seem to point towards HTC issue...

the universal was originally a wm2003se device with 128mb ram, they made it down to 64mb with the release of wm5, this is why the slots remain. If you can solder bga (needs an x-ray machine to verify the connections) and also find out how to get the memory noticed by the motherboard then it's a simple hex edit to make wm5/6 use it.

Interesting. Suppose I get the bga chips soldered on correctly.
1) What has to be done to wm5/6 so that the added ram gets seen?
2) I read someqhere that soldering just the bga chips is not enough. It seems that some additional parts are required. How about we get a detailed explanation going here?
Or is there a thread somewhere else about this already? I've searched around but haven't seen an explanation...
D.
Edit: while using an xray really insures that the connections are correct, I've soldered bgas before using more traditional methods (i.e.: hot plate + hot air gun). Doing this can damage the bga chips you;re trying to solder, but it is not that hard to do. Plus, I think the risk of damaging a few of the new chips you just bought is worth getting the final reward of doubling the RAM of the Uni...

BlackICE said:
for what do you need more memory?
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Click to collapse
That's the only reason I want to sell mine, because it has too little memory. I cannot start Navigon Mobile Navigator 6. Well I can start it but as soon as I want to search for a route to my Destination it lacks memory.
I found out that with PDAViet's ROM (one of the older Crossbow ones) where it has about 30 MB free it works, but I normaly have only about 22-24 MB left after syncing with no Program running. That's too little. This is why I wait for the Ultimate 7150 from IMATE.

simon_darley said:
i find it odd. it was proposed that M$ OS limited its use, however, my wife has an IPAQ running WM5, and she has about 130mb of program memory (cant check she isnt here). Sure its not a phone, doesnt have 3G or GPRS etc, but as PDA, its fast, never runs out of memory, and has more than what mine does. So it isnt M$, it must be HTC manufacturer.
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Click to collapse
That's why I'm awaiting the new ones from IMate. Perhaps they are fast as they are supposed to be. My MDA III (That's the BlueAngel) was much faster than the MDA Pro (Universal)

NiTeSHiFT said:
That's why I'm awaiting the new ones from IMate. Perhaps they are fast as they are supposed to be. My MDA III (That's the BlueAngel) was much faster than the MDA Pro (Universal)
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Click to collapse
yes but that was because Storage Memory was also in RAM...

Develo said:
1) What has to be done to wm5/6 so that the added ram gets seen?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nothing should be done. Device would detect 128Mb automatically if RAM is correctly soldered. The RAM detection code is identical to the code used in BlueAngel ROM, so it should be working.
I even made a patched ROM on which device always think that 128Mb RAM is installed. So the problem is in soldering
2) I read someqhere that soldering just the bga chips is not enough. It seems that some additional parts are required. How about we get a detailed explanation going here?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are 2 resistors that need to be shifted. Search forum, we've published the fotos.
But that is not enough, the whole RAM is not accessible, so something else should be soldered.

Does anyone know if the new imate ultimate series will recognize an sd / mini sd card greater than 2mb??

Midget_1990 said:
the universal was originally a wm2003se device with 128mb ram, they made it down to 64mb with the release of wm5, this is why the slots remain. If you can solder bga (needs an x-ray machine to verify the connections) and also find out how to get the memory noticed by the motherboard then it's a simple hex edit to make wm5/6 use it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does anyone have one of these 2003SE Uni's, to compare hardware? Has anyone seen one of these?

It was never released as a WM2003 device though before it was changed to run WM5. Finding one is pretty much impossible if anything.. I do recall a year or two ago a chinese user of the device soldered the ram on the device and got it to detect the full 128mb. His work was never posted here though, I came across it on google a long time ago. If I find the page I'll post it here.

good god please do that!!!!!!!! I've been racking my brains out reading datasheets and googling and reading stuff about this, and I've been wondering for the longest time how come nobody has done it yet!!
Hope you find that page again!!!! I sure haven't!
D.

Has anyone tried looking for FCC or Patent Diagrams?
I've been trying emailing reviewers who had pre-production ones, especially the ones who's articles said 128mb of ram

Sounds very good all this,
Hopefully someone finds out how this is to be done.
Oh and i am willing to try it out too (hmm man too bad i cannot solder bga chips)

external wifi antenna

is it possible to make an external wifi antenna on our device?
crazy right?
calling hardware hackers out there.....

creso said:
is it possible to make an external wifi antenna on our device?
crazy right?
calling hardware hackers out there.....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why would you want to do that?

Why would you want to do that?
coz of this link..check it out...
http://pdaclub.pl/forum/zrob-to-sam...d/?PHPSESSID=e1ef7e2e316f21bce15dfb414f4de5ec

creso said:
Why would you want to do that?
coz of this link..check it out...
http://pdaclub.pl/forum/zrob-to-sam...d/?PHPSESSID=e1ef7e2e316f21bce15dfb414f4de5ec
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Click to collapse
Aside from the fact that I cannot read Polish, if I am not mistaken, that external antenna connector is already present in the BA. Look behind the BA (where the camera is), and you may have a rubber piece covering it, but it does have a connector for an external antenna...
BTW, I am too lazy to go to translate.google.com, what is that thing attached to the Axim?

i believe the connector on the back is only for external gsm/gprs antennae (is that the plural?). my universal has 2 external antenna connectors. one is for gsm/gprs, one is for umts. i guess those conectors are frequency dependant, so i guess the wi-fi signal could not be enhanced with that. but since something like that has never been requested before, we are just guessing here.

Chef_Tony said:
i believe the connector on the back is only for external gsm/gprs antennae (is that the plural?). my universal has 2 external antenna connectors. one is for gsm/gprs, one is for umts. i guess those conectors are frequency dependant, so i guess the wi-fi signal could not be enhanced with that. but since something like that has never been requested before, we are just guessing here.
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Click to collapse
We don't guess Chef, we make educated remarks of doubtful validity

i think ur right chef tony..but do you know where is the internal wifi antenna inside the BA?
or what its look like?

in my signature the last link points to the htc blueangel service manual. you can look up any given hardware part there. especially towards the end of it, there is a list of spare parts with pictures.

Why can't a bricked phone be revived?

This is a question for those in the know when it comes to programming.Why isn't there a way to revive a bricked phone? Can't there be some method for a host computer to manually write the radio to the device? How does HTC fix a bricked phone for it to be a refurb?
I'm just very curious about this because I see a few people attempt to update the radio only to lose power and brick their EVO. I have no programming experience so don't know what goes on at the internal component level. Thanks in advance for your input.

It goes back to the old bootstrapping problem when computers were being developed. A computer (in this case, your cell phone) is pretty dumb at the hardware level. All it can do is run programs. That's ALL it can do. It can't even load a program, only run them. Thus the problem. It gets solved by injecting a "bootstrap" program at startup (from the phrase "pull yourself up by your bootstraps") which is a program that runs and gives access to all the I/O, and the computer can then load more programs.
When you update this bootstrapping program, it gets dicey, because if it isn't written right, or if there's a glitch during the update, this most basic of all functions gets corrupted. If the program that tells the phone how to load programs goes away, all the phone can do is... sit there. Like a brick.
Hope this helped!

That helped me, thanks.

Soylent Grin said:
It goes back to the old bootstrapping problem when computers were being developed. A computer (in this case, your cell phone) is pretty dumb at the hardware level. All it can do is run programs. That's ALL it can do. It can't even load a program, only run them. Thus the problem. It gets solved by injecting a "bootstrap" program at startup (from the phrase "pull yourself up by your bootstraps") which is a program that runs and gives access to all the I/O, and the computer can then load more programs.
When you update this bootstrapping program, it gets dicey, because if it isn't written right, or if there's a glitch during the update, this most basic of all functions gets corrupted. If the program that tells the phone how to load programs goes away, all the phone can do is... sit there. Like a brick.
Hope this helped!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the info. That is interesting. So how does HTC initially put the bootstrap in and/or how do they handle a bricked phone?

Soylent Grin said:
It goes back to the old bootstrapping problem when computers were being developed. A computer (in this case, your cell phone) is pretty dumb at the hardware level. All it can do is run programs. That's ALL it can do. It can't even load a program, only run them. Thus the problem. It gets solved by injecting a "bootstrap" program at startup (from the phrase "pull yourself up by your bootstraps") which is a program that runs and gives access to all the I/O, and the computer can then load more programs.
When you update this bootstrapping program, it gets dicey, because if it isn't written right, or if there's a glitch during the update, this most basic of all functions gets corrupted. If the program that tells the phone how to load programs goes away, all the phone can do is... sit there. Like a brick.
Hope this helped!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks good explanation appreciate that.

rafroehlich2 said:
Thanks for the info. That is interesting. So how does HTC initially put the bootstrap in and/or how do they handle a bricked phone?
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Click to collapse
There is probably a JTAG interface somewhere in there. In fact,that's how the original hack of the IPhone was done. (Better ways were since found) Most devices have a quasi standard interface for programming the flash and accessing and the hardware for diagnostics. For instance,linksys routers actually have a spot on the board to solder a header and you can make a cable that connects to the parralel port. Do a google search for "Hairy Dairy Maid Debrick" and you will find it. A similar thing is probobally possible with the Evo (Ive even seen them on Hard Drives and CD Rom drives) The problem is,its not entirely standardized,and it might not even be a connector or pads on the board. It might instead be a matter of knowing where you can connect the leads on the board to something that under the right circumstances BECOMES the JTAG connector. (For instance,a pin that controls something else might be a JTAG interface for the first few hundred milliseconds of start-up,or if a certain other pin of the chip is grounded when the power is applied. It might also be completely internal to the chip,and there be NO connectors on the board (it almost CERTAINLY has the capability,they need it during prototyping) and the chips might be programmed BEFORE they are soldered in. It might take replacing the rom chip to get it to go. There are lots of ifs
Chances are though,the factory has a special cable and a special software program that can reprogram the device. To replicate that might be relatively easy or could be next to impossible but requires a certain degree of knowledge about the hardware. What I suspect is,until someone who has the skills to make such a cable bricks their phone,they wont bother figuring out how to debrick one. In fact,when that person bricks their phone,they will probably take it back to sprint and say "I dont know what happens" In fact,even if its stuck looping in an obviously hacked boot loader he for some odd reason cant undo,hes probably going to send it back to sprint. I know someone who did exactly that to their brand new HP laptop. He found that 15kv from the flyback of an old B&W television applied to the memory slots took care of the looping and Best Buy gave him another one. As he put it "I dont know what happened,but it smells bad and wont boot up"

pflatlyne said:
There is probably a JTAG interface somewhere in there. In fact,that's how the original hack of the IPhone was done. (Better ways were since found) Most devices have a quasi standard interface for programming the flash and accessing and the hardware for diagnostics. For instance,linksys routers actually have a spot on the board to solder a header and you can make a cable that connects to the parralel port. Do a google search for "Hairy Dairy Maid Debrick" and you will find it. A similar thing is probobally possible with the Evo (Ive even seen them on Hard Drives and CD Rom drives) The problem is,its not entirely standardized,and it might not even be a connector or pads on the board. It might instead be a matter of knowing where you can connect the leads on the board to something that under the right circumstances BECOMES the JTAG connector. (For instance,a pin that controls something else might be a JTAG interface for the first few hundred milliseconds of start-up,or if a certain other pin of the chip is grounded when the power is applied. It might also be completely internal to the chip,and there be NO connectors on the board (it almost CERTAINLY has the capability,they need it during prototyping) and the chips might be programmed BEFORE they are soldered in. It might take replacing the rom chip to get it to go. There are lots of ifs
Chances are though,the factory has a special cable and a special software program that can reprogram the device. To replicate that might be relatively easy or could be next to impossible but requires a certain degree of knowledge about the hardware. What I suspect is,until someone who has the skills to make such a cable bricks their phone,they wont bother figuring out how to debrick one. In fact,when that person bricks their phone,they will probably take it back to sprint and say "I dont know what happens" In fact,even if its stuck looping in an obviously hacked boot loader he for some odd reason cant undo,hes probably going to send it back to sprint. I know someone who did exactly that to their brand new HP laptop. He found that 15kv from the flyback of an old B&W television applied to the memory slots took care of the looping and Best Buy gave him another one. As he put it "I dont know what happened,but it smells bad and wont boot up"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wow. Thanks for the detailed answer. Too bad this isn't a standardized item. I hope eventually things progress enough where this isn't even a thought. Thanks again for the good response.
Sent from my PC36100

rafroehlich2 said:
Wow. Thanks for the detailed answer. Too bad this isn't a standardized item. I hope eventually things progress enough where this isn't even a thought. Thanks again for the good response.
Sent from my PC36100
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea,it would be nice if it were. Its kinda sorta quasi standard,so it HAS been done in some cases where its necessary,but often there are easier ways around it. Personally, I have allways thought that its a pretty stupid thing to make a piece of equipment that can fail due to a bad flash. The people who designed many of the flash memory chips seemed to agree,and they added something called a "boot block" to many,but the way its implemented,when its implemented doesn't fully protect you from a bad flash. Its even worse now that everything is in ball grid array chips soldered down to the board.

Is it possible to recover data from a truly bricked phone?

I used these searches before compiling this thread;
"how to recover data from a bricked SGN"
"data extraction from a SGN that will not boot"
"removing the HD from samsung galaxy nexus"
These searches did not yield results that replicate my situation. The only search that resulted in many entries were for people with "bricked phones" that (at least somewhat) responded to input. I associate the term "bricked" with a phone that does not respond to input, or show any indication of getting power.
My phone is a Samsung Galaxy Nexus on verizon wireless. It has been rooted and is running a custom ROM by...AOKP i think. I had some assistance each time I rooted and updated my ROM.
Here is my problem, what caused it,my troubleshooting steps, and what I'm trying to do. My phone was partially submerged in water for an unknown amount of time. The battery and SIM were removed and kept in a water proof container within an hour of submersion. The water damage indicator stickers (on both the battery and the phone have not been triggered). About 24hrs later, the phone was placed in a zip lock bag with 4 desiccant silica gel packs where it will remain for the next 24. Per vzw's tech support, I tried to power the phone on using the charger and the battery removed. No change. Verizon was not advised of the partial submersion, only the non triggered water damage stickers. This phone is under warranty and a replacement has been shipped. I confirmed that my contacts are backed up to google.
The reason for this post is, I have close to 30GB of pictures and videos that I stored on this device's "internal SD" that I want to recover. Looking through the searches I mentioned above, it sounds like this isn't so much a separate card, but more of a partition on the phone's HD. I have been told by vzw that neither their branch office tech support, nor their recovery/diagnostic team that analyzes returned phones has the capability to remove and return this data.
If someone here has hardware experience with cracking open a SGN and swapping the "internal SD card" I would greatly appreciate any information available for this task.

if it cant turn on, you cant retrieve data.

Zepius said:
if it cant turn on, you cant retrieve data.
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Click to collapse
Well..OK. I'm not ready to give up just yet. When my desktop PC's power supply failed, the PC was unusable, and didn't indicate power. I swapped that out and it now it works fine. This seems like it could be a similar situation. I at least want to exhaust every option I have before throwing in the towel.
Those 30GB contain hundreds of pictures of the first 2 years of my kid's life.
It seems to me that data recovery should still be possible if an replacement power source is utilized. Maybe more than just the power source has failed. Maybe every other hardware component in my wet phone has failed. But maybe, that "internal SD" is recoverable.
If anyone here knows what the "internal SD" looks like, and has successfully swapped one, I'll risk it. I know I can't trust vzw with such a task.
I realize this is a developers forum, and I'm asking for hardware failure advice. If anyone can refer me to a different forum that is more specialized to my specific task, I'll gladly take my trouble there.
Thanks for reading,
Jef

you're assuming 1 thing. the nand that houses the storage is in good health. When water is introduced, you have the unknown factors of what it does to circuitry.
im sure there is a ifixit teardown showing where the nand is. The problem is its soldered to the mainboard of the phone. You might be able to unsolder it, but thats a stretch.

Zepius said:
you're assuming 1 thing. the nand that houses the storage is in good health. When water is introduced, you have the unknown factors of what it does to circuitry.
im sure there is a ifixit teardown showing where the nand is. The problem is its soldered to the mainboard of the phone. You might be able to unsolder it, but thats a stretch.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you very much Zepius. I googled "ifixit teardown samsung galaxy nexus" which lead me to a page (that I'm not able to paste here as a new user).
which is exactly what I was looking for. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I'm assuming the nand is in good health, just wishful thinking.

Anncoco - sorry, I don't remember what I did with this. It's been about 4 years, and this was 3 phones ago. I think I had some of the photos backed up somewhere else, enough that I never went to the trouble to disassemble the Nexus. From my notes - I remember the phone did not indicate it was getting power when plugged in.

Broken Mix 2. Help. Help. Please.

Hello,
My wife has broken her Mi Mix 2.
It fell down and all cracked.
Not booting or even charging.
I wanted to know if there is a way to retrieve her photos by opening up her phone and getting to the storage chip on the board.
And somehow connecting it through usb to the pc.
From my private investigations online, i found that it is a Samsung brand 128GB UFS chip and glued to the 'mother'board?
If it is encrypted, we have the phone pin, google account password etc.
I watched McGyver as a kid and know how to use a screwdriver.
Thank you for helping in this period of global confinement.
Stay safe. Live long and prosper. Thank you.

You may be able to remove the chip but I've got no idea how you would interface with it, and even if you could interface with it, I'm not sure it would be readable like a standard storage device. Sorry man.
If I were desperate for the images I would try buying other old Mix 2 models and salvaging parts to try and match some working ones together.

Kaji said:
You may be able to remove the chip but I've got no idea how you would interface with it, and even if you could interface with it, I'm not sure it would be readable like a standard storage device. Sorry man.
If I were desperate for the images I would try buying other old Mix 2 models and salvaging parts to try and match some working ones together.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are chip readers on the market. Some specialised users have reader for it. This is not a cheap task. The reader it self cost about 3k . This type of service involves high costs afaik. Is definitely possible to be made.

Thank you
Got it. Thank you Kaji and Andr6. :good::good::good:
I guess i will keep the phone as is. And send it to China to be restored if it can be.
They might have the things needed there.