spacewrench Posted January 24, 2013 Share Posted January 24, 2013 Has anyone seen the JTAG pinout for the Alfa AP121 Hornet router board? I bought one of the 16/64MB versions, but it came without any bootloader at all (apparently -- it powers up with LEDs half-bright, and no messages or activity on the console serial). My seller told me it's not DOA, but rather simply has not been flashed. If I can find the pinout, I'll build a U-Boot with the correct flash memory sizes in it. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr-Protocol Posted January 24, 2013 Share Posted January 24, 2013 Refer to the Wiki. (Link in signature) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacewrench Posted January 24, 2013 Author Share Posted January 24, 2013 Sorry, I couldn't find the JTAG pinout in there -- only the 4-pin serial connector. No hits for search on JTAG, either. I hate to be That Guy, but would really appreciate it if you could link the article! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr-Protocol Posted January 24, 2013 Share Posted January 24, 2013 Clean serial flash guide - http://cloud.wifipineapple.com/wiki/doku.php?id=guidecleanflashserial Has a picture. That is the UART (not JTAG but similar) pin-outs. I'm not sure what the issue is. Read this: http://cloud.wifipineapple.com/wiki/doku.php?id=guidecleanflashserial#hardware_used Might solve the problem of not seeing data. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacewrench Posted January 24, 2013 Author Share Posted January 24, 2013 OK thanks...I have several AP121U boxes, and I have serial working on the the 8/32 models. But it really looks like I need to find the JTAG before I can get the 16/64 one going, though. Regards! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sebkinne Posted January 24, 2013 Share Posted January 24, 2013 Uboot doesn't support that flash size on this model. Neither does OpenWRT for the hornet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PineDominator Posted January 25, 2013 Share Posted January 25, 2013 (edited) Uboot doesn't support that flash size on this model. Neither does OpenWRT for the hornet. I have a 64MB Hornet working? However mine came with a working bootloader and was 8MB flash. Took a few attempts to serial flash. Somehow it worked after a few hours. Edited January 25, 2013 by petertfm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacewrench Posted January 25, 2013 Author Share Posted January 25, 2013 I have a 64MB Hornet working? However mine came with a working bootloader and was 8MB flash. Took a few attempts to serial flash. Somehow it worked after a few hours. Did you get a response immediately on the UART? When I power up my board, the LEDs come on half-bright, and there's no output (or response to input) on the serial connection. I've left it like that for a couple of hours, and nothing ever happened. I'm pretty sure there's no bootloader at all in my Flash. You gotta figure, though, that the factory has _some_ way of burning initial bootloaders, unless they burn them onto the chips before they solder them. But that seems somewhat unlikely on a product that is specifically designed to be flashed with new code. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PineDominator Posted January 25, 2013 Share Posted January 25, 2013 Did you get a response immediately on the UART? When I power up my board, the LEDs come on half-bright, and there's no output (or response to input) on the serial connection. I've left it like that for a couple of hours, and nothing ever happened. I'm pretty sure there's no bootloader at all in my Flash.You gotta figure, though, that the factory has _some_ way of burning initial bootloaders, unless they burn them onto the chips before they solder them. But that seems somewhat unlikely on a product that is specifically designed to be flashed with new code. Yes I could see the bootloader, I think your right about not having one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr-Protocol Posted January 25, 2013 Share Posted January 25, 2013 They come with a boot loader. At least my PCB dev board did. It just didn't come with OpenWRT installed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sebkinne Posted January 25, 2013 Share Posted January 25, 2013 I have a 64MB Hornet working? However mine came with a working bootloader and was 8MB flash. Took a few attempts to serial flash. Somehow it worked after a few hours. Yeah, no - What I meant was the actually 8mb flash space you get. RAM is a different matter. To me the most important reason I would get a bigger device was to get more main memory. People think that the 64MB board should do just that. It doesn't with what we have, at least not right now. We were working on a modified bootloader etc but it just isn't very viable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacewrench Posted January 25, 2013 Author Share Posted January 25, 2013 Yeah, no - What I meant was the actually 8mb flash space you get. RAM is a different matter. To me the most important reason I would get a bigger device was to get more main memory. People think that the 64MB board should do just that. It doesn't with what we have, at least not right now. We were working on a modified bootloader etc but it just isn't very viable. Were you using one installed bootloader to load the next one? Or do you know a way to flash code directly into the chip? I found the Flash chip on the back of the board (Macronix 25L12835P, 16MB) but I don't have an interface to write to it yet. (I was thinking of wiring up a little microcontroller to twiddle the address/data lines, but if there's an easier way...) Other question is, it should be easy to get the full 64MB of RAM if you can get a kernel booted, right? Worst case, you have to set some command-line variables or hard-code some values when you build Linux or whatever. I was able to build uBoot for a Seagate Dockstar (Kirkwood-ARM) a year or two ago, so I wasn't really expecting a lot of trouble building the bootloader for this device, if I could just get it into the Flash! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacewrench Posted January 25, 2013 Author Share Posted January 25, 2013 (edited) Excellent! The support person at Alfa just sent me the JTAG pinout. If anyone else is interested, it is: VDD25----R7-----TRST_L-------R8-------GND (R7 & R8 not populated?) TDI------R9------GND TDO----R10-----GND TMS----R11-----GND TCK----R12-----GND Also: TP1=TRST_L TP2=TDI TP3=TDO TP4=TMS TP5=TCK Test points 2-5 are near the dogleg in the thick ground trace around the CPU (where the shield would be soldered, if the device had a shield). I don't see TP1 yet. [edit: it's slightly inboard of the 4-pin UART header] [edit 2: remember, it's 2.5V JTAG. 2.9V or higher and you'll be sorry!] Edited January 25, 2013 by spacewrench Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sebkinne Posted January 25, 2013 Share Posted January 25, 2013 Yeah, getting the RAM is not an issue. Getting the extra flash is. You can write the bootloader over JTAG, uboot or even through OpenWRT as long as the kernel supports it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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