Firmware upgrade encountered an issue - help with PIT/BRICK? - Galaxy Tab 2 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hi
I've got a P5113 running Android Andi's CyanogenMod KitKat.
Today it won't start at all when I press power. Wont go into recovery, but does go into download.
I've tried flashing a new recovery with ODIN (philz_touch_5.03.7-p5113.tar.md5) but it fails.
ODIN recognises the tab, the process starts gets to "NAND Write start" and then the box in the top left goes RED and says FAIL!
The tab now show as screen saying "the firmware upgrade encountered an issue. Please select recovery mode in kies and try again"
That screen now won't go away....when i power the tab off it just comes back on to that screen!
I thought I should maybe try to return to stock and even repartition....maybe something got corrupted.....
But I'm worried as I've read all the warnings about how repartitioning can kill the tab....
maybe the tab is dead already but I guess I've got one chance with a repartition, so I'd like to do it right.
I'm currently downloading a stock firmware from sammobile.....any chance some one can give me any tips or hints to fix my problem?
I think I extract the pit file from the zip and tick repartition.....but would like to build confidence....
Thanks in advance
Kev

OK well I got the stock firmware from sam mobile.
Extracted:
P5113UECLK7_HOME.tar.md5
There was no PIT so on XDA I found:
GTab2 P511x 16G.pit
I went into ODIN and ticked PIT and PDA and loaded those files....but ODIN starts on the PIT and states:
"There is no PIT partition"
So, am I out of options then? totally bricked??
Cheers
K

Well no amount of searching is finding an answer.....several similar questions, but no answers and no answers here either......
So I assume that's it for me and the Tab 2 - pity I was fond of it.
Any views on what's broken?
I thought solid state fanless devices were pretty indestructible if not physically damaged or water damaged, or mis-flashed....but I've done none of those, so what's failed?
Cheers

To reply the post you made in the CM12.1 dev thread here....
blackkj said:
Glad you resurrected yours. I think the emmc on mine maybe dead. I asked in q&a forum here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/gala...-help-t3196706
But got no comments. There are similar threads all with no positive outcomes but as I said q&a seems very quiet now.
I know this is a dev thread but thought it worth a final ask. As I don't have access to a JTAG box and as you say it would be cheaper to eBay another tab2 than buy a JTAG box I think it is time to dump it!?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
After tinkering around with the device and digging through the Intertubes...
If the eMMC chip in your device is on the list of known garbage (see CyanogenMod Wiki) - sorry, but Samsung clearly deserves no praise for shipping total crap - it is a pretty solid assumption to consider the eMMC being beyond repair once it bricked - unrelated to the device being a P31xx or a P51xx.
The ones listed as "data corruption" in the "Impact" column can possibly be resurrected by JTAG'ing the device to completely erase the chip, re-partition and re-flash. That being said ... the M8G2FA chip (which is listed as "data corruption" with Firmware 0x11 AND "erase bug" (read: "bricked beyond repair") with a unknown Firmware version) is a real oddball. If you look around you actually find out that this particular eMMC chip dates all the way back to the Samsung Galaxy S2 (the phone, which is a good bit older than the Tab 2 series) where it caused the very same problems. Chances are 50:50 to get it back to work by going down the full route (erase, re-partition, re-flash everything through a JTAG box). Just keep in mind it is a 50:50 chance, there's no guarantee it works (as a lot of forum posts around the Intertubes reinforce).
Replacing the chip is impossible. It is a SMD part... unless you have a very well equipped electronics lab in your garage/cellar/attic this repair is way beyond doable (given you can even get a single - or two - chip/s from any wholesale outlet) or economically viable (if you can do it yourself it is "hours wasted", if you need to pay someone to do it it is "outside any reasonable amount").
This leaves you with the other option to replace the whole motherboard... which easily runs you down $100/150 (excluding P&P). For that "much" money you can actually pick up a new tablet having a faster CPU/GPU, more internal storage and a better resolution... spending it on a replacement motherboard would just be a waste of your hard earned money - unless you have a very specific need to cling on to this device (i.e. you implanted the tablet into the dashboard of your car - or any other "out of mind" mod). Apart from that... you would actually be able to make sure the replacement board has a eMMC that is not prone to bricking (like the M8G2FB that is in the device I played around with ... in this case it wasn't a problem of the chip, I'd rather say there's something very wrong with the CSD in Samsung's 4.2.2 firmware).
Buying a JTAG box is also too expensive. They run you down $200+ and then you need to educate yourself on the matter on how to get this piece of kit to good use, educate yourself on how to find JTAG ports on devices, and possibly also educate yourself on how to assemble connectors from scratch to connect to the pins or headers.
If you know a repair shop that has the knowledge to go into the device and equipment to JTAG it's butt... would be worth a try if it comes for cheap ... I wouldn't spend more than $50 max on a resurrection attempt.
In short: If you already got your money's worth out of the tablet then put it out of its misery and grab a new one... but better do your homework first to make sure you don't end up with just the next one having a "Shenzen market back-alley crap" eMMC built in. If you feel like you haven't squeezed your money's worth out of the tablet just yet ... well ... either try to find a repair shop that's not too overly pricey or try to snag a good deal on a replacement MoBo on eBay (given you feel like being able to tear the device apart to replace the board).

Related

Really unhappy with HTC Repair techs' conclusion

Just received my repaired MT4GS about an hour again, and I am just spitting nails about the absolute failure to communicate by the HTC Repair techs. Yes, this is a rant and a vent. You can move on to other posts if you don't want to read my growling and hissing.
I thought that the techs would make their diagnosis on the actual hardware malfunction of my phone (in a nutshell, I had weird condensation that occurred out of the blue, no exposure to moisture on my part, and then the display failed after four days of flickering), but no, their conclusion was that I had "the wrong software" on my phone. And for this they charged $185 for a new mainboard.
Yes, the phone was rooted/s-off with the most recent CWM, but once the display went bye-bye, I couldn't do much about it. And the state of the software did not cause the display failure! To top this off, when I asked--twice!--through the online e-mail form for a clarification of how they came to this conclusion, I never received an e-mail reply. I paid for the repair because I need my phone, and find out today that the morons called the cell number and left a message! Not my home phone, not via e-mail--the effin' cell number! For the phone they had in their hands! So an hour ago, I listened to this message, which I could barely hear with the volume maxed, and just about threw my phone across the room when the tech got to the "wrong software" part.
The new mainboard gives the phone a new serial number and new IMEI number, so it's like a new phone, but the trackpad button is weirdly angled up and the power button is a little floppy. And to add insult to injury, hboot is now 1.44.0013 and the software at version 1.55.531.3, so I have to figure out how to root with the stupid update, so I can get CWM back and restore from my last Nandroid backup.
So...pissed...off. Stupid, stupid HTC techs! Wrong software my a$$.
Okay. Rant finished. I'm off to find the rooting method for 1.55.531.3.
Siiiighhhhh --
--
KingCheetah
Man, that sucks however it is commonly know that rooting voids your warranty If they find out. It still sucks though.
Sent from my Bulletproof_Doubleshot using XDA App
Major suckage...yep
My understanding was that gaining root/s-off only voided the warranty if the damage was directly caused by the unlocked state--e.g. if I had loaded a ROM that overclocked the CPU and caused damage to the chip. This wasn't the case, I was still running stock ROM, and the display failure occurred over a period of five days in a very strange fashion. I guess it was hoping too much of these individuals to exercise some Sherlockian deduction and verify the details I included in the letter shipped with my phone.
At any rate, my growliest complaint by far is the failure of the tech(s) to communicate with me regarding the quotation for repair. I can't help but feel that a discussion may have changed that tech's mind. At the very least, it would have allowed me to make my case instead of the tech coming to, what I view as, a rather knee-jerk diagnosis.
Thanks for commiserating with me --
--
KingCheetah
That sucks so bad. Now I will definitely be sure to unroot, and put the stock rom back on and s-on if I need to send it in for warranty repair. Ugg. I had heard of lots of people sending their phones in while rooted, with no problem, Thanks for warning the rest of us that it isn't always the case.
Aside from unnecessarily changing your phone's mainboard, what did they do to get the touchscreen working? Sounds like it was an easy fix to me but had to find a way to justify the $185
sent from a Nokia 3210
I have no clue how replacing the mainboard addressed the display failure, since there was an utter lack of communication from the HTC techs (as per my initial growlings). I did explain in the letter shipped w/ my phone that it was operating normally right up until the screen died; and even then appeared to boot okay, even if the response wasn't visible.
Suffice to say the repair was successful, but I doubt I'll even get an answer to the logic (or illogic) behind the techs' repair diagnosis.
Still having poofy fur over this a bit --
--
KingCheetah

Possible to flash radio / rom / anything with broken USB?

After I got my skyrocket, many of my friends and family also decided on the skyrocket Well, now it's up to me to make sure they're all in working order.
So one of my family members left her skyrocket in a bag of water for a while while she was at the beach, and it was completely unresponsive. I fully disassembled it (not my first time), dried out the majority of the water, then left the phone in rice for a few days. The good news is, the phone boots up and seems to work. The battery still works and it charges over USB.
The bad news is, the cellular radio does not work, IMEI comes up as unknown, bluetooth mac is "unavailable", front facing camera is also unresponsive. Really bad news: data/adb over usb does not register at all. A few more days in rice haven't helped.
The phone is completely stock. My first thought was that flashing a new radio might reset the cellular somehow, but not having cwm/odin makes that impossible. I can't seem to get the phone into download mode either because of the USB problem.
One thing that DOES work is the stock recovery. I can tell it to flash the official ATT ICS build, which contains a radio!
However when I try flashing it says.. "E: Short write of /tmp/sideload/package.zip (No space left on device) Installation aborted". Other zips "failed to verify whole-file signature"
Any ideas? My next step will be buying a used skyrocket with a cracked screen, and transplanting the working screen from this unit...
Tom
First off, please use the Q&A section for, you know, questions and answers. Don't create a new thread; I'm going to ask the mods to move this one instead.
Second, your issue is that the hardware radio is dead. The stock ROM only has a software radio included. To put it a different way, the stock ROM includes programming that tells the cell radio what to do. It can't fix the cell radio if it's broken, though. Unfortunately, based on the amount of damage you've got there, I'd say your phone is pretty much toast.
If you're completely stock, try to warranty it out. Just be up front with Sammy about what happened (because, in this instance, they will figure it out if you make up a story or play dumb), and the worst thing they can say is no. You might get a sympathetic rep who'll help you out. If they won't take it, you've already got your backup plan in the working SR.
T.J. Bender said:
First off, please use the Q&A section for, you know, questions and answers. Don't create a new thread; I'm going to ask the mods to move this one instead.
Second, your issue is that the hardware radio is dead. The stock ROM only has a software radio included. To put it a different way, the stock ROM includes programming that tells the cell radio what to do. It can't fix the cell radio if it's broken, though. Unfortunately, based on the amount of damage you've got there, I'd say your phone is pretty much toast.
If you're completely stock, try to warranty it out. Just be up front with Sammy about what happened (because, in this instance, they will figure it out if you make up a story or play dumb), and the worst thing they can say is no. You might get a sympathetic rep who'll help you out. If they won't take it, you've already got your backup plan in the working SR.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Meant to post this in Q&A, woops. Too many xda tabs open trying to figure this out. Sorry about that
I do know the difference between the hardware/software radios... My thought was that while the phone was turned on and submerged, the software radio could have become corrupt... A long shot perhaps
I'll try contacting samsung, but somehow I doubt they'll cover it. Sidenote, do you really think they have a more sophisticated way to check for water damage than the internal water-damage indicator sticker?
The question still stands though, if anyone is interested. Even without a cell radio, I'd like to be able to root it for other purposes
Thanks for the advice
Tom
dutchthomas said:
Meant to post this in Q&A, woops. Too many xda tabs open trying to figure this out. Sorry about that
I do know the difference between the hardware/software radios... My thought was that while the phone was turned on and submerged, the software radio could have become corrupt... A long shot perhaps
I'll try contacting samsung, but somehow I doubt they'll cover it. Sidenote, do you really think they have a more sophisticated way to check for water damage than the internal water-damage indicator sticker?
The question still stands though, if anyone is interested. Even without a cell radio, I'd like to be able to root it for other purposes
Thanks for the advice
Tom
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, based on the amount of things going wrong, it's hardware. If the software radio was corrupt, it would be because the internal storage had been corrupted, and your phone likely would not boot.
And yes, they can find water damage beyond the sticker. They can see corrosion plain as day when they open it up and look at the internals.
You can root it without USB working. Is your wifi working? If so, download GooManager off the market, then follow the instructions in the TWRP thread to get TWRP on your phone. Download a custom ROM to your PC, then transfer it to your external SD using an adapter/card reader so you can place it on the card directly (instead of going through the USB port). Use TWRP to flash the pre-rooted ROM onto your phone and viola. Unless there's a pre-rooted stock out there (and I don't think there is for SR), a custom ROM is the only way I can think of to do it.
Be advised, though, that because of the amount of damage done to your phone's internals, there's a better-than-normal chance that something won't work and you'll brick. I'm not responsible for your decisions or for the brick if that happens.
Long story short, just get a replacement SR.
Same thing happened to my girls Atrix. She gave it a nice bath in Green Tea. After shutting it down and pulling it apart I gave it the rice treatment for 48 hours. Booted but returned a radio error. Her USB port was working so I was able to root it and install a few custom ROMs on it. No change. So I would bet you actually fried the chip. Call Sammi and get a quote to cover the repair which will be a new mobo. They pay shipping both ways and are usually pretty cheap.
hechoen said:
Same thing happened to my girls Atrix. She gave it a nice bath in Green Tea. After shutting it down and pulling it apart I gave it the rice treatment for 48 hours. Booted but returned a radio error. Her USB port was working so I was able to root it and install a few custom ROMs on it. No change. So I would bet you actually fried the chip. Call Sammi and get a quote to cover the repair which will be a new mobo. They pay shipping both ways and are usually pretty cheap.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Heh, this is my mother's phone actually. First she ripped the screen ribbon cable on a nokia E75. Then she smashed her Atrix's screen, tried to fix it herself with a new screen, and managed to rip part of a ribbon cable... so it no longer has a working touch digitizer. Now she left her skyrocket in a bag of water. The girlfriend managed to crack her skyrocket's screen, which I replaced... I've also had to fix 2x nokia N95's, an N97, and a bunch of water damaged dumb phones over the years...
FWIW, the skyrocket seems to have the best repairability / internal layout of any of the phones I've messed with
The cracked screen skyrockets on ebay seem to be going for more than I thought, so I'll be giving sammy a call for sure

Replace NAND chip

HELLO,
i would like to try to replace the nand chip of my bricked tv box with a new chip
this because the original chip has been damaged shortening two pins trying to put the device in mask rom mode
my device is t-r42 based on rk3188
the price of the nand flash is about $4,
i can found it on some chinese online store
i hope that replacing the nand, my device will go to mask rom mode, enabling me to do the firmware loading through pc (rkbatchtool)
i know that this mode has been designed specifically to load the firmware the first time,
so i hope my device will go to this mode the first time i power on it after replacing it
any suggestion?
any hint?
i know this must be done with :microscopic` attention
thanks!!
Vicolodo said:
HELLO,
i would like to try to replace the nand chip of my bricked tv box with a new chip
this because the original chip has been damaged shortening two pins trying to put the device in mask rom mode
my device is t-r42 based on rk3188
the price of the nand flash is about $4,
i can found it on some chinese online store
i hope that replacing the nand, my device will go to mask rom mode, enabling me to do the firmware loading through pc (rkbatchtool)
i know that this mode has been designed specifically to load the firmware the first time,
so i hope my device will go to this mode the first time i power on it after replacing it
any suggestion?
any hint?
i know this must be done with :microscopic` attention
thanks!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
your going to have to find someone with a hot air rework station to unmount and or remount a new chip. the thing of it is, the pcb has to have perfect traces,,, 0 damage. even if that is met, unmounting and remounting a new chip in a perfect world takes a lot of skill and experience. will it get you into mask rom mode,,, I would guess yes. far as I understand it, thats a hardware thing not a os thing (os=firmware). Unless its something you just want to tinker with just to see if you can do it I wouldnt bother. Thats just me. I have crashed units over and over and got into mask rom mode doing the pin short, purposely trying different firmwares to see if they would work. I am not sure if mask rom mode will happen with out the pin short on a blank chip. maybe thats another question.
if you find someone local that does rework on surface chips, best bet would be ask them. Also a better answer here at least for me would be a close up picture of the chip you speak of, it would probly tell a thousand words. I have done rework, not in the past 5 years but I have. it takes a extremely steady hand and a good feel for when the solder is fluid. Theres tricks to it, do it wrong and theres no fixing the torn traces. Maybe craiglist would point you to someone who does this sort of work in your area. Possibly a local flat screen tv repair center may be able to direct you to someone local also, they are packed with sm chips.
Just some thoughts
stinkster said:
your going to have to find someone with a hot air rework station to unmount and or remount a new chip. the thing of it is, the pcb has to have perfect traces,,, 0 damage. even if that is met, unmounting and remounting a new chip in a perfect world takes a lot of skill and experience. will it get you into mask rom mode,,, I would guess yes. far as I understand it, thats a hardware thing not a os thing (os=firmware). Unless its something you just want to tinker with just to see if you can do it I wouldnt bother. Thats just me. I have crashed units over and over and got into mask rom mode doing the pin short, purposely trying different firmwares to see if they would work. I am not sure if mask rom mode will happen with out the pin short on a blank chip. maybe thats another question.
if you find someone local that does rework on surface chips, best bet would be ask them. Also a better answer here at least for me would be a close up picture of the chip you speak of, it would probly tell a thousand words. I have done rework, not in the past 5 years but I have. it takes a extremely steady hand and a good feel for when the solder is fluid. Theres tricks to it, do it wrong and theres no fixing the torn traces. Maybe craiglist would point you to someone who does this sort of work in your area. Possibly a local flat screen tv repair center may be able to direct you to someone local also, they are packed with sm chips.
Just some thoughts
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thank you very much,
i will let you know!!
Vicolodo said:
thank you very much,
i will let you know!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A quick alternative for establishing that it is only a faulty NAND is to try booting Linux from an SD card. If that works, then you could look around for someone who has created running Android from SD card for your device and you could at least still use your device in the interim.

i9300 repair or retrieving internal storage if phone is not detected from computer?

HI
My wife's phone (i9300 galaxy S3) has gone wrong and it went off without battery.
I found a new battery, but it lasted only one day. I thus decided to take it for repair,
as I think that this is the charge connector that is broken, but actually, the tech told me that it was probably the motherboard,
as when it used a tool to plug it to the direct charge ports on the side, the phone only bootlooped.
Thing is:
My wife's phone wasn't using cloud or external SD,
it was not rooted.
I tried some android toolkits to connect it, but odin or adb don't detect it, so I have no chance to try and put some new kernel on it.
It has no recovery mode, and when in download mode (1st screen), it actually doesn't last long before it reboots anyway.
Choosing some option will also make it reboot.
So I think it is failed beyond software repair.
But if you have suggestion for this (the tech was at a small street stall and I don't expect him to be high level, no offense, but he seemed to only perform two repairs, screen and charge flex boards, so not much more able than me if he can't go beyond this), feel free?
So my second question is :
Does anyone know how to retrieve the internal storage of the phone without breaking it, and reinstall it in a working way on a new motherboard?
Or alternatively, on an emmc reader such as those used for raspberry cards and so on? (I don't want to put some link, I don't want my message to be filtered)
The photos on this chip are priceless for us, and I would even pay professional to retrieve these (I would prefer not having to, because money doesn't exactly come cheap to me, but I guess I won't be able to make it alone.
So if you know some repair service in Europe that would be able to perform such task, I would be grateful for your sharing of such knowledge.
I saw an alternative in malaysia, but it feels a little too far for being able to do something in case of problem.
Thanks for your attention and time.

NAND Replacement for the TF700

This was a PM for @timduru but it wouldn't send.. So here it is for anyone and everyone that can help.
I'm thinking of replacing the nand on the tf700.. Can you help me source the right pin compatible chip? .. I don't have big plans for the tab, I only use it to read books and watch movies.. But the lag bugs me and I want to attempt the chip replacement job. I'm totally clueless as to the fastest chip that could be supported with the right pin configuration.
But I'm hopeful i could drop something beastly and perhaps give it a ram upgrade if the RAM is a separate and easily source-able chip.
I believe the fastboot mode along with the saved "wheeler" blobs will enable me write firmware and start the tablet with the blank new chip.
If I'm successful, i could do the same for other members who want to keep the development of the tab going(with them sharing the risk of failure/I'm not an idiot, but a botched solder job is possible) .. So that we can have one last stable ROM until the eventual death of the tab.
Thank you,
Please keep us updated on what you find out. I am still addicted to this tablet and use both the 700 and the 201 (for different functions of course!) I would also be curious about battery options out there..
Chip Replacement for the TF700
I'm thinking of replacing the nand on the tf700.. Can you help me source the right pin compatible chip? .. I don't have big plans for the tab, I only use it to read books and watch movies.. But the lag bugs me and I want to attempt the chip replacement job. I'm totally clueless as to the fastest chip that could be supported with the right pin configuration.
But I'm hopeful i could drop something beastly and perhaps give it a ram upgrade if the RAM is a separate and easily source-able chip.
I believe the fastboot mode along with the saved "wheeler" blobs will enable me write firmware and start the tablet with the blank new chip.
If I'm successful, i could do the same for other members who want to keep the development of the tab going(with them sharing the risk of failure/I'm not an idiot, but a botched solder job is possible) .. So that we can have one last stable ROM until the eventual death of the tab.
Thank you,[/QUOTE]
Hi,
once I started going about it as well and found Elpida EDJ4216EFBG in our unit to seem very similar to the Samsung K4B2G1646C ddr3 chip.
Pinout seems very close except for T7 which is not connected in elpida but its an address pin A14 in samsung I do not know the implications had these chips to be interchanged. Also the ram in my unit is a hynix. Good Luck.
evimarn said:
Hi,
once I started going about it as well and found Elpida EDJ4216EFBG in our unit to seem very similar to the Samsung K4B2G1646C ddr3 chip.
Pinout seems very close except for T7 which is not connected in elpida but its an address pin A14 in samsung I do not know the implications had these chips to be interchanged. Also the ram in my unit is a hynix. Good Luck.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll look into the ram when I get the chance.. I was hoping that the pinouts are standard.. I don't think that data lines are redundant in general.. We'll have to ask around or try it for ourselves.
You don't happen to already know any super fast NAND chips with the same pinouts or even the mmc versions supported by the tegra?
Can you PM me the datasheets?
If you manage to pull this off, you will all be my heroes.
PortableTech said:
If you manage to pull this off, you will all be my heroes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm a dentist.. I'm looking for someone to do the heavy technical work because searching for these things even with my knowledge is hard.. I'm sure there are ways for design that are learned in engineering school or on the job that I'm not ever going to learn...
The work with steady hands can be left to me.. I already have a few super hard reballing feats under my belt.
I'm really puzzled as how to approach this..
I will go through my library and find you the NAND datasheet as I've downloaded it years ago.
I guess i will start at digi-key and mouser and see what happens.
Wish me luck.
AbdouRetro said:
I'll look into the ram when I get the chance.. I was hoping that the pinouts are standard.. I don't think that data lines are redundant in general.. We'll have to ask around or try it for ourselves.
You don't happen to already know any super fast NAND chips with the same pinouts or even the mmc versions supported by the tegra?
Can you PM me the datasheets?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Basically if memory serves me right the samsung are the best bet.

Categories

Resources