RGH Trinity Coolrunner Rev B continues to flash no boot. Scratch on mobo possible cause?

[VisionMan]

Hi I have a slim Trinity here with me that will not boot into xell. I've did plenty of consoles before and I'm just a long time lurker.
This particular motherboard has a very distinct scratch that I think is the issue. This system was RGH'ed before, but I don't have the
orig nand dump with me, so I just dumped the hacked nand that's already on it and built an ecc from that. Now with the ecc flashed it will
not boot into xell, so I think the problem may be this scratched area on the motherboard. Here's a pic


TX Product(s) used: J-R Programmer, CR Rev B
Console Type: Trinity
NAND size: 16MB
Dashboard version: 16202
CB version: 9188
J-Runner log: Not relevant
Images of close-up soldering to motherboard:
(attach images to your post)

Was the console working before you started: No

Do you get a green debug light appear on the RGH chip every 4-5 seconds: Yes

How long is the light on for each time: About a second or 2

 

[ablegepu]

first off if you want help you have to fill out the template which can be found here.

http://team-xecuter.com/forums/showthread.php?t=96474

 

[AllyNerd]

Did it boot before u tried to rgh it? If not then this has nothing to do with rgh and you simply need your board fixed...

 

[morinzo]

break out the multi meter and scratch a little bit of the trace on each side of the scratch and see if you have continuity..

 

[ablegepu]

also where is the stby_clk wire that connects the B pad to R3B15? looks like it was never soldered into place...
or did you solder it to alt. point stby_clk?

 

[VisionMan]

Did it boot before u tried to rgh it? If not then this has nothing to do with rgh and you simply need your board fixed...

This particular system was already rgh'd when I got it. The previous owner stated that it stopped working one day out of the blue. After I opened it up and took a look at it, I noticed the distinct scratch and that cpu_rst wire somehow was broken loose. After further inspection, I also noticed that the pad for cpu_rst(FT4R2) was lifted. So I repaired it by soldering the bottom pad of C5R11 to the nearside part of the R4D4 resistor topside. And I soldered point D to this as well. I know this works because the coolrunner is blinking green and there is not red light on the front rf board.

break out the multi meter and scratch a little bit of the trace on each side of the scratch and see if you have continuity..

I will try this thanks for the tip.

also where is the stby_clk wire that connects the B pad to R3B15? looks like it was never soldered into place...
or did you solder it to alt. point stby_clk?

Yes stby_clk was already soldered to the alternate point, and it looks like the original stby_clk was never soldered to.

 

[ablegepu]

from what i could tell by a close-up of your 1 picture it seems there are multiple scratches (i mean a lot of scratches just in that picture) i would go over the whole board with about ten cotton swabs, some isopropyl alcohol, and a good magnifying glass because this board was rgh'd by an amateur...

also i noticed the wire on the B-pad (stby_clk) is really close to the a pad. it might not matter since it is not used but i would re-solder it anyways just to remove any possibility of a bridge.

 

[CptKlink]

Wow it looks like that motherboard was used for a scratching post for a cat LOL. And by looking at the first close up pic looking where it shows the number 9 and 10 for the J4C2 pinouts/pads its looks like something heavy was dropped on the board and almost broke right through it.

 

[ablegepu]

Wow it looks like that motherboard was used for a scratching post for a cat LOL. And by looking at the first close up pic looking where it shows the number 9 and 10 for the J4C2 pinouts/pads its looks like something heavy was dropped on the board and almost broke right through it.

Yeah i saw that but figured there's no way he saw the scratch before he saw that, so my brain said RAT sh*t & A little bit a PISS...

Hey that would explain the cat clawing at the motherboard!!! LMFAO!!!:facepalm:

 

[VisionMan]

Ok, I'm gonna redo the B pad and I'll go over the board with some isopropyl alcohol. Yes, it appears to be multiple scratches there to me too. When I received this console it was missing some of the screws and casing, which immediately made me believe that the previous owner tried to do some type of repair themselves. As for the part by the JC42 pinouts, that's just some of the adhesive off of the bottom of the coolrunner's sticky pad. The black part in the picture is actually the bottom of the coolrunner, if you look at it you can see exactly where there is some adhesive missing that corresponds with that spot on the motherboard. I was holding it up with one hand to get a good pic of the scratched area. I'll make sure to clean that up too.

 

[VisionMan]

Alright, here's a quick update. I cleaned up the scratched area and went over it with some flux and solder. I verified the repair with my multimeter, but now I've noticed another scratch at the bottom of the board which looks much worse(pic attached). I also have the cpu key and a pic of xell when it booted up, which shows 10 'f's under the cpu key.

So with that I've built a retail nand using the guide, but now I get a red light on the rf board when I turn it on, with seccondary error code 0100. It takes about 2 seconds for the green light to turn red, and the fan comes on also. This newly discovered scratch under the ram chip looks pretty hard to repair because the traces are so close together.

Could this scratch be causing my no boot issue? I've also heard that maybe the coolrunner could be bad because I don't hear the crystal making any noise when the system is trying to glitch. But that wouldn't explain the system still not booting with the retail nand that I created.

 

[gazcoigne]

there is no crystal in a rev B or required on a trinity please understand what your talking about before you repeat things your not fully aware of. the crystal noise happens in coronas where you have to use a crystal oscillator as there is no HANA point to use (B point)

AFAIK there is no 0100 code, there is 0110 which points to a RAM issue which is most likely due to the scratch on the last photo which is indeed on the RAM traces.

they can be repaired, but its a hard job and needs a steady hand.

 

[VisionMan]

Thanks for the heads up gazcoigne. I've been at this motherboard for the last couple of days, and here's what I came up with. After first doing the trace repair for the ram I noticed that the console booted, but there was no video cable plugged in. To verify this I checked to see if my other rgh console would boot to xell without a video cable attached, which in case it did. After that I could not get it to boot into xell again so I started to repair the ram traces again. In doing so I lifted up two traces.

I've tried repairing them using my fiberglass pen and revealing some of the trace a little further back, but I cannot find a wire thin enough to solder to the trace without it touching the other traces nearby. Someone please inform me what size gauge of wire would be suitable for these thin thin traces. I have also tried using a wire out of an Ethernet cable, and stripping the wire, untwisting it, and using one strand but even that was still too thick for these traces.

I have here a pic of the damage. If I can get a thin enough wire, wouldn't I be able to solder to those two via points? One more thing I'd like to know is, what is the use of these empty ram locations? After looking at an old xenon motherboard, I can see 8 ram chips, 4 on the top, and 4 on the bottom. If the slim doesn't use 8 ram chips then what is the spot for anyway?