[Gta04-owner] GTA04

[Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller]

Hi Neil,

Am 30.06.2012 um 13:13 schrieb Neil Jerram:

> Jose CHARTERS <jose.charters at free.fr> writes:
> 
>> Hello,
>> 
>> Sorry, I know that this list is in english. But I need to meet
>> somebody to help me. And I live in France.
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> Following Jose's email to this list, he sent his GTA04 for me to take a
> look at.  I then did some experiments with it, by swapping over some of
> the movable pieces (SD, SIM and battery) between my GTA04 and his.
> 
> The upshot of those experiments is that it looks like his GTA04 has a
> hardware problem, and will need returning to goldelico for fixing.
> First, however, we agreed to post everything that I've tried, and our
> observations, in case readers of this list can propose further
> experiments that it would be useful to do.
> 
> First, for complete context, here's a translation of Jose's original
> report:
> 
>> I bought a GTA04 and received it one month ago.  I installed Debian as
>> described at http://projects.goldelico.com/p/gta04-rootfs/, using
>> binaries from http://download.goldelico.com/gta04/.
>> 
>> It worked.  [Actually I'm not completely sure about the translation
>> here, because Jose wrote "Cela a fonctionné, nickel", and I don't know
>> what "nickel" means.]
>> 
>> Finding that Debian wasn't well-adapted to finger-usage and as a
>> phone, I wanted to install QtMoko instead.
>> 
>> But since then, my GTA04 doesn't turn on at all.  I've tried changing
>> the SD card, and reinstalling Debian, but still my GTA04 doesn't come
>> on.
>> 
>> I'm wondering if there is a hardware problem, but I don't have the
>> means to investigate this myself.
> 
> So Jose sent his GTA04 to me.  It may be relevant to note that his GTA04
> is an A4, whereas mine is an A3.
> 
> I tried the following experiments with it.
> 
> 1. I removed the battery and SD from his GTA04 (it didn't have a SIM),
> and instead put my own SD, SIM and battery instead his GTA04.
> 
> His GTA04 screen didn't come on when I inserted the battery, or when I

This is a small hardware difference between the A3 and A4 version. R209
was changed from 100k to 2.2k to keep the display backlight switched off
until the CPU actively switches it on. This is thought to help to bring up the
device with a completely discharged battery since it needs some seconds
after the system starts for the first time until the CPU actively switches on
the charging controller. So it is wise to keep power consumption low
in this time frame (approx. 30 seconds). And the display backlight is a
significant power consumer.

> next pressed the power button.  There was no LED light behind the power
> button.
> 
> I think that indicates some kind of hardware problem: possibly that the
> GTA04 isn't taking any power at all; possibly a more specific problem
> affecting both the screen and the LED.
> 
> 2. I then connected the phone's USB socket to my laptop.  With "tail -f
> /var/log/messages" on the laptop, I saw:
> 
> Jun 22 21:12:50 neil-laptop kernel: [43587.208071] usb 5-1: new full-speed USB device number 2 using uhci_hcd
> Jun 22 21:12:51 neil-laptop kernel: [43587.852071] usb 5-1: new full-speed USB device number 3 using uhci_hcd
> Jun 22 21:12:51 neil-laptop kernel: [43588.496083] usb 5-1: new full-speed USB device number 4 using uhci_hcd
> Jun 22 21:12:52 neil-laptop kernel: [43589.024079] usb 5-1: new full-speed USB device number 5 using uhci_hcd
> 
> So perhaps the phone is at least partly alive after all?

This means the device is waiting for loading the MLO over USB.
Can you try to find out the device enumeration? I.e. lsusb on the laptop.

> 
> If I then disconnect the USB cable, there are no new message.  If I
> reconnect, I see a new set of the 4 lines above.
> 
> If I disconnect the USB cable, take out the battery, SIM and SD cards,
> and then reconnect the USB cable, I see no new messages on the laptop.
> 
> Therefore it seems that seeing those 4 lines _was_ significant, and
> indicates that at least the USB port had some power.

And some code is running.

> 
> 3. I put Jose's SD card in my GTA04, together with my SIM card and
> battery.  My GTA04 comes on as usual when the battery is inserted.  I
> see the bootloader screens, then the screen for choosing between SD and
> NAND (where I chose SD), then the first run screens for SHR (which it
> appears that Jose put on his SD card, although he doesn't say that
> above).
> 
> Therefore there wasn't any problem with how Jose had prepared his SD
> card.
> 
> 4. I switched off my GTA04, took out my battery and replaced it with
> Jose's battery.  Now the GTA04 doesn't come on at all, indicating that
> Jose's battery was empty.

Well, if Linux isn't booting the device does not charge (we should
find a way to enable charging in U-Boot or even MLO).

> 
> This is obviously a separate problem, and one that I can easily fix
> (with the OpenMoko charger, my old GTA02 board and a paperclip :-)).  I
> only mention it in case the emptiness of the battery might throw any
> further light on his GTA04's apparent hardware problem.
> 
>   * * *
> 
> That's what I've done so far.  If anyone has ideas for further
> experiments that would be worth trying, please do let us know (and
> please keep Jose CC'd).

Two thought come to my mind:

a) there is one thing that may be different between both units: the contents
of the NAND flash, especially the U-Boot environment. Do you have a RS232
cable? Then, it is much easier to analyse this.

b) some SD/MMC cards may have contact problems and maybe slight
differences in the springs of the SD card reader may make some cards
work and others not work. Please take a look at this.

Please let me know further results,
Nikolaus