Trying to ID my SL65 chip

[chw73]

First up, first post here. Seems like a healthy, friendly atmosphere here, and a wealth of information too. Hope to stay a while...

Anyway, I'm trying to determine what chip is in my SL65. It was bought at the end of August this year, so it's fairly new. I opened it up last night, and what I think is the chip to look at, well it has a heatsink on it, and it appears that the heatsink is soldered to the mainboard (or maybe it goes through the mainboard, and is either bent or soldered on the other side), so obviously it's something I want to avoid removing if possible.

I did a search and found this wiki:

_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvercrest_SL65

Mine has a 6 pin EJTAG connection, so is it safe to assume that mine has an E1 chip?

If it is, then I can do RS232 updates - can I also do JTAG updates with the 6 pin?

Is there anything advantageous of using RS232 over JTAG, or vice versa?

[Yorks]

Hello chw73,

Welcome to the forum.

Certainly for the 'B1' chipset you should see a square chip on the main board in a pretty central location, with a very thin metal cover (heat sink!). You will need to remove this (I used my thumb nail), to positively identify the chip. You will then need to purchase some heat sink compound to re-attach the heat sink to the chip. The 'E1' is also reported as being patchable, although personally, I have no experience of this.

Regards,

Yorks.

[solunauk]

Originally Posted by Yorks

The 'E1' is also reported as being patchable, although personally, I have no experience of this.

There's a fairly long thread on the Comag SL65 section of Maiden's satboard (just google it) about patching the E1.

But first I'd want to establish for certain the ID of the chip. Take another look inside - are you sure there isn't another chip, like Yorks said, with the thinnest bit of metal just sitting on top held on by heat transfer compound? I used CPU thermal paste to re-attach mine, if you have any handy.

Good luck!

Sol

[chw73]

Cheers for the replies.

Yep, I'm pretty certain that I'm looking at the right one. The heatsink is a bit more complex than just a plate on top of the chip with some heatsink compound. I saw some pictures at a Spanish language forum (_http://foros.zackyfiles.com/showthread.php?t=525946_). It actually comes up on all sizes, and at two corners, two tabs go through the mainboard, and are bent on the other side to hold it tight down on the chip. This pic gives a good idea, bottom left, and top right are where it goes though the mainboard (_http://img184.imageshack.us/img184/1975/sl65lidllg6.jpg_). So you can imagine, I don't want to have to take the mainboard out if I don't have to, to be able to release the tabs on the back. Knowing my luck they'll break off, and I'll never get the sink back on again!

I was looking for maidens site on google but couldn't find it (I have it bookmarked at work though), but found this instead (_http://www.comag.smokiebum.com/board/viewtopic.php?t=585viewtopic.php?t=585_), looks promising. Better picture that the other one above.

Another thing I was wondering is if it's generally possible to download your current firmware, and reapply it if you don't want to use the patches? And can this be done on the RS232? I seem to recall reading that if the receiver becomes damaged, you'd have to use the JTAG connection to resussitate. Is this correct?

[ltmltm]

if you read the wiki page then you'll notice it says if the heat sink is soldered to the logic board then it's an E1

[solunauk]

Originally Posted by chw73

I was looking for maidens site on google but couldn't find it (I have it bookmarked at work though

Try satboard.uk.to/forum/showthread.php?t=519

Congrats on identifying your chip. If you don't manage to backup your firmware I think I have seen the original FW posted on sat-ulc, but I can't swear to it. All at your own risk etc...

Good luck!
Sol