E5810B does not complete bootup - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / repair

author: Clueless
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2023, 01:42:39 am
content: Hi all,I have an E5810B ethernet-GPIB bridge that is not functional. With connection to the internal serial port I can see that it is partly alive. It gets this far:ÿÀCCCCCCCCMyreka Tornado InitI2C: readyDRAM: 256 MiBNAND: 128 MiBMMC: OMAP SD/MMC: 0It doesn't seem to be responsive to any keys. Any thoughts ?

author: jchw4
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2023, 09:44:55 am
content: Could you provide any photos?

author: Clueless
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: February 13, 2023, 06:25:26 am
content: There's no other output than what I copied and pasted. I might add that on startup, it first illuminates the power, then USB, RS232 and fault, then all the LEDs and the display goes to all solid-block characters. And that's the end of it. If an ethernet cable is connected, the ethernet PHY establishes a link. That might not mean anything other than that the PHY is working and has power.Let me know what pictures I could post if that would be helpful.

author: Robert_the_Bob
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: March 01, 2023, 10:36:41 am
content: Hi All...I had two such gateways that were as unresponsive as you described...I could get both back to life by taking inspiration from another place inside this blog (JiriB post)...https://www.eevblog.com/forum/repair/e5810b-bricked/Below is the method I used to get/extract/prepare the two files needed to fix them ( MLO_XMODEM.bin and u-boot_YMODEM.bin )Download the latest E5810B firmware from Keysighthttps://www.keysight.com/us/en/lib/software-detail/instrument-firmware-software/e5810b-langpibusb-gateway-firmware-2426653.htmlUnzip the received B-01-07.zip, locate & copy the file e5810_B_latest_firmware.hex to your /home/user(user being of course your username)Sudo suCheck if you have binwalk installed by just typing binwalkIf not found, then apt install binwalkbinwalk -e e5810_B_latest_firmware.hexThis should have created a folder _e5810_B_latest_firmware.hex.extractedGo inside this directory cd _e5810_B_latest_firmware.hex.extractedls -l You should see a file called 4A8Bbinwalk -e 4A8BThis should have created a folder _4A8B.extractedGo inside this directory cd _4A8B.extractedMLO.hex and u-boot.hex are there: copy them to your /home/usercp MLO.hex /home/user and cp u-boot.hex /home/userGo back to your /home/user/ directorycd /home/userProcess both files (As per JiriB procedure) respectively with:dd if=MLO.hex skip=579 count=68240 bs=1 of=MLO_XMODEM.binanddd if=u-boot.hex skip=123 count=264696 bs=1 of=u-boot_YMODEM.binEt voilà: you should now have the files required to go ahead with the remaining of JiriB procedure...Attached is the E5810B UART0 Pinout (Baud Rate = 115200)Best Regards...

author: Clueless
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2023, 04:12:11 pm
content: I saw that post by Jiri; it was a real tour de force in repair of a bricked Linux system. Sadly I could not do the same since I didn't have a working serial console. Specifically, the hardware worked and showed boot log messages but when it came to the all LEDs on state, it became unresponsive. It may have been possible to figure out how to access a JTAG or something but at that point I just sent it to Keysight. They have an annual service contract on these for around $40/year. Given the number of reports on units like this, it seems like that could be a good idea.