Hardware question to AZBox Premium

[4@@@@]

Does anybody know what kind of component the QF3 is? It is near the power cable of the sata connector. I have to replace it. This was burned by a wrong connection of the serial console cable.
So be warned when connecting - check it two or three times before powering up.

What isn't working now:
- internal HDD and usb device not recognized
- tuner is not working

Box is booting normal, menu is working but no picture from tuner.

Any hint apreciated. :respect-060:

[PsiDOC]

After a little detective work I have found transistor QF3 is marked TR4L. This according to different sources and (allegedly) AZBox themselves translates to a NTR4101P P-Channel Mosfet 20v 3.2A SOT-23 package
Some have had success using a more readily available replacement Mosfet IRLML6402 however they are suffering a voltage drop down to 4.5 volts with a HDD connected even though the IRLML6402 is rated for a higher current.

Please note: All the information above was scraped off the net so whilst it makes sense I am not responsible if it's wrong in any way.

HTH.
Psi

**Edit** The NTR4101P is available from the 2 leading corporate electronics components suppliers in the UK for about 1 euro each however the postage even to me in the UK is approx 16 euro. So they are available quite readily, just may cost you more to ship than buy!

[arcibald]

Check-up RS Components UK ... Product code No. 6889152P ...

I bought ten pieces including tax & shipping to less than 15 Euro ... ;)

P.S. It is controlled by a near transistor (Power Up / Stand-by) and as i remember, as well power supplies to HDD and DOM, also power supplies to ic-stabilizer 3.3 V near the CPU / UART0.

Regards

Arci

[happyhammer]

This was burned by a wrong connection of the serial console cable.
So be warned when connecting - check it two or three times before powering up.

What isn't working now:
- internal HDD and usb device not recognized
- tuner is not working


By any chance was your serial console port defective as well? i ask because my serial port is only transmitting info out of the box, i cant communicate to it ( and hence cant CRTL-C to YAMON prompt) and i may have done this by connecting uo the serial port incorrectly which is what you are saying you did..

[4@@@@]

@PsiDOC and Arcibald: Thanks for the hints. I'll check if I get them here in central Europe.
DOM is still working - I think/hope that this QF3 was the 'fuse' and all other components are OK. We will see.

@happyhammer: If you can see characters on teh serial connector (I advice to use putty), it is nothing defect - you will ahve problems with your connector usb2serial or baudrate.
My connection worked for about two month. I was on the way to make it permanent to make a hole in the cover of spare space of the second tuner. But I was not concentrated while connecting - bad, bad. No I can't connect - putty resting black - no characters nothing.

[PsiDOC]

4@@@@ The supplier Arcibald mentioned is one of the ones I was referring to in my edit of the 2 major corporate suppliers in the UK having them in stock. I didn't state the supplier as I was afraid of breaking the rules.
They have them in stock according to their website and they do have an international business as I used to get stuff shipped from them to the middle east very regularly.
If you need the website address P.M. me although google search the highlighted name in in Arcibald's post and it'll bring you straight to them.

Psi

[4@@@@]

Got it - thanks!

[happyhammer]

@happyhammer: If you can see characters on teh serial connector (I advice to use putty), it is nothing defect - you will ahve problems with your connector usb2serial or baudrate.


thx, i am using Putty, but i have normal outout from serial, i can see it boot as far as setting up the ethernet interface, and then it hangs.however, i cannot enter CTL-C when requested to get to a YAMON prompt, so the serial communication from PC to AZBOX is not working, Serial communication FROM azboz to PC is NOT working.

The serial cable works with another box, so its not that.

Does anyone know if the tracks from the four pin serial header go directly to the SMP8634 or to another chip first?
(i know the TX and RX go to a couple of resistors first)

[4@@@@]

I replaces the mentioned Mosfet and my AZBox premium is working again.
Thank's to all with the good hints.

[arcibald]

Very good ...

So you are operational again for your future experiments on the boot ... ;)

Any news on the possibility kernel fs?

Regards

Arci

[4@@@@]

@arcibald: No at the moment no news - I have contact to a real good man who has made some tests with kexec. Maybe I can help him to get it working or even do some tests for him.

At the moment it will be good, if we would have some source of the modules to get 'our' image working - we are very eager of the svn.

[SPF]

@4@@@@

I am having similar problems to yours before you replaced the mosfet. I had problems installing E2 - ithink because I stupidly took the USB drive out too early. I also connected the serial cable wrongly because it was wired differently in the drawing that I was referring to.

In my case the serial cable still works when connected correctly and I can get a log from Putty ok. However, the USB ports and the SATA drive are no longer active. I have also removed the DOM and replaced it with an IDE HDD to see if that made a difference. I cannot get past the Upgrade screen with either the DOM or the IDE HDD in place. I think that this is because the USB ports are not active rather than a fault with the DOM or the HDD.

Can I ask you how you confirmed that the mosfet was faulty. I would like to do that before I consider replacing it. I have some basic soldering skills but I have never soldered anything as small as this and have never done surface mount soldering before. I would welcome any advice you can give me on this.

Thanks
Stephen

[4@@@@]

@SPF: In my case usb and hdd and serial was not working. I replaced the mosfet then and all is working fine now. Soldering was very tricky and I needed a loupe to check.
I would first check if you have 5v at the problem connector or not. Maybe someone can tell you the voltage you need on the ends of the mosfet. I can check it tomorrow if nobody could.
Are you able to interrupt with the serial putty connection the yamon? Can you boot from kernel? Can you login with telnet to the box?
What do you mean exactly with "I cannot get past the Upgrade screen" - it will not stop to choose?

[PsiDOC]

Glad you got it working mate. :woohoo-022:

Psi

[SPF]

@4@@@@

I think the tricky soldering may defeat me. That's why I'd like to find a way to prove that the mosfet is faulty. I should be able to get hold of the part ok as I work just along the road from an RS Components depot.

I can interrupt the serial connection in yamon. I cannot telnet or use filezilla to acces the box. I cannot connect with the IP address or through tftp either.

When I boot the box it ends up displaying the 'Upgrade' screen on my TV. I formatted the application area and rebooted. The 'Upgrade' screen appears again. When I select '1. USB' it asks me to 'Please insert USB storage' even though a freshly formatted USB drive with the firmware patch.bin file is in the USB port. I have tried several USB drives - that have all worked previously in the box - and I have tried both ports. I have tried this procedure with the original DOM and with 2 different HDD units as replacements for the DOM.

If I get the 'Upgrade' screen is that another factor that is different from your problem - as well as me being able to use the serial cable?

How do you boot from the kernel? Does this require a tftp connection?

Thanks for your help with this.
Stephen

[4@@@@]

@SPF: Check the voltage on the singe pin side of QF3 - I have 4.97 V there. If you have not, the replacement will be the right thing. You can alos check the resistance between the pins of the mosfet if it is very low it is broken - test it without power!!

In my case I was able to boot the box without problem from DOM but no usb oder HDD was recognized. I was not able to use serial port (it also needs 5V to work and it was taken from the mainboard; I haven't tryed to use external voltage.) Also check the voltage of the RS232 pins. I was also able to use setxenv with telnet so set bootargs im yamon.

In you case the problem is, that you haven't a bootable image on the DOM. And it will be a problem to fix without usb or HDD or tftp.

I don't know if it is possible to put a working DOM in the box to get it up or even to be able to telnet to it.

But without 5V you will have to fix the mosfet.

[SPF]

@4@@@@
Sorry I've not got back to you until now - I've not been near the box until today.

I checked the voltage on QF3. There was 2.2V on the single pin and 2.2V on one of the other pins. There was 4.99V on the other pin. I have ordered a couple of replacement mosfets and I will try to replace the faulty one. It looks a very tricky job!

I thought I would try something else while waiting for the mosfets to be delivered. I ran a wire from the red 5V supply on the white 15-pin connector block at the front of the motherboard to the red-wired pin on the small USB circuit board at the front of the box and rebooted.

The LED on the flash drive lit up and the box seemed to search for, but not recognise that there was a patch.bin file on the drive. I tried this a few times with the same results.

I then tried the USB port on the back panel and to my surprise it recognised the patch and loaded it. After rebooting, the box got stuck on CHECKING. I tried rebooting a few time with the same results.

I then disconnected the wire that I had connected and rebooted. To my astonishment, THE BOX CAME TO LIFE!

After updating the settings I now have access through Filezilla and telnet. I am still using an IDE HDD instead of the original DOM. But I have no access to my internal SATA drive or the TV Tuner. ( I presume that this is due to the blown mosfet?) I have tried the tuner in the other slot but it does not work there either.

I am not sure if I can make any more progress without the mosfet but I'll keep searching for ideas and solutions anyway.

Thanks again for your help with this.
Stephen

[4@@@@]

No worries! Very strange. I haven't checked the oterh pins of the mosfet. Maybe yours is semi blown. You can try to find the 5V pins of you sata connector and the DOM and check the voltage.
In my case I saw the smoke of the blowing mosfet - it was really killed after.

[Mario Eduardo]

Good morning friends of the forum
I'm from Brazil and have the same problem with the Qf3 and can not find here. I need help from you. If someone can provide me thank you very much. Thank you all.
Mario-Campinas-São Paulo - Brazil

[pingflood]

I'm from Brazil and have the same problem with the Qf3 and can not find here.

Hi Mario. Try a contact with colvero . com, I think he can solve your problem in Brazil.

Reagrds

[Smudger]

Hi guy's sorry to reserect this old message I changed my QF3 about 2 month ago and ever since I can't comunicate with my HDD it has power as I can here it spining and I have 5v anyideas as to what else could need changing. the hdd works in a external usb any ideas what else I could have blown when I reversed my dom. :(. As I say I've got everything working but not the HDD.

Thanks

[4@@@@]

Maybe you can check the power on each connector when the HDD is in a working place. Then check every connector in the AZBox.
I could not help more but as a information - my tuner only work without diseq for about a month. It looks that there is a slow death as a reaction of my wrong connection. I also have no idea where the problem could be.

[jimmyjj]

anyone who bought too many of the parts of them got any left over ,,, rs comp out of stock

jimmy

[4@@@@]

Does anyone have an idea where the power for diseq on tuner is set or should be. I can't tune to channels on the AB on my multiswitch - and I have a new tuner but it doesn't work anymore. So the problem must be a power problem on this part like I had with hdd et.al. AA is working normal.

[arcibald]

Does anyone have an idea where the power for diseq on tuner is set or should be. I can't tune to channels on the AB on my multiswitch - and I have a new tuner but it doesn't work anymore. So the problem must be a power problem on this part like I had with hdd et.al. AA is working normal.

Hi ... 4@@@@

For Elite & PremiumHD tuner module ...

The only power circuit (13/18V for select polarity on LNB) is made ​​by ST LNBP20A (PowerSo-20 IC LNB SUPPLY AND CONTROL VOLTAGE REGULATOR). This chip is mounted directly on each DVB-S2 module tuner and provides also protection (short circuit or max Io) on both LNB line output (A or B) of the tuner capacity ...

AZBox tuner module have only one LNBA IN & other Line OUT "Master" for Loop Through, that it's routed on LNBA input (controlled with MI input pin with D3 diode inversion protection) on standby mode ...

and has an internal oscillator for generate a tone bursts (22 kHz square wave) and modulation that can be controlled from ENT pin input (start/stop oscillator) ... and from EXTM pin input (External analogic modulation) ... for designers who want to implement the DiSEqC protocols.

This is a photo of the DVB-S2 tuner module:

http://img839.imageshack.us/img839/38/tunerdvbs2.th.jpg (http://img839.imageshack.us/i/tunerdvbs2.jpg/) http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/3949/lnbp20advbs2.th.jpg (http://img406.imageshack.us/i/lnbp20advbs2.jpg/)

This is datasheet of ST-IC LNBP20A: 51441

So you have to check ... if the EXTM pin input is used ... or ... if the module DNBU24512ICC is capable of generate directly DiSEqC signal on LNB output (controlled by CPU with his I2C data-bus) ... for find the problem !

I do not see other possibilities !

Ciao ...

[4@@@@]

Hi arcibald

Thank you very much. I have to check this. I'm using this kind of monoblockl (http://www.******-shop.de/lnb-monoblock/maximum-pro-line-p-24-6-monoblock-quad-01-db.html). At the moment I'm on holliday but I'll check it in a week.

[4@@@@]

One question occured to me, where is the power entry for the tuner modul and how high is it. Are there more than one entry to the tuner?

Because I bought a new second tuner and it has the same effect with not being able to tune diseqc AB there must be a problem on the main board.

[4@@@@]

Strange things happened - I upgraded to SPaze 2.1 and now the tuner is working normal. There was a problem with naming in astra but I can't tell if this was my problem.