Upgrading NOR Flash on a Vizio XWR100 router.

[stj]

Re: Upgrading NOR Flash on a Vizio XWR100 router.

the ram is dram, it uses a matrix - so less address lines than you think, but you still need extra ones for more data.
get the datasheet for the ram on the board.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Upgrading NOR Flash on a Vizio XWR100 router.

Okay. So the math I did was incorrect? Is that true for all DRAM? Any types of memory that math would work on?

Thanks Stj. Once I figure out how to get these OpenWRT packages compiled successfully, I'll start looking at the hardware updates.

[stj]

Re: Upgrading NOR Flash on a Vizio XWR100 router.

sram is addressed in a binary style, but dram is addressed by latching the address as rows and columns
the strobes are called RAS & CAS surprisingly.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Upgrading NOR Flash on a Vizio XWR100 router.

You got any links that explain this matrix stuff a bit better? I'm reading about it on sites like this:

http://www.primrosebank.net/computer.../dram/dram.htm

But I don't fully understand how the matrix works. I don't get how that allows to have less lines. I think other technology can use these matrixes too. I want to understand it.

[stj]

Re: Upgrading NOR Flash on a Vizio XWR100 router.

just grab a datasheet,

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Upgrading NOR Flash on a Vizio XWR100 router.

I got OpenWRT to successfully compile. There was an option in the menuconfig that said:

Select all target specific packages by default

I guess that enables everything, mostly as a module. But stuff like that gpsd program, there was no sense compiling that as a module. No one's going to hook a GPS transceiver up to this router. I would have liked it to compile successfully though, because if that's having problems, maybe other packages are having issues as well? I dunno.

Under Target Profiles, I made the Vizio XWR100 the default, instead of the Generic (all drivers). I noticed the Vizio XWR100 profile included the same packages that the default included.

kmod-usb-core kmod-usb-ohci kmod-usb2 kmod-ledtrig-usbdev

This unit supports a USB port. I wanted it so they could use the USB port as external storage. I also was hoping they could hook a keyboard a mouse up to it. So I changed it so the Vizio XWR100 profile included these packages:

kmod-usb-core kmod-usb2 kmod-usb-ohci kmod-user-hid kmod-usb-storage kmod-usb-storage-extras kmod-ledtrig-usbdev

I believe the only difference is the kmod-user-hid kmod-usb-storage kmod-usb-storage-extras stuff.


I noticed there's a few binary images that were created. To flash from stock to OpenWRT, I'm supposed to use the openwrt-ar71xx-generic-xwr100-squashfs-factory.bin firmware image. That should be recognized directly by the router.

I see stuff like this as well though:

file *.bin
openwrt-ar71xx-generic-uImage-gzip.bin:           u-boot legacy uImage, MIPS OpenWrt Linux-4.4.14, Linux/MIPS, OS Kernel Image (gzip), 1895725 bytes, Sun Jul 16 11:27:54 2017, Load Address: 0x80060000, Entry Point: 0x80060000, Header CRC: 0x926D9A78, Data CRC: 0xFC9B8DC3
openwrt-ar71xx-generic-uImage-lzma.bin:           u-boot legacy uImage, MIPS OpenWrt Linux-4.4.14, Linux/MIPS, OS Kernel Image (lzma), 1338585 bytes, Sun Jul 16 11:27:54 2017, Load Address: 0x80060000, Entry Point: 0x80060000, Header CRC: 0x6BBC98B4, Data CRC: 0xF29006CB
openwrt-ar71xx-generic-vmlinux.bin:             data
openwrt-ar71xx-generic-xwr100-squashfs-factory.bin:     data
openwrt-ar71xx-generic-xwr100-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin:   u-boot legacy uImage, MIPS OpenWrt Linux-4.4.14, Linux/MIPS, OS Kernel Image (lzma), 1338725 bytes, Sun Jul 16 11:27:54 2017, Load Address: 0x80060000, Entry Point: 0x80060000, Header CRC: 0x9730988E, Data CRC: 0xFBBDF1D0
openwrt-ar71xx-generic-xwr100-tftp-rootfs.squash.bin:    Squashfs filesystem, little endian, version 4.0, 2033522 bytes, 709 inodes, blocksize: 262144 bytes, created: Sun Jul 16 11:27:54 2017
openwrt-ar71xx-generic-xwr100-tftp-vmlinux.lzma.uImage.bin: u-boot legacy uImage, MIPS OpenWrt Linux-4.4.14, Linux/MIPS, OS Kernel Image (lzma), 1338725 bytes, Sun Jul 16 11:27:54 2017, Load Address: 0x80060000, Entry Point: 0x80060000, Header CRC: 0x9730988E, Data CRC: 0xFBBDF1D0

I see u-boot legacy uImage binary files, which makes me think the bootloader will be getting updated. What do you guys think?

Here's the size of the various .bin files.

-rw-r--r-- 1 spork users 1.9M Aug 10 11:11 openwrt-ar71xx-generic-uImage-gzip.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 spork users 1.3M Aug 10 11:11 openwrt-ar71xx-generic-uImage-lzma.bin
-rwxr-xr-x 1 spork users 4.1M Aug 10 11:11 openwrt-ar71xx-generic-vmlinux.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 spork users 3.3M Aug 10 11:11 openwrt-ar71xx-generic-xwr100-squashfs-factory.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 spork users 3.4M Aug 10 11:11 openwrt-ar71xx-generic-xwr100-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 spork users 2.1M Aug 10 11:11 openwrt-ar71xx-generic-xwr100-tftp-rootfs.squash.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 spork users 1.3M Aug 10 11:11 openwrt-ar71xx-generic-xwr100-tftp-vmlinux.lzma.uImage.bin

When my wife comes home, I'll try upgrading the firmware and see what happens. Any idea how I can currently backup the entire flash that's on there now? Could I do that with the serial port somehow? Not just the firmware, but the calibration data, the bootloader, everything. Thanks!!!!!