LG xboom PN5 stuck in demo mode(?). Looking for retail firmware.

[FlashFireSix]

I took an ebay gamble on an LG xboom pn5 speaker which was listed as having battery issues (turning on then off).

I got it earlier today and concluded it's in a demo mode because of the following:

• When it's plugged in, it'll turn on and the power button will not turn it off
• Battery is healthy, reading 4.2v and not swollen, charges according to the xboom app
• the play/pause and volume buttons don't work
• You can pair to it and play music fine, as long as it's connected to power
• The bluetooth connection is disconnected after 5 seconds of audio pausing
• The DTS setting is defaulted to on, and if you play music for 10 minutes or so with it disabled (I didn't time it) it'll switch back on

I was wondering if anybody had a dump of the retail firmware for this device?


Thanks!

[mariusmotea]

Hi!

I have the same problem, i purchase it from ebay, same behaviour. Did you manage to find a solution?

[FlashFireSix]

Hi!

I have the same problem, i purchase it from ebay, same behaviour. Did you manage to find a solution?

Hello, no I did not. I have ordered a CH341A flasher to try and dump the firmware from the demo unit and see what I can find. I'm hoping the retail and demo firmware are the same just with a flag for "demo mode" or something. If I get a working copy I will post it here.

[FlashFireSix]

So a surprising update to this. My CH341A flasher arrived and I had zero luck trying to read the chip using the clip. In the end I desoldered it and tried reading it that way which still resulted in nothing.

In the end I gave up and put the chip on the board and powered it on, but this time it worked completely fine! It's out of demo mode now and will happily run off battery, automatically pair with my phone and all of the buttons work! The only catch is it still won't update with the LG XBOOM app.

My theory is that I somehow damaged the chip or did not solder it completely so it's no longer connected on all the pins (I was using a waaay to large iron and had ran out of flux). In another thread on this forum somebody mentioned that they erased the chip on an LG PN7 which had the same result. I don't know nearly enough about electronics (clearly) to know for sure, but I'm guessing there is retail firmware stored elsewhere on the board and the demo firmware lives in this chip, so with it out of the question it boots from the retail firmware.

Either way, if you don't want to buy a second speaker and try dumping/flashing it, just try removing the firmware chip from the board and it may just magically work.