Dell Inspiron 7415 no power, burnt CYPD4126

[MicroSMD Lab]

Hi, the laptop has USB C charging. The board number is "Watchmen 203000-1". On visual inspection I noticed U7201 (CYPD4126) had a burn mark. I ordered a replacement, soldered it on and the charger is staying at 5.08V 0.02A. Looking at the datasheet for CYPD4126 it seems as though it may need firmware to work properly, I've read that the CD3217 used in macbooks should come from donor boards of the same model, maybe the same applies here?. Pins 12, 31,32 and 33 of the CYPD4126 are shorted.
Appreciate any help with troubleshooting this laptop, TIA

[rediii]

Re: Dell Inspiron 7415 no power, burnt CYPD4126

the controller seems to have 128 kb flash rom inside, right. and i'm pretty sure it's flashed (https://www.infineon.com/cms/en/prod...pd4126-40lqxi/). where did you order the replacement. there are a numerous amount of fake chips on the market. the pins are still shorted with the new ic?

schematics attached

[MicroSMD Lab]

Re: Dell Inspiron 7415 no power, burnt CYPD4126

Thanks for the assistance, so you're saying that the chip may be preflashed by the manufacturer?
I ordered from Mouser and there's no short with the new chip… I could have worded that better, sorry.

[rediii]

Re: Dell Inspiron 7415 no power, burnt CYPD4126

Thanks for the assistance, so you’re saying that the chip may be preflashed by the manufacturer?
I ordered from Mouser and there’s no short with the new chip… I could have worded that better, sorry.

there are flash tools present for this ic, but i can't say if it is really necessary to programme the chip... did you checked all the rails up and downstream? check diodes, resistors and (all mosfets) on the charger and vbus side. use a known good or original charger!

[mon2]

Re: Dell Inspiron 7415 no power, burnt CYPD4126

This controller (CCG4 series) will require firmware that is developed by Dell to negotiate the power delivery contracts with the mating power adapter (PDOs).

Not clear if the firmware will be flashed by the logic board or using external tools over I2C or CCx lines.

Suggest for you to open a public post on the Infineon forums under the proper category. Ask the same question.

Update this thread as you progress. They are very responsive.

[MicroSMD Lab]

Re: Dell Inspiron 7415 no power, burnt CYPD4126

Thanks mon2, I'll do as you suggested.

[MicroSMD Lab]

Re: Dell Inspiron 7415 no power, burnt CYPD4126

This is the reply from Infineon:
"Re: CYPD4126 replacement on Dell Inspiron 7415
Hello,

yes, the PD controller needs FW to handle PD&data communications. We suggest you to get contact with DELL to get the specific FW/package for that, since it may different along with different vendors and platforms."

[mon2]

Re: Dell Inspiron 7415 no power, burnt CYPD4126

Very good. Ironically while searching for these keywords, came across a LinkedIn profile for a staff member at Dell who states that he worked on such firmware.

I believe the keywords I used were "Cypd4126 Dell" or the same but with "firmware" in the search.

Perhaps worthwhile to ping the developer for guidance.

As noted earlier, the logic board may sideload this firmware during a reflash of the main bios.

The catch-22 is that your external power adapter cannot be used to power the logic board since the firmware is missing. The default power output will be 5 volts in this case. Likely not enough to boot the board.

Otherwise, Cypress / Infineon does sell tools and kits that feature the programming hardware to flash the firmware onto this CCG4 device.

See if Dell is able to link the download for this firmware or is that only for the PCBA process?

Keep updating this thread. It is an interesting topic we all need to learn from.

[reformatt]

Re: Dell Inspiron 7415 no power, burnt CYPD4126

@mon2, you are the eternal optimist. Will be floored if this info is offered by Dell.

[MicroSMD Lab]

Re: Dell Inspiron 7415 no power, burnt CYPD4126

@reformatt I will be floored too...lol. @mon2 I will do as you suggested because it is an interesting topic and would definitely guide future repairs. Thanks for all your input so far guys!

[mon2]

Re: Dell Inspiron 7415 no power, burnt CYPD4126

Lol. There is a bit of history here. Our company did the first PCIe add-on host adapter design. Back then, we had limited platforms to test against. Dell was one of them claiming to be compatible to the PCIe spec. Well, their chassis could not detect our adapter. Being persistent and with a phone call after phone call I was patched through to the bios developer team. Spoke to an incredibly sharp developer who could not believe we had a working adapter. He stated the support would follow if he was sampled the board. Next day he had our board in the US. The day after we had a working bios upgrade. The same day, their legal team phoned and stated they recorded our conversation. They implied that all talks are to be confidential else we would be sued. They claimed our chat could influence their stock price. We only wanted a resolution to this enumeration fault of their bios. Nothing more. Similar case with HP but HP would support the enumeration moving forward only. Fast forward, now we have been OEM suppliers for many years to Dell, HP, TI and others. Hated Dell when they would undercut our local computer box sales but love them now for using our products. I think with some persistence, we should be able to get the files we need.

Not sure if the CCG4 firmware is protected but perhaps it could be extracted from a working donor board?

Perhaps someone is selling the controller pre-flashed?

My brother flogs me with this but he believes you get ahead with more honey and being diplomatic. Been there and these days get more done with a sharp tongue which is often the truth and a wake up call to the upper management as we did with Dell and HP.

PS: have some CCG4 tools in the building but the drunk driver who crashed our building and my lab may have crushed the dev kits. Will hunt around the many boxes.

[reformatt]

Re: Dell Inspiron 7415 no power, burnt CYPD4126

I asked Fujitsu a while back for some details regarding remote control of focus in one of their camera's. This was all external and all I wanted to know if it was like a GPI trigger or voltage enabled. I was told (albeit politely) to f--k off basically.

Not the like the old days. When I used to fix SP Betacams with their appalling PAL decoder, we actually had the Sony engineer who designed it front up at the TV station I worked at. True story. Now you cannot get a hold of anyone and it's all behind an iron curtain.

[mcplslg123]

Re: Dell Inspiron 7415 no power, burnt CYPD4126

Ironical that just for lack of firmaware a device goes to junk. These new age designs has made laptop repair as a business more difficult by the day and less profitable with each passing year.

[rediii]

Re: Dell Inspiron 7415 no power, burnt CYPD4126

Ironical that just for lack of firmaware a device goes to junk. These new age designs has made laptop repair as a business more difficult by the day and less profitable with each passing year.

last resort is to buy a faulty spare board with severe damage for some bucks and hope this chip is fine xD. but in most cases it‘s not worth the money… except it‘s for macbooks, because there are less different models on the market and the chip redundancy is quiet high between the devices.

[mcplslg123]

Re: Dell Inspiron 7415 no power, burnt CYPD4126

last resort is to buy a faulty spare board with severe damage for some bucks and hope this chip is fine xD. but in most cases it‘s not worth the money… except it‘s for macbooks, because there are less different models on the market and the chip redundancy is quiet high between the devices.

Getting a scrap board online is not available in many countries.

[mon2]

Re: Dell Inspiron 7415 no power, burnt CYPD4126

I think that there is some hope for this case.

Each cypd4126 (CCG4) has a factory rom which acts like a bootloader.

Using an I2C bus master or UART interface, you can reflash the firmware. From assorted searches, could not locate any mention of security bits that would prevent the reading of the flash based firmware.

Have read in cypress notes, that you can read back the firmware from a programmed device for archive purposes.

So here are some thoughts:

1) if you have access to a pre-flashed CCG4 controller, you could use the free download from Cypress / Infineon and their usb to I2C dongle (so the tool can respect the API calls made by their software tools). Then read / write / erase the flash based firmware. This implies you have access to a donor board. This method should work on any make or brand of logic boards that use this power delivery controller.

2) in tracing the schematic of this logic board, there are a few I2C lines on the CCG4. One pair reaches the PCH. It is very possible that the PCH is the bus master. That is, you should attempt to solder in a fresh CCG4 IC onboard. By default the firmware will be absent so the external adapter will not be able to switch to 20v. There are small paddle boards that could be used to force out this power delivery contract but to be safe, we want this fresh CCG4 to negotiate the contract. Like a union boss.

Power the board with a charged battery.

Then perform a bios upgrade. This process may very well inject the CCG4 firmware over the I2C interface. There are links on the internet that mention CCG4 management drivers for Dell. In this case, the PCH is acting like the Cypress usb to I2C dongle but is all onboard.

After the bios upgrade, test again and update this thread with your results.

[MicroSMD Lab]

Re: Dell Inspiron 7415 no power, burnt CYPD4126

@mon2, thanks again. I'm not anywhere near as knowledgeable as you but I'll do the necessary research based on your guidance. I will most likely be purchasing a replacement board so I will be in a position to do what you are suggesting... once I get a handle of what you are saying of course... lol.
One question though... I see you mentioned UART, what additional hardware would I need?

[mon2]

Re: Dell Inspiron 7415 no power, burnt CYPD4126

In your first post, you mentioned that the cypd4126 was replaced with a fresh one (factory blank).

Do confirm that the part is properly soldered. Apply ample flux and make it swim and settle naturally onto the pcb pads. Low air pressure so that you do not lose any nearby parts.

Next, you must have a battery to power this board with enough charge to allow for the bios upgrade.

External power adapter will not work yet since the firmware is missing from the virgin blank controller IC.

Download the bios files on another PC to prepare for the upgrade. Then power this logic board and enter the bios upgrade procedure and reflash this logic board.

What we are hoping is that the reflash process will also inject the latest firmware onto this currently blank cypd4126 using the I2C bus that is present between the PCH and this IC.

Back to your other question, the data sheet for this CCG4 mentions that the factory rom bootloader offers UART and I2C methods to work with the flash regions of this device. They use I2C so we want to do the same.

My suggestion is to test the above process. If it does not work, then consider to purchase a compatible usb to I2C dongle bridge for the same idea. Will help you locate the lowest cost option. The usb to I2C tool is likely onboard one of their lower cost evb kits for the CCGx devices. We must use a tool that is supported by their tool chain. Only then will their software tool detect and support the dongle to allow you to dump out the firmware from a working board. The idea is then to extract the firmware, archive it and then upload it to the virgin blank controller IC. All using their free tools you can download from their website. Again, from my internet searches so far, no mention of flash security on this Cortex M0+ processor inside the CCG4 IC.

I believe to have the same tools at our destroyed lab but not sure if it was nuked by the drunk driver of our building. Still work in progress.

[MicroSMD Lab]

Re: Dell Inspiron 7415 no power, burnt CYPD4126

@mon2 Sorry for not responding sooner, I'm still trying to figure out how to charge the battery. As soon as I do, I'll try what you suggested and post the results. I did double check the soldering and it's all good.

[mon2]

Re: Dell Inspiron 7415 no power, burnt CYPD4126

Very good. Personally have not done it with a lab power supply but you can check youtube videos on this topic.

We purchased an expensive tool out of Romania that worked well for the few times we used it.

Often, when you purchase a spare battery - there is some pre-charge on it. Best to have a system that can replenish the charge as required.