Need Help Burning A Flash ROM

[Captain Obvious]

I'm looking to read, modify, and then reburn a flash ROM for a non-Z application. It's car related, but just not a Z. I apologize for asking this here, but you guys are the best.

Anyone have a programmer compatible with an AMD part number AM29F400BB?

It's a 32 Meg part and has 44 pins. It's a surface mount part, but I've got a 44 pin SMT to through hole adapter socket that would fit into a programmer that accepts 44 pin parts.

Anyone got any ideas?

[Chickenman]

Must be a German car with a Bosch  ECU. ME5.X ?  The 44 Pin programmers are available. Just harder to find. BTW. I have about 6 of those chips sitting in my desk drawer vright now. Trying to replec the No Flashable Eprom on my Audi ME5.3 ECU with a flashable one. Gave up some time ago when I bought my 280Z. 

 

the guys at Nefmoto.com may be able to help you. 

 

[Captain Obvious]

Good call. Not Bosch, but Siemens. It's not a German car, but it's got a German ECU.

I'm not a big player in this realm and I've never heard of Nefmoto. I'll do a little digging there.

I'm really hoping that one of the tuner guys that hangs out here on ClassicZ has a programmer that can do a 29F400.

I tried it on an old Needhams programmer that claimed to be able to do this part, but I couldn't get it to work. Not sure what the problem was, but I didn't have a lot of faith in the system. The control lines didn't seem to be doing what they were supposed to be doing and it seemed like a programmer problem.

Thanks for the input!

[Chickenman]

I just bought this. Will supposedly  work with 29F200, 29F400, and 29F800 chips and many others.:

https://vod.ebay.com/vod/FetchOrderDetails?transid=1864721395002&itemid=122016189087&qu=1&ul_noapp=true

[Captain Obvious]

Well that's certainly cheap enough. If that really works for the 29F400, I'd' spend the fifty bucks to buy one of those.

You wouldn't happen to have any 29F400's laying around to test with, would you?  

[Chickenman]

I've only got 29F200BB 70ns. I ordered a strip of 5 from China and they cost me about $1.00 each.  I ordered the Deluxe ones 70ns  .

I think you want a minimum speed of 70ns or less.

 E-bay links:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=AMD+AM29F400BB&_sop=15

Edited November 6, 2017 by Chickenman

[Chickenman]

Trying to hack my spare G**C 440cc  chipped ECU and  pull the . Bin file off it. Buddy was trying to read it on his burner. He got clumsy and broke three pins off the chip. Trying to do some really delicate surgery and recover data. Then I can burn a fresh chip. 

Edited November 6, 2017 by Chickenman

[Captain Obvious]

Well if that burner works for your 29F200, I suspect it would work fine for my 29F400. Please keep me posted?

And good luck with the microsurgery on the surface mount package. I've been in that situation as well and am pretty good with establishing some sort of temporary mitigation. If you get really desperate, you can grind off some of the plastic case to expose more of the leadframe to give yourself more metal to solder to. It only has to work once.

[Chickenman]

It will be a while before it gets here. Literally slow boar from China. Yeah, I'm going to use my tiniest Drewel grinding wheel  and a sharp Xacto  to expose some of the Lead In. Then solder some spare legs off of a donor chip. Should work. 

[Chickenman]

Well, I've received the programmer. Waiting on a Parallel to USB adapter cable as I don't have a LPT port on either my Laptop nor my Desktop.. Some notes.

 

1: You receive software via an E-mail Weblink. Now I always scan any downloaded software with my AV Program before running it. Sure enough, my AV software ( Avira ) immediately picked up a Trojan  . TR/Rogue.1137821. I've used Avira for over 10 years, and it very seldom detects False Positives. Interestingly the instruction in the E-mail tell you to turn off your Ant-Virus scanner before Unzippinf ( RAR compressed file.  Uh... no freakin' way. There should be nothing in any legit program that requires your AV to be disabled. 

Also interesting is that the download file is in a standard RAR ( WinRar ) format. I've used Zip Genius for years as a compression and unzipping program. It handle RAR files with no problem. However, when I tried to unzip the files ZG immediately flashed a warning about an unrecognised format. At the same time my AV scanner activated. 

I was eventually able to unzip the folder using a Trail copy of WinRar... after cleaning by my AV program. Another interesting thing. Folder contained a old version of WinRAR ( Version 3.X ) in executable form. Now why would they include an old copy of WinRar, in a zipped folder, when you need Winrar in the first place to unzip the file? My suspicious answer is that it's a good place to hide a Trojan. 

The actual executable for the Eprom Burner software turned out to be clean. I scanned it several times and it was OK.  The software program is for a Willems 5.0 ( PCB ) EPROM burner. Easily found in numerous locations on the net. This version seems to be Legit and is version " setup_98d11.exe ". I can send you the AV scanned executable by itself if you like. 

Software from China often contains Trojans. So I'm used to scanning the hell out of the files before I run them. Sometimes I'll just get the executable version number. Then go to the hardware Manufacturers site to download the " Safe " software. BTW, Willems does have a site where you can download the software for this EPROM burner ( Version 5.0 PCB ).

Based on the Trojan that was detected in the software. And the fact that the Zipped file could not be deleted. It had altered " Permissions " that prevented deletion, even with Fill administrator privileges. Even a File Deletion program ( File Shredder 32 ) could not delete the file. I finally got it removed by some  advanced " Brute Force " methods. But that sucker definitely did not want to be removed.

I left Negative feedback on the Product based on the embedded Trojan in the software and let the Vendor know. Thet fairly quickly e-mailed back, basically begging that I remove the Negative comment, and to re-install with My AV program disabled. Hinting all along that it was a problem with my AV scanner. Sorry.... not going to happen.  I've been building and repairing PC's since 1992. I know when a False positive is detected and why.

 

2: Now, on to the product itself. Haven't been able to actually test the burner, as it comes with a Parallel to Parallel LPT cable ( Nice addition ) But modern Desktops and laptops seldom come with LPT ports any more. I'm waiting for a  USB adapter4 to come from E-bay. Overall, assembly looks well made, with clean solder joints. However, there were a couple of Jumper headers that were installed like the leaning tower of Pizza. This prevented the correct setting of jumpers for the Chips I wanted to burn. A few minutes with some Jewelers Needle Nose pliers and that was fixed. But it was a bit sloppy. I've seen worse though. 

3: Testing the software resulted in an IO/SYS error dialog box popping up. However, you could click " OK " and software would load. It would not exit though. You had to use Task Manager to kill the process. No this may be due to the fact that the burner was not actually plugged in to my Computer. I was running the software off line. To be fair, I tested an earlier version of the software downloaded directly from the manufacturer ( It scanned clean with my AV program ) . This software did the same thing. So I suspect it is just a problem with running the program in Off Line mode. As soon as my USB adapter arrives I'll test further.

Is it worth $50? If it works I'd say Yes. But I would not download the Chinese vendors software. I would download the software direct from Willem. 098D9 seems to be the latets version from Kees Electronics. ( A more trustworthy site IMHO . 1 setup zipped file and it scans clean with Avira AV, SuperAntiSpyware  and MalwareBytes)

 http://keeelectronics.com/files/setup.zip

Edited December 15, 2017 by Chickenman

[Captain Obvious]

Wow. Thanks for the detailed critique. Much appreciated. I doubt I would have ever picked up on the Trojan. That's really saddening. So you told the vender about it, and other than them begging you to remove the negative feedback, did they have anything else to say about it?

Not sure if it's the same kind of interconnect, but the next hurdle you will have is getting the USB to parallel adapter cable to work right with pirate counterfeit FTDI driver chips. (I think this is where that whole thing comes in.)

Keep up the good work!

[Chickenman]

Hardware drivers for the cables  and such are easy peasy.  Windows 7 usually has generic ones ready to go, or you can download them from Microsoft or a reputable manufacturer.  I use the include CD's as Coffee coasters

Other than asking me to remove the Negative feedback, because they're actually " really nice guys ", they haven't done anything. Just sent the same download link with instructions to disable all Virus Scanner s before installing... LOL.