Flashing VA0 bios chip to load dreamshell from SD card.

[leetuser]

Hello, I have a region free bios chip piggy backed on top of my retail bios. I would like to flash this chip to load dreamshell from SD card reader. When I try to flash the chip using dreamshell, I get an error saying that the chip is not writable. Can we flash va0 chips using dreamshell software? I was told my someone else in another forum that this wasn't possible, but I can't find any information related to the va0 chip specifically.

[megavolt85]

What is chip you use? MX29lv160?

[SWAT]

Any retail BIOS chip can't be flashed. It's a hardware limits.
You do switched chip before flashing? What you see on main screen of BIOS Flasher app after detect?

[leetuser]

I'm using a 5v mx29f16010mc-12 It's the 5v chip for the va0. I bought it pre flashed with the modified dev kit bios so it's already reagion free. But I wan't to switch it to DS boot loader.

[SWAT]

(17.06.2015 16:16)leetuser писал(а):  I'm using a 5v mx29f16010mc-12 It's the 5v chip for the va0. I bought it pre flashed with the modified dev kit bios so it's already reagion free. But I wan't to switch it to DS boot loader.

What you see on main screen of BIOS Flasher app after switch the chip and pressing detect button?

[leetuser]

And if I try to write:

[SWAT]

Looks like you need switch the bios chip before write firmware.
Or if you really switch the chip, then seems your mx flash doesn't response to commands sent to his controller (bad connection?).

[ands]

first press the button "detect" shows the name of the chip
"writing fail" This means that bad soldering again need to solder

[leetuser]

I bought this chip pre flashed. It has a region free bios pre installed on it and I'm booting the console with this chip, so I don't need to switch anything. I'm trying to flash the chip so that I can boot directly to dreamshell.

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(21.06.2015 17:38)ands писал(а):  first press the button "detect" shows the name of the chip
"writing fail" This means that bad soldering again need to solder

When I press detect chip, that is what I see in my above screen shot.

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I have a VA0 model dreamcast that I've installed a bios chip (obtained from Bad_Ad84). It's a VA0 board so wires going to 1 and 23 are swapped. Leg 1, 12, 23 raised.

The extra wires you see in the pictures are because I also have a older 4-wire mod chip installed on the retail bios chip. Could this be causing the problem? Here's some shots of my setup, but basically it's following the mmmonkey tutorial exactly except for what I mentioned since it's a VA0 chip/board.

[SWAT]

Your chip have different pinout.
On MX29LV160 the leg 44 it's a WE (write enable), but on your chip WE is on leg #1...
WE connected to the power?

[leetuser]

Right. It should have the resistor going to pin 44 in the picture. I've tried it both ways now and I still get the same thing on the flashing app.

[SWAT]

Ahh... MX29F1610 it's a JEDEC chip, it's supported experimentally.
Bad_Ad84 asked me to add support for this chip. Since I did not have a suitable configuration, he tested it himself. As far as I remember we had no success, and at some time he has other affairs and stops the testing. The latest version of the code, he never checked, but you did it Unfortunately there is still no success.
If I'll have a suitable configuration, I would have tried to solve this problem. But for now I don't have VA0 board with BIOS mod.
In your case it's doing is dangerous, because you don't have a spare chip and if the current firmware is damaged, you will not be able to boot the console.

[leetuser]

This chip is piggy backed on top of the retail chip, so I could always boot the console with the retail bios chip.

[SWAT]

Good. But I can't work with this now, because has other unresolved issues. In any case remote testing it's really long time. I need this motherboard for best labour performance.

[leetuser]

(22.06.2015 16:49)SWAT писал(а):  Good. But I can't work with this now, because has other unresolved issues. In any case remote testing it's really long time. I need this motherboard for best labour performance.

Ok. Thanks for the information. If you ever need help, let me know. I think I'll move onto a va1 console for now