Posts by Mueller.Marc

Thanks for the information. Unfortunately I have bad news:

• There are more and more support cases. More and more systems delivered with NetDCU14 are failing. All problems point to the data reliability of the Flash Memory. We face a failure rate of the NetDCU14 of about 20% !! More will follow for sure. There are various symptoms:
  
  • OS-Booting failure
  • Corrupt system files
  • Corrupt configuration files
  • Corrupt executable (our firmware)
  • Corrupt Registry
• I started a long term test using three NetDCU14 running the latest EBoot and Kernel (ebootv210_114.nb0 and XIPV210_CE6Core_CF2_141119.bin). But long term testing is not really necessary, since all three systems failed within one day. RELIABILTY OF THE NETDCU14 SEEMS FAR WORSE NOW! Symptoms are different from what we have seen up to now. Instead of the issues listed above, we now face complete loss of files and registry settings. Details for the 3 systems:
  
  • Failure after 4 hours (~720 reboots):
    
    
    • Registry is back to default
    • All files on FFSDISK lost
  • Failure after 14 hours (~2500 reboots):
    
    • Registry is back to default
  • Failure after 20 hours (~3600 reboots):
    
    • Registry is back to default
    • All files on FFSDISK lost
  • Test procedure is as following:
    
    • Reboot of NetDCU every 20s (Power Off/On)
    • System is 16s on and 4s off.
    • 16s are enough to finish booting of WinCE and our Executable completely.
• The problems do not seem to be related to any specific Board/Hardware. Since so many NetDCUs are involved...

We need a working solution AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. Since we spend a lot of money replacing NetDCU14 around the world.

We are currently testing the new System SW with enhanced ECC, thanks.

I have some more requests regarding this issue:

Since we have delivered many devices with the old System SW, we need a simple way to update the Kernel and EBoot. So, my question is, if there is a way to update the System SW without using the Serial Interface and the USBLoader. We would prefer a solution that uses an Executable for Windows CE and the binary Files for the Flash, that automatically updates all System SW.
What options do we have for updating the NetDCU14?

Further we also have problems, that our Executable, which is the Device Firmware, gets damaged from time to time. Will the improved ECC also improve the Data Integrity on the FFSDISK?

Another question is, if the ECC detects an Error when loading the Kernel, if the Bootloader/Kernel will write the corrected version of the Kernel back to the Read-Only Kernel Storage area? Otherwise Errors can accumulate over time...

Hello

We have some issues with various NetDCU10 and NetDCU14 boards. It has been observed on about 10 Units out of 200.

We believe that the system failure can be traced to corrupt OS files (e.g. Windows Kernel and/or .dll Files). Following facts lead us to this reason:
- Resetting the registry to factory default, does never solve the issues
- Reinstalling the Executable of our Application does not help
- The only thing that helps is re-flashing the Windows Kernel

We use these Versions:
- XIPV210_CE6Core_130605.bin (NetDCU14)
- NK10_CF35_090603.bin (NetDCU10)

We have observed the following symptoms:
- msxml.dll was damaged. XML parser could not be loaded anymore.
- OS did not boot anymore, NetDCU was stuck at our Bootscreen.
- Our application did not launch anymore. OS freezes after calling CreateFile() with valid parameters
- OS freezes when accessing SD-Card
- OS response time got very slow after some minutes of operation

All these problems were gone only after re-flashing the Kernel.

Are the following assumptions correct?
- I believe that the OS is saved in the same physical NAND flash as the FFSDISK?
- The OS is saved in a non-mounted space of the NAND memory and during boot-up, the bootloader creates a fresh copy of the OS to a Windows mounted Drive?
- This means that Windows always boots with fresh OS files?

At the moment we can not locate the problem, but we have the following theories:
a) A bug in the Operating System or in a Device Driver messes up random files on the NAND flash?!
b) Electromagnetic interference could change the NAND flash content?!
c) Eventually memory can be corrupted by improper shutdown of the NetDCU, e.g. PowerOff during memory access?

Could you please comment on this and share your experience with similar cases?

Finally, I found the solution:

In the NetDCU10 we used

lfZH.lfCharSet = ANSI_CHARSET;

and it worked, although in fact it is wrong. I changed the Code to

lfZH.lfCharSet = GB2312_CHARSET;

and now it works properly on both NetDCU10 and NetDCU14.

I used the FontView tool on my NetDCU14 and it detects and displays the SimSun font properly. It shows
@nSimSun
@SimSun
NSimSun
SimSun

But using the same Software as on the NetDCU10, the Chinese Language is not displayed properly.
Up to now we used the NetDCU10 SDK and the Software runs properly (except Chinese) on the NetDCU14. Today I installed the NetDCU14 SDK and I builded our Software using "FSS5PV210_CE6" as Platform. But it makes no difference.

In our code we use the following:

HFONT hFntSys = (HFONT)GetStockObject(SYSTEM_FONT);
LOGFONT lf[2];
GetObject(hFntSys, sizeof(LOGFONT), &lf[0]);

lf[0].lfCharSet = ANSI_CHARSET;
lf[0].lfPitchAndFamily = FF_DONTCARE | DEFAULT_PITCH;
wcscpy_s(lf[0].lfFaceName, 7, L"Tahoma");

LOGFONT lfZH = lf[0];
lfZH.lfQuality = CLEARTYPE_COMPAT_QUALITY;
lfZH.lfCharSet = ANSI_CHARSET;
wcscpy_s(lfZH.lfFaceName, 7, L"SimSun");

lf[1] = lfZH;

lf[1].lfHeight = -14;
lf[i1.lfWeight = FW_NORMAL;
fnt10[1].CreateFontIndirect(&lf[1]);

and then we use something like

var.SetFont(&fnt10[i], false);

Any suggestions? Do you have any Source Code which uses Visual C++ and MFC to display Chinese Language?

Originally we used the NetDCU10 in one of our products. There we implemented Chinese Language Output, which works fine (WinCE). Now we had to replace the NetDCU10 with NetDCU14, because the NetDCU10 is obsolete. Unfortunately, we discovered now that Chinese Language Output does not work anymore on the NetDCU14. We use the following procedure:

reg open "\System\Explorer\Shell Folders"
reg set value Fonts string "\FFSDISK\Fonts"

Copy "simsun_2_60.ttc" to the specified folder.

In the Visual C++ project we use Wide-Characters and SimSun as font.

On the NetDCU14 I tried using

XIPV210_CE6Core_130605.bin
XIPV210_CE6Core_CF2_130715.bin

but no difference.

We need a solution for this problem as soon as possible, because we have devices ready to be delivered to China this week, but using the Chinese Language File does not work anymore.
Please assist.

I had the same problem, when trying to connect to Microsoft ActiveSync using the NetDCU14 USB device port. I was able to solve the issue by reducing the speed to 12MBit/s and by connecting the USB-Detect Pin (J7 25) to the 5V supply (Pin 1) of the device port. However, this means that the NetDCU14 is not compatible to our existing NetDCU10 hardware system. Because NetDCU10 did not use this USB-Detect input on the slave port. Is it possible to deactivate this detect pin of the NetDCU14 to make it compatible with our old design? If not, this means we would have to reroute two PCBs to get the 5V connection to the USB plug...

Any news about the FS-Bus Driver? Is it implemented now? Can you send me the necessary files and documentation?

That is great news.

Will the driver then be available in the download area?

Push!

- Is there any solution to my issue?
- Is the FS-Bus yet implemented on the NetDCU14?

I try to get the FS-Bus working on the NetDCU14. No success:

- It works fine on our current setup with the NetDCU10.

- By default, there is no FS-Bus driver installed on NetDCU14? Why?

- I tried using the PARINTF.dll that was working on NetDCU10 and the following registry configurations:

reg open \Drivers\Builtin
reg create key PARINTF
reg set value Prefix string PIF
reg set value Dll string \ffsdisk\parintf.dll
reg set value Order dword 0x10
reg set value Index dword 1
reg set value Ioctl dword 4
reg set value WaitStates dword 0x700
reg set value IRQ dword 0x21
reg set value FriendlyName string "Parallel interface for NetDCU"

- There is no information about the FS-Bus in the NetDCU14 device driver manual.

Please explain how to get the FS-Bus running on the NetDCU14.

Further I need the SDK for the NetDCU14 and I can't access the download area because I have no Starter-Kit. Please provide me the log-in informations...

Thanks

I deactivated the EHCI driver in the registry. Now the USB Host works only with the OHCI driver and therefore as USB 1.0 with 12Mbps. This way my NetDCU10 USB layout works with the NetDCU14.

I already tried to set the Speed Value to 0,1,2,3 ... the USB Host seems not to be afflicted by this setting. It changes the behavior of the USB Device (Slave) port.

Zutter: So, this option is not available for the USB Host port?

Is it possible to Force USB v1.1 (Full-Speed 12MBit) operation instead of USB v2.0 (High-Speed 480MBit) operation for the NetDCU14 USB host port?

This is important for us, because our existing hardware design does not support High-Speed USB and we would like to change from the relatively slow NetDCU10 to the fast NetDCU14.
With the NetDCU10, USB Pen Drives were working fine. But simply replacing with a NetDCU14 causes troubles, because of the newer USB v2.0 standard. No Pen Drive works anymore.

Thanks in advance!