Problem flashing Iyonix

I’m trying to flash an Iyonix from 5.16 to 5.20, it erases and then errors trying to program the ROM.

Is there a flash enable jumper I need to set/pull on the motherboard?

There is no write protect jumper. What is the error?

“Could not program flash successfully – panic!”

It’s now bricked unfortunately…is there any way to recover it or should I just scrap it?

If it is just a glitch, or bad PS, then it can be programmed with JTAG. John Balance has the facilities, but the machine obviously has to be shipped back and forth.

However, when it happened to me, with almost identical symptoms, it turned out it was a motherboard hardware failure (one of the bridge surface mount chips) so the machine ended up being scrapped.

Odd that it managed to erase it okay. I tried flashing about a dozen times, so I suspect there’s a fault on the motherboard. Everything else in it has failed and been replaced, so it wouldn’t surprise me if the motherboard was faulty as well – the onboard NIC has certainly failed.

I have flashing hardware here if there’s any documentation on what’s involved, I’ve not managed to find a TRM for the Iyonix – if anyone has one, let me know.

Is it completely bricked, or does the floppy light flash out an error code? There’s some recovery code built into the HAL which detects corrupt ROM images and allows you to upload and flash a replacement over a serial cable. See s.FlashProg for more info

Completely bricked, no floppy light, just the power indicator. Mind you the floppy, case and motherboard are the only things I haven’t replaced yet. LOL

With mine, the erasing was successful but the writing failed. The machine was then effectively dead. The power light would come on but nothing after that. I did try reflashing a couple of times because the ROM image was still in RAM initially, but once the machine was rebooted that was the end of things. John’s initial thought was PS because it apparently takes a higher V to flash that it does to erase, which he has fixed on several machines, by a combination of new PS and reflash via JTAG.

However, once he had the machine in his hands he found other hardware faults as well, which were terminal unless (a) I was willing to pay in the hundreds for surface mount work and (b) a suitable replacement chip could actually be sourced.

Sounds like I probably have the same issue as you, as the PSU was one of the first things I replaced, along with the NIC, USB card, GPU and HD.

Ironically, I just got it working nicely this morning, having silenced the new PSU…then thought I’d see if 5.21 fixed the bug I reported a few weeks back. Figured I’d best flash the ROM to 5.20 and then softload 5.21 as 5.20 was working fine…I did pause before doing it as I figured the chance of bricking it was over 50% considering the age of it. Should have stuck with softload…oh well, I’ll use it as a doorstop instead of the A310 that’s currently performing the role.

I believe John doesn’t charge a lot. IIRC shipping is most of the cost. Probably still worth a punt!

DavidS – drop me an eMail, the machine is fully working. It’s not much use to me as my project requires RO3 and 4mb min., I do test the occasional game on it, but emulation is suitable for my needs as it’s the OS and not the chipset I’m testing.

Chris – how do I contact John?

email: jon at jaspp dot org dot uk

Chris – how do I contact John?

Sent by email.