nsa320 Bricked? no serial, no dhcp request...

Hello, i have 2 Zyxel NSA320s, one with factory firmware(dont know which version), thats been lying in my shelf for a year now, and one with a recent(-ish) debian on it. The latter one works perfect, and thus I now wanted to also flash the stock firmware to the newest available debian, so that i could have a backup system.
I remember the stock firmware system worked well, when i put the thing away, but now it doesnt boot, all the green LEDS are lit solid, there is no dhcp request on the dhcp server , and worst, there is no output on the serial console. I double checked this with the working debian system, which spits out the usual grettings and boot stuff, and lets me type commands.
so no cabling errors i guess.
The network LED blinks orange on both systems. I will now try to leave the thing for a night with the CR2032 Battery removed, but i am pretty sure this wont fix anything. There is a 2-pin Jumper (J3) at the bottom third of the pcb, below the CPU. any Guesses what this is good for?
i tried with harddisks inserted and removed. Any ideas / remedies in sight?

2 Pieces NSA320 , u-boot 2016.05, debian 4.12.1, Several Mac and Linux boxes connected.
More into soldering than programming. Location:Hildesheim, Germany

shivahoj,

> I remember the stock firmware system worked well,
> when i put the thing away, but now it doesnt boot,
> all the green LEDS are lit solid, there is no dhcp
> request on the dhcp server , and worst, there is
> no output on the serial console. I double checked
> this with the working debian system, which spits
> out the usual grettings and boot stuff, and lets
> me type commands.
> so no cabling errors i guess.

Which one do you have, NSA320 or NSA320S ? be careful with the name, they are easily mistaken.

"All the green LEDS are lit solid" Do you mean all the LED lights in the front panel lit green?

Did you try booting with UART using the latest u-boot?

-bodhi
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/06/2015 10:11PM by bodhi.

Hello,
as i already thought, battery removal didnt help.
Type type on both systems is a plain 320, no S, following a sticker at the back.
with the LEDs i mean the 5 in a row, backlighting the front panel symbols. of course the top blue one is also lit...
after power-on ALL multicolored LEDS on the front panel come on for 2 secs, then the green stay lit.
the fan spins up a few rpms(from zero rpm) every 2 or seconds.
After a few minutes into power-on the fan spins continously, but slow.
is this processor controlled?
The power supply is the same for both systems, so its not a power issue, also the problem arises with or without HD inserted. The system doesnt wait for a power key press, it starts right the moment power is applied.
Pressing Reset at the back at any time, for any length doesnt do anything, just like the 2 front panel switches..
There are no beeps issued.

This is extensivly everything i noticed about the damn thing (non-)booting.

For the Uart booting i need to unpack my linux PC, i'll return on You with results later.
i remember trying "md ff00003c" on the working debian system, and it showed me the 1.21, although i never actually needed to try the serial boot thing.

UART booting hopefully will unbrick it. All LED lit usually means U-boot has not loaded the kernel , and it got stuck at that point.

-bodhi
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Hello, after quite some time i finally got to test the UART-Booting. Sadly, the NSA320 doesnt respond at all to the uboot offered via serial.
This is what i see:

root@ubuntu:/home/dirk/Downloads# ./kwboot -t -B 115200 /dev/ttyUSB1 -b uboot.2015.10-tld-1.nsa320.mtd0.kwb -p
Sending boot message. Please reboot the target.../
Sending boot image...
  0 % [+xmodem: Protocol error

The sign after the "target..." spins slowly, and i see the the TX LED on the little usb<->Serial converter board flicker, but no RX activity. Also tried swapping the two lines, just to be sure, and Yes, i had them on the pins 2 and 3 from the rear. when i disconnect the serial lines on the NSA320, the Protocol error line appears.
Even if the -p option or even the flash image were wrong, there would be SOME serial activtity...

Any more ideas, or should i maybe give up?
Is there a known way to program the flash via the empty 20pin (maybe JTAG) header?

shivahoj ,

When you see anything at all, like the xmodem error, then there is hope. It means kwboot has sent the initial bytes successfully and tried to handshake, but failed.

Sending boot image...
  0 % [+xmodem: Protocol error

The Pogo V4 has a quirk in that you have to repeatly run kwboot a few times before it actually handshake with kwboot.

Try recalling the command using up arrow in your terminal, execute it again right after you got the protocol error. Repeat this as many times as you can, see if eventually kwboot will be successfully handshake with the NSA320.

-bodhi
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shivahoj

keep trying, I've noticed such behaviour on other kirkwood devices.
At some point it will succeed.

could it be that on one NSA320, the RX has no contact?
I think U-Boot is up and running, otherwhise only the Power LED lights up