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tmash
18
Dec 29, 2017
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I've had this keyboard since late 2016, its fantastic except it has major electrical/embedded flaw, uses spi NOR flash to store user data which has limited writes, and worse it reads and rewrite the entire memory (fw based on holtek). My keyboard stopped memorizing any changes on power cycle, then it stopped working completely until I replaced the spi flash chip. Keyboard also worked fine (without saving changes) when the SPI was removed. P25Q80H is the new spi flash Older is GD25Q41 Edited for corrections.
Anzial
1494
Jan 5, 2018
tmashHow frequently did you change settings prompting eeprom reflash you think?
337j
2
Feb 12, 2018
Hi @tmash. Thank you so much for your input. Unfortunately, most of that was basically a new language for me so I was hoping you could speak in more layman terms. I have this keyboard and am now scared that if I program too many macros, or change the RGB settings over 100,000 times, my keyboard will just stop working. So my questions are:
1. is it true that anytime I remap a key, I am eating into that 100,000 life cycle? 2. if I ever reached this 100,000 end game, how do I go about resetting my keyboard so I can use it again? 3. if question 2 requires too lengthy of an answer, do you have a resource that I can go study?
Thank you for any help you can provide in this area. I love this keyboard but would hate to brick it for simply using it as intended. Also, i'm not really into the "pay $170 for a new one every 2 years because I don't know how to flash the eeprom"....whatever that is.
Thank you in advance for any help you can provide!
tmash
18
Oct 24, 2018
337jSorry for the very late reply, to quickly answer your questions: 1. Yes the flash is not large enough to implement wear leveling mechanism (move the entire data across the flash memory on each N writes) and yes the firmware is poorly written when it comes to updating data, one possible reason is that the company did not want to implement a reset procedure in case something goes wrong or the data gets corrupted, so it simply rewrites everything everytime to guarantee availability on failure (instead of manually resetting) from my guess. 2. I've posted a note on replacing the flash which is simply soldering (also bricked firmware over VM but thats unrelated): https://github.com/pok3r-custom/pok3r_re_firmware/issues/25 3. Just to note that most SPI flash memories have the same interface, it should be atleast 512 kilobyte or 4 megabit(as specified) I have replaced mine with a much larger 32 megabit and it works fine so far. Make sure you get a good brand like WinBond, unlike what is installed which is a chinese Gigadevice (no legacy)
I can't seem to upload pics here, the SPI pictures are the last 3 in the link above (2.): Original -> New SPI flash -> Installed SPI flash
Anzial
1494
Nov 2, 2018
tmashMaybe post a link to where you got the chip so that people with no experience will have something to go on by instead of blindly choosing a flash chip somewhere. And another question - does the new chip need to programmed with specialized equipment before installing it?
tmash
18
Nov 2, 2018
AnzialMaybe, I do not represent Mistel after all. Welcome. I could not justify shipping any SPI chip online as they're very cheap ~0.2 USD while the shipping is magnitudes more, instead I locally bought ESP-01 ESP8266 wifi module that has the SPI module on it (most spi flash are compatible in this package family) that costs 1 dollar in my area. Original SPI chip is: GD25Q41 Recommended replacement: http://www.winbond.com/hq/product/code-storage-flash-memory/serial-nor-flash/?__locale=en Large SPI (compared to the original) but compatible: https://www.amazon.com/Winbond-Electronics-W25Q80JVSNIQ-Flash-133MHZ/dp/B07FKF9ZGC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1541191482&sr=8-1&keywords=winbond+spi My ESP: http://a.co/d/4rLC2DF No need to program as the keyboard rewrites the entire flash on any error, and as I mentioned before it rewrites all the time on every setting change. In fact, I didn't even wipe the donor flash from the ESP-01 which had micropython on it :D
Anzial
1494
Nov 3, 2018
tmashlol, ok, thanks for the details. So your problems with losing firmware were not related to changing the flash chip?
tmash
18
Nov 5, 2018
AnzialNo, i did not know it was the flash chip, I thought I encountered firmware bug and updated over VM. VM crashed when updating as the keyboard restarts with another usb pid, so that bugged out VirtualBox and bricked my keyboard. Used VM for Windows as I was on Linux
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