So I Bricked My Wiz

[penars]

Long story short, I done messed up and bricked my Wiz while I was flashing the latest firmware.

I backread on all the updating threads to make sure I wasn't doing anything wrong. Here's what I did:

(1) Formatted an old, good 1GB SD card to FAT.
(2) Unzipped the update files to that card.
(3) Booted up the Wiz holding up R until the firmware upgrade prompt appeared.
(4) It was stuck on the "Firmware Upgrading" screen for about an hour. I read that this process should only take ten-fifteen minutes, so I figured something must have gone wrong.
(5) I read a post on this thread about some dude restarting his Wiz while the firmware update process froze, so I thought I'd be fine and restarted the Wiz.

So upon booting up I get greeted with a black screen. The power light shows up as blue, but everything else is non-functional. Reading back on some of the old threads, it seems like my Wiz got bricked. Huge bummer.

Now I need to hunt for a serial cable or something and start the unbricking process... Too bad I'm no good at soldering stuff.

Can anyone please loan or sell me a serial cable so I can fix this thing? Maybe we can even start a "pass-it-along" chain for people who've also bricked their Wiz units.

 

[kingoddball]

Can you boot from SD?
Maybe you could try copy a custom firmware for the Wiz to SD card and boot from there?
Is that a possibility?


Edit:
Unbrick WIZ
I was looking at how to Unbrick -

The pictured Dev Board - Is it the same connector as the GP2X Dev Board?
It looks SIMILAR!
Could a GP2X Dev Board be used to Unbrick a WIZ? Can someone with some more Knowledge jump in.
Where are you located?
I have a GP2X BoB in my lounge room draw with the supplied cable.


GP2X BoB:

 

[Orkie]

No, you can't use a GP2X dev board. You can't do it with just a serial connection anyway, you need extra pins to force the Wiz to boot over serial. I could try it if you want, I have one of the original developer boards and have done it before on my prototypes but if you're outside the UK the postage could cost quite a bit.

 

[penars]

Paying for postage won't be a problem (I am in the US), but someone suggested to email the After Sales center and see what they say.

 

[mystique]

I know this wouldn't be possible for most people but could the chip that holds the firmware be unsoldered/removed and then programmed using an Eprom burner then re-installed ?

 

[Orkie]

Probably, but it'd be easier to build the serial cable with boot mode pins exposed.

 

[computarman]

OK Sorry if I'm asking obvious guestions here, however I know it's easy to kinda panic and not think clearly when you think you ruined a somewhat expensive item.
1. Did you try holdingg the right shoulder button again after rebooting?
2. Have you tried hooking the Wiz to your computer to try to get access to the nand by hitting the A button after booting. (aren't you supposed to back-up your nand before trying to upgrade firmware- OK I did not)
3. Have you tried the new firmware on another sd card?
4 have you tried the new firmware on your first card?
5 Have you tried some older firmware with the 1gb card and your other card?
Here's a suggestion. OK try turning on the Wiz while holding the right shoulder button in with the SD card you tried and even if you see nothing on the screen leave the Wiz alone for maybe 30 minutes. Perhaps the wiz could reflash the firmware even though the screen will not work until the firmware is successfully flashed. I can tell you from reflashing my Wiz with the latest firmware that the operation took 20 or 30 minutes to complete. If this doesn't work then try another SD card and once again try the above operation with a different SD card because maybe the wiz doesn't like the first SD card for the flashing operation. Anyway I have no idea if this will work but hey what do you have to lose at this point but a little time and effort.

 

[StarG]

Just to offer you an alternative. There is a service center here in Germany which offers free repairs if anything bad happens to your Wiz unit (this should have been clarified but i assume this covers software problems at least).

http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/50379-replacement-usb-wiz-cable-needed/page__view__findpost__p__771939

 

[penars]

@computarman - Tried everything you said, nothing. Looks like nothing's on the internal firmware to even tell it to boot up to a rudimentary state to even flash it.

@StarG - Looks like that might be my next option, shame that postage might be a bit too high.

 

[baalim]

@computarman - Tried everything you said, nothing. Looks like nothing's on the internal firmware to even tell it to boot up to a rudimentary state to even flash it.

@StarG - Looks like that might be my next option, shame that postage might be a bit too high.

The exact same thing happened to me a few hours ago.
I've emailed the service center in germany as advised in this topic.
To say that I'm quite pissed off with this firmware upgrade process is an understatement.