Problems! Crashes! TV & Game issues

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Kilo
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Re: Problems! Crashes! TV & Game issues

Post by Kilo »

What I can think of, as I build the same circuit years ago I had almost the same problems.
After I bought the Euzebox kit from Hartys shop everything works fine.
But the circuit is even the same.

Could it really be the SD card connection? Maybe too long lines?
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ry755
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Re: Problems! Crashes! TV & Game issues

Post by ry755 »

Have you tried using a pull-up resistor on MISO / SD-Out? That's what made the new bootloader work on my breadboard Uzebox.

See here:
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=9395&start=20#p27818

The official Uzebox schematics don't have that resistor there. I don't know, maybe the Euzebox schematic does? Btw, if you are going to try the pull up resistor, make sure it's connected to 3v3! Not 5v! I fried an SD card by doing that. (EDIT: Huh, I guess I didn't fry that SD card. It was just my computer decided to be stupid and not write to it. lol :D )

Also check to make sure the wires aren't too long. The shorter they are, the better the connection.
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Jubatian
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Re: Problems! Crashes! TV & Game issues

Post by Jubatian »

ry755 wrote: Wed Dec 06, 2017 12:52 am Have you tried using a pull-up resistor on MISO / SD-Out? That's what made the new bootloader work on my breadboard Uzebox.

See here:
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=9395&start=20#p27818

The official Uzebox schematics don't have that resistor there. I don't know, maybe the Euzebox schematic does? Btw, if you are going to try the pull up resistor, make sure it's connected to 3v3! Not 5v! I fried an SD card by doing that. (EDIT: Huh, I guess I didn't fry that SD card. It was just my computer decided to be stupid and not write to it. lol :D )

Also check to make sure the wires aren't too long. The shorter they are, the better the connection.
Using the new bootloader the SD shouldn't be a problem. The new loader will detect and correct bad reads by a retry, this is proven working on my E-Uzebox which for some reason has poor contacts with all cards, so much that the old bootloader is completely unusable. Using the new loader I took it to friends, played lots of games, never experiencing any problem. The new loader would abort programming if it can't read the card at all.

Not that it can't have bugs, you could try and experiment with it using the diagnostic program (try to reload it a couple of times, see what happens, try relaoding it after a game; it fills the complete 60K so it should be exercising the whole ROM available for games). If you see it working correctly (no problems detected), then you can rule out the SD card / bootloader being the source of the problem (of course if you test with the new bootloader, keep using the Uzebox with the new loader; if you want stability with the old bootloader, then test that in a similar manner).
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Kilo
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Re: Problems! Crashes! TV & Game issues

Post by Kilo »

I don't think that the SD Card is the Problem.
I guess it could be my TV or my circuit board. But I don't have any idea what I could do
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Jubatian
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Re: Problems! Crashes! TV & Game issues

Post by Jubatian »

Kilo wrote: Wed Dec 06, 2017 8:14 pm I don't think that the SD Card is the Problem.
I guess it could be my TV or my circuit board. But I don't have any idea what I could do
Could you post some shots testing it with Flight of a Dragon? You mentioned that the game misbehaves when pressing up. I might be able to deduct something from that.
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Kilo
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Re: Problems! Crashes! TV & Game issues

Post by Kilo »

Hey again...
Sorry for my late answer 😂

So...I built a new Euzebox and tried 3 different bootloader.

Bootloader 0.4.5 bent the picture of the gameloader on TV. The entries appears diagonal distorted.

Bootloader 5 says there is no SD card.

Bootloader 0.4 with some longer delays works perfect. SD card is always recognized. But also some games crashes.

I am a little bit sad that the bootloader 5 doesn't find my SD card.
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D3thAdd3r
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Re: Problems! Crashes! TV & Game issues

Post by D3thAdd3r »

I am curious what SD card you are using, and if you have another to try. It sure sounds like the data on the SD card is being corrupted somewhere along the line to the '644 flash, which would definitely not help the video issues either.
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Jubatian
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Re: Problems! Crashes! TV & Game issues

Post by Jubatian »

Hi Kilo,

Could you try it with the application mentioned in the Uzebox on a Breadboard! topic? I found it really weird what happened there, however ry755 could modify his board so the bootloader works. He wasn't interested in doing further tests on the matter, so I couldn't obtain information necessary to go on trying to reveal the cause of the difference in behavior. For me the new bootloader in general is a lot more robust, working even on a Uzebox which was completely useless with the old one.

The old bootloader has a broken sync, so a more picky TV set just won't work with it. The new bootloader was designed using CUzeBox, I made sure that the video signal meets the established quasi-standard (from Megatris, it had perfect sync timing, and used that as a baseline for CUzeBox behavior for sync correctness reporting).
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Kilo
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Re: Problems! Crashes! TV & Game issues

Post by Kilo »

Szia,
I will try it tomorrow!
The last digit of Pi is 7! I calculated this, as I counted to infinity yesterday!
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Kilo
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Re: Problems! Crashes! TV & Game issues

Post by Kilo »

I guess it works now! No crashes anymore!

Made some changes:

- changed my switching Regulator with 500mA against a linear Regulator with 1 Ampere. Now the power is stable.
- resoldered the SD Card socket and made the wiring thicker
The last digit of Pi is 7! I calculated this, as I counted to infinity yesterday!
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