Removing 790 rom

I'll give up after this try if nobody responds with a helpful answer.

I've read the online docs and viewed the pics on how to remove a 790 rom. I've followed the directions to a tee.
After the lid is off and the screws removed the 790 rombaord refuses to move in any direction, even a fraction of a millimeter.

I like to hear from someone who's managed to remove the 790 rom without using any force.

Please tell me any tricks I need to know like perhaps prying the board in a certain fashion to loosen it without doing any damage.

This wasn't a priority issue but since my 790 ps is dead and I'm in no mood to pay $30 at this time for a replacement I'd like to give my 880 hpc2k abilities.
I'm really enjoying the big screen and keyboard on the 880. IMO, it's the perfect solution for anyone needing a larger and higher res screen than say an typical hpc vga device.

If I get the roms swapped I'll be happy to experiment to get the 880 usb port functioning, even with minimal devices.

Nevermind folks.
I tackled it once again and carefully removed the rom from my 790. I guess it has some "stiction" from never being removed.

The swap went fine. So I have now a MP890 (good) but my 790 is now a 780. (bad). I'll hunt around for a 790 rom or perhaps a 790 parts machine to go back to hpc2k.

It's too late tonight to play with USB functions, tomorrow perhaps after my other tasks are done.

edit: ce2.11 must be written poorly. My BQM on my 790/790 rom was 275. With the 780 rom it's now 215. The 890 scored 216 before the swap, now it scores 276.

Edited by wallythacker 2006-01-20 4:41 AM

congrats

i'm curious about usb, at ppcmag we were arguing about it so much!

can you submit the benchmarks to rothberger.net? (if they're not there yet)

congrats as well... You forgot to change your signature to say MP 780/890

There's good news and bad news.

As I mentioned the 890 is much faster than the 880. This means my ex-790 is now much slower and less capable as a 781 (new designation, 790 with a 780 rom is called the 781)

The biggest loss is the USB of the 880. I can confirm, having tried both the clik and 6651 mips usb drivers that the usb port on the 890 does nothing. At this point anyway.

When I engage a usb device (mouse) the optical light turns on but no mouse. When I engage my jukebox the jukebox says a usb connection is active but nothing appears in any explorer.

I'm going to try importing my reg entries from my 6651 into the 890 and see if that works.

Summary: hpc2k is obviously a more versatile OS (with greatly enhanced speed) but the loss of usb at this time is unfortunate.

ps. I knew, empirically, ce 2.11 was poorly coded and inefficient. It explains the terrible benchmarks and sluggishness of my 690 which should have performed much better for it's rated speed.

From what I've seen in other posts in this forum, it sounds like there may be some missing DLLs for USB in the 790 ROM image. (I seem to recall Rich saying that some are there and some aren't.) Don't know if you can check that out too.

oh well then you have to find a method to get the dlls...

the registry idea might help though... (i seem to remember wally saying that the usb dlls were all there on the 790)

I'll have to compare the contents of \windows of both machines to see what dlls are missing.

I dont know if this has anything to do with it, and seeing that it's ce.net....but My Wibook, when i hook up certain mp3 players i have, it reads that i plugged them in but when i search for them in explorer there is nothing there, but when i used My gf's mp3 player it showed up just fine, not sure the diffrences.....









Edited by thcrw739 2006-01-20 3:33 PM

I have figured out two obvious files that are missing from the 790 rom

usbd.dll and usbmouse.dll

I wonder, does anyone know how to pull specific files from the 781 so I can drop them into the 890? I realize I might need a lot more work but without these files I know I'll get nowhere.

And yes, it was me that said the 790 seemed to have all the registry entries to support usb (comparing it to my 6651) . If I said files, I meant reg data.

So, if I can't get usb working on the 890 I'm not sure what I'll do. The increased speed and hpc2k are certainly great but ......Oh well, I guess I just want it all.

edit: the 890 is much closer now in speed to my 6651. The 880 was really sluggish at times. I gave tcpmp a spin and it's better (subjectively) than before.

Would I find the needed files in any of the SDKs?



Edited by wallythacker 2006-01-20 4:31 PM

you probably cannot get the files out of the 781...

SDK? i don't know... a serial mouse driver is out there... i remember dexxta was searching for the usb mouse driver, but.. i'll try the guy who has PB 3.0 (!) but don't hope much

I agree with wallythacker -- I want it all -- and have been looking for a way to regain USB functionality on my MP890 since I did the conversion a year or so ago.

Unfortunately, it looks like NEC did not include the necessary dll's in the 790 ROM -- which makes sense since the 790 does not have the necessary hardware to support USB.

I did a bit of google searching shortly after doing the conversion and found some utilities that might allow one to decompile an 880 ROM to get usbd.dll and usbmouse.dll. I did not pursue the matter since (1) I do not have the experience/skill to do such an operation, (2) such a decompile is almost certainly illegal in the US [though it might be ok for wally since he is in Canada], and (3) I suspect the dll's would not work since they were designed to work with 2.11 and not 3.0. If one has the requisite skills and does not have to worry about legal issues, it might be possible to decompile the ROM from a 6651 or a JVC-MP33.

I would be very interested in what cmonex finds about Platform Builder 3.0. There are supposed to be sample drivers in the kit, and in theory one should be able to modify these and then load them into RAM.

I hope this thread continues and someone comes up with a good solution. I am not willing to go back to 2.11, but I do miss USB.

Bruce
MP890 Evangelist

system executables (exe, dll) extracted from ROM won't really help...

PB 3 can help, if i can get the guy to send me some stuff

(btw it is probably no problem if the dll's are 2.11)

Cmonex, thanks for helping out. Hopefully your contact can lend a hand.

I must admit after the swap the 890 is a great machine to use while parked on the couch. I haven't used anything else all day. Nothing beats a MP keyboard. I can't knock the dstn screen either for browsing. It's more than good enough.

Bruce, did you notice an overall speed improvement after your swap? It's hard to believe the difference between 2.11 and hpc2k, but it's there and welcome. The 890 really comes alive.

I looked in the 890 registry and there's a generic usb key referencing usbhid.dll so I don't know what to make of that.

Wally, to make a long story short, I started with a 790, became dissatisfied with the 790's screen size (I find anything less than 800x480 too painful for browsing), put it aside, had too much invested in 3.0 software to consider moving to 2.11, and only bought an 880 after reading about the 890 conversion. I then purchased my first 880 and immediately converted it to an 890, so I have no experience with a real 880.

That having been said, I have a second 880 that I bought as a backup to "Buddy" (my wife's name for the 890) and have not gotten around to converting. Shortly after the conversion, I tried the bSquare benchmark program that comes with the 880 on Buddy, but it hung the machine up. If you can suggest a good benchmark program that runs on both the 880 and 890, I will be glad to report the results.

cmonex, have you heard anything from your PB3.0 friend? I would really like to test some usb dlls on my 890.

Bruce
MP890 Evangelist