PS3 Frankenstein PHAT PS3: CECHA with 40nm RSX

squeept said:
Half of the time when people message me on eBay asking about buying a CECHA01, they start the message with "I was recently scammed by ps3specialist.com"

@DoublesAdvocate There are already schematics of several boards, what are you looking to figure out here? If you've already got hot air and you're gonna dive in to this kind of stuff, grab that Puhui preheater that everyone uses and you're set.
Click to expand...
LOL at the first half of that.

I'm looking to build an entire replacement board for the COK-001 since I've seen you mention several times that they just seem to be poorly made or have some inherent flaw that causes them to popcorn, warp, or otherwise develop faults. I also feel like it would be a decent idea for future preservation efforts.
I know there are the leaked repair manuals out there but A. they only really cover the top and bottom layers. and B. as far as I'm aware it may be illegal to use those schematics for building your own parts.
 
DoublesAdvocate said:
LOL at the first half of that.

I'm looking to build an entire replacement board for the COK-001 since I've seen you mention several times that they just seem to be poorly made or have some inherent flaw that causes them to popcorn, warp, or otherwise develop faults. I also feel like it would be a decent idea for future preservation efforts.
I know there are the leaked repair manuals out there but A. they only really cover the top and bottom layers. and B. as far as I'm aware it may be illegal to use those schematics for building your own parts.
Click to expand...

Maybe I don't know something, but I highly doubt you could singlehandedly design/build a full motherboard as complex as the one in PS3.

Manuals have edition numbers in them. We don't even know how many editions have been there in total, and which edition was final. And, yes, then you have to deal with the legality of the whole thing.

 
Last edited:
There's a lot more to it than just copying pinouts. In those GHz circuits, the length of each trace matters down to less than a millimeter. Then there's all the magic on the hidden layers that all has to be done right to avoid various noise issues. I just don't ever see the boards becoming the choke point in terms of replacement parts.

Reminds me of this thing I saw the other day, though older through hole stuff operating at 1.8 MHz is a lot easier to knock out a board for: https://www.muramasaentertainment.com/product/opentendo-nes-replacement-board/
 
Let the games begin.
20210323_161116.jpg
 
I was hoping I would hear from you guys soon about these. Otherwise killing me to know what makes this whole thing tick
 
I would assume with all of those pads on it that some have to be for debugging. You have that board from squeept right? Also @squeept my launch model A01 that I've had since launch day finally ylod on me. She needs your love man. Any chance you could save her from the dust shelf?
 
Here is what I think is the pin/pad layout for the chip, the only odd strange is the pad on the middle right where it seems to connect to 4 different pins. It would be best if @squeept or someone else who ordered these could verify this when they get them but I believe it is correct.
20210323_161116.jpg
edit: please note that the numbers in this image do NOT match the official pinout diagram posted by RIP-Felix
 
Last edited:
DoublesAdvocate said:
Here is what I think is the pin/pad layout for the chip, the only odd strange is the pad on the middle right where it seems to connect to 4 different pins. It would be best if @squeept or someone else who ordered these could verify this when they get them but I believe it is correct.
View attachment 32338
Click to expand...
This orientation does not make sense. Could you compare and confirm again? Not sure is right.
My opinion those 4 are vcc 3v3 if I am right.
 
vyktormvmpay25 said:
This orientation does not make sense. Could you compare and confirm again? Not sure is right.
My opinion those 4 are vcc 3v3 if I am right.
Click to expand...
RIP-Felix said:
Here is the datasheet for that IC. It's an XLINUX XC2C32A CoolRunner-II CPLD. "Q1" is the code for the 6QFG32 package:View attachment 32339
Here is an article about what a CPLD is. I'll watch some youtube videos about it as i find this stuff interesting.
Click to expand...
Squiglemouse said:
Based on the datasheet @RIP-Felix pulled up the pins he indicated are all either vcc or i/o. The proper number 11(believed 20) is the only non VCC in that batch.
Click to expand...
I should probably have noted that I didn't actually base my pin numbers on the official pinout, that's probably why they look incorrect. I'll redo the image so they match the official pin numeration.
 
Squiglemouse said:
Based on the datasheet @RIP-Felix pulled up the pins he indicated are all either vcc or i/o. The proper number 11(believed 20) is the only non VCC in that batch.
Click to expand...
Somehow they pulled up that bank of memory. One i/o should gave 3v3 on 2 of signals, like in emmc sometimes may need cmd and D0 to tie on vcc with 2 resistors.
Somehow this ic has first 800 lines as bootloader.
 
Okay here we go, I believe this should be correct and should match the official pinout.
20210323_161116.jpg
edit: and here are some photos of it with the motherboard wiring diagram all in one spot.
It seems like the only pins that are actually used when wired into the COK-001/2 are 32, 31&30, 29&28, 25.
IMG-20210312-WA0017.jpg
 
Last edited:
Edit
You just did it
edit2 now the cheap way to flash would be something like xbox 360 mtx nand flash programmer v1

http://s.go.ro/07aa3sjq
http://s.go.ro/iqn8kop1
Now in order to use that pic to flash Xc2c32a
we need to figure first bootloader of pic, then that svf file for ps3, the files are examples of xbox 360 and won't work in same way. Or any ideas?
From what I understand we set in spi mode one master and one slave, someone should confirm inside nand/nor instructions for rsx. Probably first 800 lines of our memory is our bootloader inside pic then rest I can not understand.
Unless Xc2c32a become simulator for syscon spi ports would be capable, don't know, what I can see those i/o can be programmed. Syscon have spi ports with SB, CPU, Rsx and rest of them. They used only few of i/0 for rsx only. Assuming.
 
Last edited:
@DoublesAdvocate there are several versions of that "orbis" PCB used the modchip (some of you posted photos of them back in the thread). As far i remember 3 or 4 different ones, there was even one with a led
Im mentioning this because the traces of the "orbis" PCB probably are different, we can use the other images from previous versions as reference but better dont take them literally
At this point the best way to figure the pad layout is the photo posted by squeept and the datasheet
 
sandungas said:
@DoublesAdvocate there are several versions of that "orbis" PCB used the modchip (some of you posted photos of them back in the thread). As far i remember 3 or 4 different ones, there was even one with a led
Im mentioning this because the traces of the "orbis" PCB probably are different, we can use the other images from previous versions as reference but better dont take them literally
At this point the best way to figure the pad layout is the photo posted by squeept and the datasheet
Click to expand...
There were different revisions but they all seem to have the same CPLD and (as far as I can tell) the same pinout.
One thing I have noticed is that the wiring used on the COK-001/2 does seem to be different from all the other board revisions wiring.
https://www.psx-place.com/threads/f...cecha-with-40nm-rsx.28069/page-23#post-284839
 
I guess the IO pins are programmables and can be configured in the bootloader, also, whoever that wrote the firmware for the modchip maybe made several versions of it

Actually, some posts ago i was wondering if the software inside the chip is different "by motherboard"
But in that case i quess the seller should advise @squeept that the modchips that was sent to him are compatible only with some PS3 motherboard/RSX
But none of you mentioned this, so by now im guessing whatever does the modcip is something generic, so either:
1) the modchip does the same thing for all them
2) the modchip does some kind of "smart" identification of the hardware and does something different based in the hardware checks
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Back
Top