102 acting strangely

[Ohms]

Here is a strange one for ya. I have a 510 completly stock. I have a married ROM102 that is an ex-sub for THIS 510.

I should say that someone else opened the ROM for me, but they are not available for questions right now and for a while.

anyway....
If I hook up the IRD to a compsite video and give it power with no sat cable hooked up, it goes right into searching for sat. I hit 6,1,3 for sys info, and I see all the card info S00 XXXXX Rom102 Rev103 and all looks perfect.

So Now I want to install a 3m and blocker. I place it into my dual crystal ISO Programmer and every util tells me NO ATR.

I have eliminated the programmer, cables, pc and software by taking my other open rom102 and reading it. If I do nothing but swap cards, one reads and the other is NO ATR. This same setup can read 6 diff card ranging from rom10, 11, and 102, but this one card has NO ATR no matter what software I try. The crazy thing is, it seems that the IRD can see the card so I can't be looped right??????



$HIT!!!!!
I don't get it. ANYONE have any ideas why this might be happening?

[Crazy1_79]

has to not be making contact in the programmer, did you try putting a business card on top of it??

[Ohms]

Hi Crazy, nice to see you out here. that's one hell of a post count. I'd probably be around there if I had my old DTV and Magic posts. I'd hate to see how many you would have by now. :)

no, but I will try the bus card. this friggin programmer reads every other card just fine. I've tried a dozen of them. All read fine. The thing is, I got two married ex-sub 510s and both of the cams are acting the same way. Something ain't right here.

Am I correct in assuming that if the IRD shows the card# in the info screen, then it's not looped right? I don't see how it could be.

This one have me really stumped.

[Ohms]

has to not be making contact in the programmer, did you try putting a business card on top of it??

Ok, tried the bus card and no go. Still no atr. I dbl checked with an ohm meter too.

CRAP!!!!!!

[Crazy1_79]

as a rule of thumb, if it is showing the S00 number, this is not looped, at least that is how I always figured it. now could it be provider unknown looped? That I don't know. have you tried resetting it in nagraedit 4.1?? Maybe that will give you a funky atr that n2edit won't even recognize. I had a couple of those provider unknown cards but n2edit would still recognize them, it would give a funny atr, and it would not determine the provider after setting IFS. take a pencil eraser to the contacts of the card and gently erase any buildup that may be on them. But you know ohms, it seems to me I seen a similiar post to this one here awhile back, and I am not sure what the outcome was for that one or if it was even on this site

[Ohms]

It must be my ISO Programer. I just ran rebelsurf's unlocker script and it saw the card just fine in my modded hu loader. Since that loader saw atr, I remembered a nagramaster version that was for loaders. I dl-ed it and guess what. It can read the card just fine. I saved off the image. Now the only problem I have is that I was going to use romcode on this card, but romcode needs an ISO programmer.

Anyway.... Thanks for your help crazy. I'll see ya round.

[DrSagan]

I had the exact same problem, noatr on my rom102 card but it would work fine on every other card. That was why I wrote the Loader_Based_Rom102_Reader script in the first place, I was pissed at my iso :) It turned out to be that the 102 is a little more touchy about clock frequency. In a loader, the atmel controls the clock to the card so it would work fine. I was able to fix my iso as all that turned out to be wrong was a cold solder on my oscillator(not crystal). However, after looking at a couple other designs that have been sold, I noticed that some manufacturer's weren't putting the correct pf caps or no caps at all when using a crystal(no need with an oscillator). The pf rating needed for the crystal is manufacturer dependent although most of the time you can use 18pf caps for it and it will be fine. If your iso uses two pins for the clock, it has a crystal(oval silver thingy) and should have two small caps to stablize the clock, if it uses four pins it is an oscillator(square, could be black or silver, no caps). If it's all there, re-solder the connections and try it again. :)

[Ohms]

Thanks for the insight DrSagan. I checked all the solder joints, especially around the xtals and could not find any that were not shiny. I went ahead and refreshed them anyway just to be sure. I am still getting the same no atr results. I think I have one of those with no cap for the crystal.

Attached here is a picture of my ISO. I have a new one just like it due in any day that was for a buddy, but I may have to hijack it. :)

Do you know of a better ISO with more stable frequency control? I really need a conventional ISO Programmer as I already paid for the romcode blocker and the romcode software is not written for a loader.

Thank you very much for your help here. I appreciate it along with all the other stuff you do for the community. Keep up the good work.

[Ohms]

DrSagan,
I may try to mod my ISO with the addition of an 18pf cap if I can figure out where it goes. Should it be between the two legs of the crystal?

[DrSagan]

A couple things stand out, yup no caps for the crystals, if you were to put that on a scope you'd probably see the clock "ghosting" around. The other is the 232 chip should be a 232a for high speed communication. I think I have some plans around here for a do it yourself if you're up to soldering some stuff. :)

[Ohms]

I would imagine 57600 would be adequate for the device, but 232a would be obviously better. It's funny how some 102s will work just fine, while others are no atr.
Anyway, I'm more inclined to try to stabilize this one if it's feasible by adding a cap. If not, I'll most likely want to just buy one. My eyes don't work like they used to and although I can solder like a pro on the larger stuff, the small stuff gets kinda sloppy these days. I used to be mil spec certified, but I have not had much success lately working on smt stuff so I think I'll keep my solder jockey work to modding rather than building from scratch. Old eyes and shaky hands make it too frustrating to keep failing on stuff I used to be able to handle.

Thanks for the offer though. Maybe if it's real simple and all big parts, I might give it a go. If it's handy, fire it this way and I'll have a look.

[Ohms]

PROBLEM SOLVED!!!!

I dug through my old junk pile of crap and found a netsignia 210 rom reader I used WAY back in the F & H card days. This baby read the 102 with a quickness.

thanks for the replies.. Im good to go.