Neuros Technology Forums

JoeBorn,

I'm not sure if this is a manufacturing defect or just a one-off problem... it could have even just been dropped during shipping (though there are no visible cracks in the housing).  It was off by such a small amount that I couldn't even really tell; the port looked slightly askew compared to the hole in the case, but we're talking maybe 1mm, and the plug appeared to go in with no problems.  When I stuck a pencil in it just took a gentle pressure and it snapped right in.

I'll pick the unit up and shake it a bit tonight and see if anything shifts around inside just to see if it could have happened in shipping.

Aha!  I got it to work.  It turns out that the motherboard was slightly misaligned in the plastic case... just enough to keep the OSD's serial cable from connecting completely in its jack.  For reference, in case anyone else ever has the same problem, I fixed it by sticking a mechanical pencil (with the lead retracted) into the port and pushing down firmly until the ports popped into the proper alignment.  Once I did that, it worked with no problems.

Thanks to sean weng and yanvrno for the other suggestions!

I've been trying for about three days, and I just can't get the OSD to boot if the serial cable is plugged in.

When I leave the serial cable unplugged, the unit boots fine.  But if I plug it in, it just hangs on the orange eyeball-and-ear splash screen until I give up on it.  (I've waited 15-20 minutes at least.)  I don't get any output from the serial device and sending it input seems to have no effect (and is not echoed back to me).  I'm pretty sure both serial ports on my machine are working, because I can connect a cable (and null modem) between the two of them, fire up minicom in two xterms, and echo characters across from one port to the other.

I've tried minicom and kermit on both of my serial ports.  I'm using 8/N/1 at 115200bps (though I've tried lower speeds as well to no avail).

Does anyone have any ideas?  I'd really love to hack on this thing, and it's really frustrating to not be able to play with it.

Thanks!