Vince's Repair Thread - (Console Repairs & Mods)

CRoWE said:
Hi Vince, I have been watching your Ayaneo updates with interest. Unfortunately I have a Geek 1s with post issues. The majority of the time it will turn on (lights and fans come on), but the screen stays blank. Every now and then it will post and work absolutely fine, but as soon as I restart or turn it off it won't post again. I suspect it might be a corrupt bios, but it's odd that it works every now and then... Do you offer a repair service and if so, is this something you could take a look at?
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It will be very likely be that the SPI Nor is failing and has reached the limit of its endurance. What you are describing is exactly how it starts and it then gets to the point where it just point blank refuses to read the NOR. Got a pic of the geek 1s? It's absolutely something that I could put right for you. Whats the betting it uses the same NOR? I have chips on order from China that should be here next few days, in the UK the chips are about 15 quid a pop delivered but from China its just a few £ a chip. The real magic is in having the Xgecu TL-56 which is one of the few programmers that can program this chip.

The more i look at these the more I think they have QC issues with the chips they are using. Stands to reason really as I have one chip here (brand new) that kinda works but will never verify its write. I wonder if they are just letting these chips through. I also think there is a very real possibility that they are doing something in software which is causing excessive nor writes. ive now dissabled auto tdp adjustment and some other settings on mine as im not 100% convinced that the firmware isn't causing excessive nor writes. Something im going to look at is if there is a same package nor chip with higher endurance and the implications of swapping the chip out.

Edit: Also worth noting that I did end up having to change the bios chip on mine for a new one. I did get it working again by reflashing the chip they sent it back with but it failed 2 days later. Im a few weeks in now with the new chip and its been fully reliable with no issues. The white one is also working without any issues.

Short answer is drop me a message and Id be happy to fix it for you :)
 
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Vince said:
Tommorow should be interesting as in tomorrows delivery we have 55 pads and a bunch more consoles :cry: Also our little repair thread hit a milestone... 3k replies and 200k views :)
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55 pads!!?? Astonishing! You’ll have that little lot done in a day knowing you and your skills :D
 
Vince said:
It will be very likely be that the SPI Nor is failing and has reached the limit of its endurance. What you are describing is exactly how it starts and it then gets to the point where it just point blank refuses to read the NOR. Got a pic of the geek 1s? It's absolutely something that I could put right for you. Whats the betting it uses the same NOR? I have chips on order from China that should be here next few days, in the UK the chips are about 15 quid a pop delivered but from China its just a few £ a chip. The real magic is in having the Xgecu TL-56 which is one of the few programmers that can program this chip.

The more i look at these the more I think they have QC issues with the chips they are using. Stands to reason really as I have one chip here (brand new) that kinda works but will never verify its write. I wonder if they are just letting these chips through. I also think there is a very real possibility that they are doing something in software which is causing excessive nor writes. ive now dissabled auto tdp adjustment and some other settings on mine as im not 100% convinced that the firmware isn't causing excessive nor writes. Something im going to look at is if there is a same package nor chip with higher endurance and the implications of swapping the chip out.

Edit: Also worth noting that I did end up having to change the bios chip on mine for a new one. I did get it working again by reflashing the chip they sent it back with but it failed 2 days later. Im a few weeks in now with the new chip and its been fully reliable with no issues. The white one is also working without any issues.

Short answer is drop me a message and Id be happy to fix it for you :)
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That's really interesting and it definitely sounds like they have a QC issue as many other users have experienced exactly the same. It's great to that somebody with your skills and expertise is able to get to the bottom of this, you're pretty awesome at this!!

Thanks so much for your offer of assistance, that's really appreciated. It would be amazing to get this fixed as I'd hate to see it go to waste, I'll drop you a message!
 
CRoWE said:
That's really interesting and it definitely sounds like they have a QC issue as many other users have experienced exactly the same. It's great to that somebody with your skills and expertise is able to get to the bottom of this, you're pretty awesome at this!!

Thanks so much for your offer of assistance, that's really appreciated. It would be amazing to get this fixed as I'd hate to see it go to waste, I'll drop you a message!
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Thats all good buddy, consider this the free RMA I never got :cry: you pay for parts and shipping and ill hopefully sort it out. Lets see if I can beat Aya Neo and their 6 month turn around.
 
Vince said:
Thats all good buddy, consider this the free RMA I never got :cry: you pay for parts and shipping and ill hopefully sort it out. Lets see if I can beat Aya Neo and their 6 month turn around.
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You're an absolute gentleman. Thanks for the PM, I'll get it boxed up and sent asap!!
 




Might have a couple of week pause on buying while I work through this.

The amount of stuff I have to fix at this point is getting a bit silly... I've just done some arranging and getting out of the way...



 
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Dyson said:
Have you had any more thoughts about a physical shop?
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Nah not really been too tied up with projects at work and then so much stuff been coming in I havent really had much time to do much tbh. just been floating around and fixing stuff doing bits around the house and have no idea where I would find the time to make it happen at the moment.
 
Vince said:
Nah not really been too tied up with projects at work and then so much stuff been coming in I havent really had much time to do much tbh. just been floating around and fixing stuff doing bits around the house and have no idea where I would find the time to make it happen at the moment.
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Would be amazing to have seen an initial curiosity turn into a hobby, turn into a side hustle, turn into a business!
 
Vince said:
In all seriousness though programming and swapping out a chip takes what a few mins... not a particularly difficult task you cant really charge the earth for something like that
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And yet people would pay a pretty penny, I'm sure. I know if I had one of those Aya handhelds you had the trouble with, I'd rather pay £50 to fix it than have a paperweight
 
Had a clean up of the corner of stuff that I forgot about :cry: - There is a customer install in here as well... DOH.. I need to get around to that it's an xstation build with xreset and a dfo... 4 full PS4's in here so I'll need to up my PS4 UART game soon.



And today's stuff of fixing..













Well the last day and a bit...









I actually did 4x PS2 slim 2x Megadrive :) The 360 pads got halls, the PS2 were mostly laser / laser ribbon related, nes was just a fuse that had seen better days, MD I put a new power regulator in. N64 was missing a jumper pack and needed some cart pins cleaning. Retimer on the One S, PS3 blew it's 1.8v WiFi reg so the normal ams1117 treatment there.

I also did some clean up and re-arranging of my own stuff... The SNES now has a space...



Ps5 and switch oled live in the lounge and PS1 and steam/windows handhelds live over to the right on another shelf it's all a bit dusty and getting a bit cramped.

Unsure on current console count or in fact what I have and what I don't when it comes to games, consoles it's easy I have most of them. Was out the other day and found some retro games but had no idea if I had them or not. That's especially true with the game gear where I now have about 90 carts. I need to make some sort of little inventory and see what we actually have I know for example I have a PS2 game that now fetches £200/300 which surprised me.
 
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CRoWE said:
That's really interesting and it definitely sounds like they have a QC issue as many other users have experienced exactly the same. It's great to that somebody with your skills and expertise is able to get to the bottom of this, you're pretty awesome at this!!

Thanks so much for your offer of assistance, that's really appreciated. It would be amazing to get this fixed as I'd hate to see it go to waste, I'll drop you a message!
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Nor chips including a higher endurance chip for my console landed today!! If it's the same chip etc turn around should be fast!
 
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