SONY NAC-HD1 software + RAM upgrade

[Andris Vasers]

After half year I have some new ideas about upgrading and extending functionality of SONY NAC-HD1.

I started two projects.

The first one, upgrading NAC-HD1 software, kernel, kernel modules, system libraries to the newest one, taken from NAS-S55HDE GigaJuke (software is one of the latest for Juke's and includes additional features and bugfixes) and kernel.org. Some modules are rebuilt.

Personally thanks to Joe from Germany for exchanging hard drive image taken from NAS-S55HDE.

Project outlines:

Status

What actually works:

*Linter database

*Analog In

*FM/AM tuner

*Spectrum analyzer

*Wireless Network connectivity

*Wired Network connectivity

*Cd ripping to Linear PCM

*Cd ripping to mp3

*Gracenote DB

*Artist / Album / Track / Genre / Folder library

*Can quickly search Artist during playback (disadvantage for NAC-HD1E original software)

*Import audio through networl / external usb storage

*System boots

*Plays mp3 / atrac3 / atrac3 Plus / Linear PCM (OMG AUDIO FORMAT)

*DLNA client

*DLNA server

*Party mode client

*Party mode server

*Timer

*Screen saver

*USB mounting

*X-Dj mode including analysis (new features added after upgrade).

*All front panel buttons.

Things that actually doesn't work:

*Cd Ripping to Atrac3 / Atrac3 Plus (NAS-S55HDE doesn't have support for ATRAC as Sony starting year 2008 closed it's OMGAUDIO / ATRAC musc store www.connect.com), I started implementation to get it working. It can take some time.

*Digital in (Coax and Optical) (NAS-S55HDE doesn't have support to Digital Coax and Optical, now Sony uses DMPort), this one I'll also get to work on. I'll also want to implemnt DMPort.

*Cannot turn on device if in "quick power off" mode by pressing powe on button both on device and remote control. Can turn only pressing apropriate functional button (HDD,CD,FM,Home media, etc.). Principialy this is just a bug, no problems to resolve it.

The second one consists of upgrading system RAM, resoldering (reballing) two BGA 90 ball (pin) SDRAM chipsets.

Actualy chips are ordered and it seems that till January I get them. Then do soldering operation with high precision equipment.

As described previous post , NAC-HD1 has a small amount of RAM memory, it's based on SH4 Renesas embedded cpu architecture. Uses only 64MB (megabytes) of RAM. RAM is organized by two 256Mbit chips in sum 512Mbits that equals to 64MB of memory. As the system turns / boots on Linux, the kernel takes amount of memory at startup to load all necessary drivers to control Jukebox and dedicated memory for this kernel is too small and not enough, but if we take from shared memory, then application left a small piece of memory (especially after software upgrade) to load Linter database, DLNA Server, main Tiger application, Sj3 server, system logging, ssh daemon, network stack (ipv4 connectivity), etc. Upgrading RAM to 128MB is MAX possible for this device, cause of architecture limitations.

As I got full set of original SONY circuits for this device, studied tgrough, I decided to upgrade RAM. Originally 64MB is quite enough till you have 20 000 of music, then all system freezes and the make people nervous

Outlines

Name / Status

Functional analysis - Completed

Chips for replacement - Completed

Ordering chips - Completed

Getting chipsets - ?????

Chipset approval - ?????

Preparing for soldering - ????

Resoldering - ?????

Memory testing - ????

System testing - ????

Benefits after system upgrade:

DLNA Audio server (DLNA as is, DLNA for Wireless Audio systems such as NAS-C5E where can use x-Dj function, no need to speacilly install DLNA server for audio sharring on home computer)

Party mode (can simultaniously play audio from library on 5 devices through network)

Faster system (not so frequent memory swapping with hard drive during operation, that makes freeze and delay)

Comfortable audio searching, better to search music with remote, don't need to enter Folder mode, that previously offered searching option.

Support for newer wireless network cards

X-Dj additional mood channels and more accurate audio analysis.

[Christopher]

I will be watching this with great interest. Mind sharing some pictures?

[Andris Vasers]

I will be watching this with great interest. Mind sharing some pictures?

I'll post pictures later.

[paperclip]

Andris, you going to sell some of these when they are done? I love what you are doing with this!

[Andris Vasers]

Andris, you going to sell some of these when they are done? I love what you are doing with this!

Currently no interest for selling upgraded / tuned devices it's for personal use. If there were many orders to do tuning from "Mercedes to Brabus", then I've been interested in

It's my own enthusiasm doing discovery of devices and upgrading / remaking them

Also my personal web page is under contruction, later I post my blog's addres, where can people exchange with tech stuff

And about remaking device, It's also not so easy to get correct chipsets, because to meet exact parameters need to do serious analyze of datasheets. Many chips I'm looking for actually not available, I searched for alternate parts from another vendors and get them.

[Andris Vasers]

Got chips from china. Now I need to design very small "sandwich boards" with an extra additional pin for placing between SDRAM chip and motherboard cause of unavailable pin for memory addressing A0-A12, this address pin needs to be soldered on PCB to address bus where can address all amount of memory, originally system comes with chips only with 256Mbits with address space 4kb (A0-A11), new chip requires 8kb address space to allocate 512Mbits of memory for each.

[Andris Vasers]

Now some videos after upgrades:

1/3:

2/3:

[Andris Vasers]

3/3:

[paperclip]

Great work. I wish I could find one of these to play around with but no luck so far.

[Andris Vasers]

Great work. I wish I could find one of these to play around with but no luck so far.

These models I can't find anymore here in Europe... I have the second NAS-500HDE

Previously I take portion of system from NAS-50HDE GIGAJUKE, but then decided to buy for experiments and testing use another damaged NAS-500HDE gigajuke system. NAS-500HDE contains also latest available software.

[sfbp]

I don't think he means the videos, but the NAC-HD1

[Andris Vasers]

I don't think he means the videos, but the NAC-HD1

sorry, you're right ) i pasted from my clipboard

[paperclip]

I've been trying to figure out if it would be worth the effort to buy one from Japan but after my MD-133 quit reading discs I'm not too keen on spening a lot of money.

[Andris Vasers]

I've been trying to figure out if it would be worth the effort to buy one from Japan but after my MD-133 quit reading discs I'm not too keen on spening a lot of money.

I 'm not sure is it available in Japan, but U can search the web, maybe someone sells it.

[DiD Codreanu]

Has anyone tried out to update the cddb (gracenote) database already existent on HDD? This would be interesting....