The Firmware Page

Just found a document about the NEC 1300A, which is electrically identical to the 1100A:

Submitted herewith, on behalf of NEC SOLUTIONS (AMERICA), INC. is an application for certification of the following Internal DVD CD-R/RW Drive:
FCC ID: A3DND-1300A
MODEL: ND-1300A
TRADE NAMES: NEC
EUT TYPE: Internal DVD CD-R/RW Drive

The device is electrically identical to FCC ID: A3DND-1100A granted Sept. 26, 2002, except for the model, firmware, and FCC ID. The original test report continues to be representative of and applicable to the equipment bearing the changed ID.

I found the message at the FCC:

https://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/oet/form ... or_pdf=pdf

Did anybody found a way to modify the 1100A into a 1300A yet?

Marc

[edit]
The above mentioned link seem to be dead. user wen1 found the link to the alternative server:
https://svartifoss2.fcc.gov/prod/oet/fo ... or_pdf=pdf
[/edit]

Thank you for that interesting information

Now, that brings me to a simple but obvious question: can I upgrade my ND-1100A (FW1.0A, produced in March 2003) to the latest 1300A modell? I think it would be the coolest thing in the world at the moment if this was really true. Maybe we'll figure out?

cu,

Jackie

It seems that this disguise wont never end...

Depending on when and where you bought a NEC ND-1100 it is possible OR not.


For info click on SEARCH and let it go with 1300.


eom.

Hi chef,

thank you for your answer, the search didn't bring any clear results for me. Can you please give me another hint how to find out if that's really possible? What's the chance to destroy my drive if I try to flash it to a 1300?

Regards,

Jackie

Really?


Here is a good thread with all necessary infos in it.

http://forum.rpc1.org/viewtopic.php?t=1 ... light=1300

Never ending, yes, but we should see, that what is valuable here, is we have here some prove of something, which I haven't seen being proved before.

On the same server, there are several more documents. Showing ID labels from the 1100A and the 1300A. I will write them here in text format:

*From the ND-1100A: (Sorry for my bad Korean) (tested and published at the FCC)

1.tsae pum myoung (mo dul myoung): ND-1100A
2.in tsing bon ho: E-H000-02-0000 (B)
3.in tsing bat in tsa: Nec Corporation
4.etc.
5.

MADE IN MALAYSIA
DVD R/RW &
CD-R/RW DRIVE MODEL ND-1100A
POWER SUPPLY 5V / 12V=
--------------------------------------
|FCC ID: A3DND-1100A | GEN |
--------------------------------------
|SERIAL No. 27FD009S111 |
|MANUFACTERED July 2002 |
-------------------------------------
________________________________________________________________________________________________
*My own ND-1100A:

1.tsae pum myoung (mo dul myoung): ND-1100A
2.in tsing bon ho: E-H900-02-3227 (B)
3.in tsing bat in tsa: Nec Corporation
4.etc.
5.

MADE IN MALAYSIA
DVD R/RW &
CD-R/RW DRIVE MODEL ND-1100A
POWER SUPPLY 5V / 12V=
---------------------------------------
|FCC ID: A3DND-1100A | GNX |
---------------------------------------
|SERIAL No. 32H824xS111 |
|MANUFACTERED February 2003 |
---------------------------------------
________________________________________________________________________________________________
*And from the ND-1300A (To which the document is referring at the FCC)

1.tsae pum myoung (mo dul myoung): ND-1300A
2.in tsing bon ho: E-H900-02-3227 (B)
3.in tsing bat in tsa: Nec Corporation
4.etc.
5.

MADE IN MALAYSIA
DVD R/RW &
CD-R/RW DRIVE MODEL ND-1300A
POWER SUPPLY 5V / 12V=
--------------------------------------
|FCC ID: A3DND-1300A | GEN |
--------------------------------------
|SERIAL No. ??????9S111 | (Not readable)
|MANUFACTERED ???? 2003 |
--------------------------------------

I think the 2. Numbers refers to the certification number. So at least mine has the same certification as the ND-1300A. Taken the manufacturing date into account, my ND-1100A could be produced in the same time the ND-1300A is being produced.

So could we say, that all ND-1100A's produced after July 2002 are similar to the ND-1300A's ?

No, possibly all 1100a drives produced before and selled in Asia are similar to the 1300a, before they changed the name to avoid frther CONFUSION.

8)

I fear that confusion and questions will never end cause due the low-price of the NEC ND-1100A it becomes now an very important and good selled drive........


Lets see if we can get more clearness about it all.

W_Mozart

mine has same specs as yours
except the serial number
and the GNX changes to GEF on my drive

1.ND-1100A
2.E-H900-02-3227 (B)
3.Nec Corporation
4.etc.

MADE IN MALAYSIA
DVD R/RW &
CD-R/RW DRIVE MODEL ND-1100A
POWER SUPPLY 5V / 12V=
---------------------------------------
|FCC ID: A3DND-1100A | GEF |
---------------------------------------
|SERIAL No. |
|MANUFACTERED February 2003 |
---------------------------------------

i wonder what that GEF stands for

what firmware revision have you got on your drive? mine is 1.90

i'd say that the feb 2003 drives have same hardware if the E-H900-02-3227 (B) specifies the hardware

I just scanned the internal pcb and the head. Now it should be interesting if somebody is able to scan the same from a ND-1300A.

ID label shows:
---------------------------------------
|FCC ID: A3DND-1100A | GNX |
---------------------------------------
|SERIAL No. 32H824xS111 |
|MANUFACTERED February 2003 |
---------------------------------------


PCB side 1:
[img]http://www.cantarco.de\images\pcb_side1.jpg[/img]

PCB side 2:
[img]http://www.cantarco.de\images\pcb_side2.jpg[/img]

Head assembly:
[img]http://www.cantarco.de\images\head_bottom.jpg[/img]

I hope this helps.

This is what I found in Germany at:
http://www.disc4you.de/news/april2003/042503_03.html

(Babelfish translated this)
NEC warns further of dumping DVD burners

The drive assembly manufacturer NEC warns further of dumping offers of
his DVD burners. The grey imported goods are inferior variants of the Nd-
1100a and of they are very difficult to differentiate...


(Disc4You/ Friday, 25 April 2003) - as already one week ago reported,
some grey imported goods of the NEC burner Nd-1100A are in the
circulation and to very low prices, under 200 are euro partly now, sold.
The manufacturer of the devices, NEC, warns however for a purchase.
The drive assemblies were intended not for the sales in Europe and are all
together equipped with an outdated firmware.


How the devices found their way to Europe, is not well-known. All
obviously originate from dark channels and are to have to be recognized
by the marking "GEF" on the vehicle identification plate - that is
nevertheless more, than formerly fears. One week ago it meant still that
only the firmware version differentiates the inferior devices with respect
to combination with the manufacture date from the in this country
approved. Validity has however still the statement NECs that one does not
take over any guarantees for these burners.


According to NEC Germany the devices are equipped with the outdated
firmware 1.9. They don't seem to be updateable to the current version
1.A0. The unsatisfactory firmware is among other things responsible for
high error rates when burning DVD blanks.


Same applies to a series of DVD burners with the firmware design 1.6
(marking: " VOB "). Of it end last yearly about 1000 pieces is to have
come into circulation. An update of the firmware is not possible also here.
Furthermore are to good the latter still a few OEM drive assemblies of the
Nd-1000a , the predecessor of the Nd-1100a , on the market. This is only
half so fast.


Good conscience recommends NEC therefore only the DVD burners with
the current firmware version 1.A0, identifiable by the print "GNX " and the
noted production date starting from January 2003. Guarantee is taken
over also only for these and those with the marking " VOB". Burners with
the label " GEF " should be returned and exchanged immediately to the
dealer.



Well, what can I say. Too bad for those, having GEF versions. Still
curious, to see internal scans from GEF version!

damn! damn! damn!
i've got a GEF version drive

does this also apply to the same drives in north america?

Let me offer a few observations

I have ND1100 (1.A0) GEN Jan-2003 and ND1300 (1.05) GEP Apr-2003 drives.

It is possible to flash the ND1300 rom onto the ND1100, and also flash it back again, however the drive was unable to burn -R media that the ND1300 worked with. It threw an incompatible media error as the burn was about to start. I will try to find a newer ND1100 to see if that works.

As for the July 2002 date mentioned earlier in the thread, I think NEC had several pickup revisions, and I personally wouldn't trust ANY ND1100A drive built prior to December 2002.

TKM

If things are as well a matter of the pick-up type, I am getting curious, if
there are members who know what the descriptions mean, which we can
see on the scans (Yes the pictures are 'taken' with an a4 scanner).

So what I read is:

Y88502-2M
D810 E1 D
DC1F00IBD

(Used in a NEC-1100A, manufactured in February 2003)

Does anybody know what these codes mean?

Can others write their Mfd and codes as well?

Hi all, I have been reading around on this forum for a long time
Finally i just had to register

@TheKeyMaker:

How did you rip / flash te firmwares if i may ask ?
And also, do you still have both firmwares ?

I would like to give it a try. My drive is from march 2003, maybe it has another laser unit or something.

But first i want to make sure that i can reflash my original firmware in case it doesn;t work.

Also could you still burn DVD+R / +RW with the ND1100 hacked to 1300 ?

Thanks

W_Mozart,

very big thanks to you for this info!!


Few mins ago I called my dealer, he said they dont know which FW their selled drives actually have and my drive should arrive til next Wednesday finally. He said they already know that now few drives with different Revisions circle on the market.
I have to wait...

The internal PCB seems to be identical now we only have to wait for some pics of the laserunit.

And we have to find out a method to dump / flash the firmware.






http://www.cdrwcentral.com/modules.php? ... le&sid=341

Look at the chip at the left bottom on the screenshot.

The first screenshot chip is by OKI and the second one by ESMT.

I tried to install the original 1300A firmware on an 1100A but it still only writes DVD+ and not DVD-

I burned 2 dvd's and the writer then halted and didn't open anymore .

Lucky for me i have my own webshop and exchanged the drives with my supplier.

The memory cache chip doesn't care. you should know that as a webshop owner

Oh and how did you rip the firmware out of a ND1300 and flashed it into a ND1100 ?

Thanx

Is there any difference on surface mounted chip-registers' combination around NEC chip between 1100 & 1300?

I just heard from TheKeyMaker that apart from the Flash rom:

A290011UV from AMIC http://www.amictechnology.com/pdf/A29001.pdf

There is another location for the program. As there is no physical memory
device extra, this should mean there is some memory in the H8
integrated:

At the following link I found this information:

http://www.eu.renesas.com/products/mpum ... 69_eu.html

H8/300H CPU core with general-purpose register architecture and
16Mbyte linear address space
80ns min. instruction cycle time at 25MHz/ 5V
512 Kbyte 4th generation Flash memory, featuring fast programming, integrated firmware for simplified handling and an additional 8Kbyte user boot mat for storage of user-specific boot code
16 Kbyte SRAM
Interrupt controller (3-level priority, 7 external and 36 internal interrupts)
8/16bit external data bus
4/2 channels DMA controller
3 channels 16-bit timer
4 channels 8-bit timer (configurable as 2 channels 16-bit timer)
Programmable timing pattern controller (TPC) with 16-bit output
1 channel watchdog timer, can also be used as interval timer
3 channels serial communications interface (SCI) with asynchronous/synchronous mode and support for a subset of ISO7816-3 (Smart Card mode)
DRAM interface
8 channels 10-bit A/D converter
2 channels 8-bit D/A converter
70 I/O lines (some with LED drive) and 9 input only lines
Low power modes include Sleep, Standby, Module standby and clock gearing
Packages: FP-100B and TFP-100B (0.5 mm pitch)

Furthermore TheKeyMaker told me the Writing and Reading from the code
is done with SCSI commands to upload and sometimes download the
flash chips.

The Block diagram of the ND-1100A and ND-1300A I found here:
https://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/oet/form ... or_pdf=pdf
or:
https://svartifoss2.fcc.gov/prod/oet/fo ... or_pdf=pdf

The schematics be retrieved here:
https://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/oet/form ... or_pdf=pdf
or:
https://svartifoss2.fcc.gov/prod/oet/fo ... or_pdf=pdf

Anyway a useful link to search their homepage is the following:
https://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/ws.ex ... ric_Search
or:
https://svartifoss2.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/ws. ... ric_Search

I found this info by typing:
Equipment Class: Class B computing Device Peripheral
Applicant name: NEC
Happy searching!

So just flashing might be not enough to cover all memory locations. What
would be interested to try, (I read this at
http://www.cdrwcentral.com/modules.php? ... le&sid=341)
To swap the pcb of a ND-1100A with that of a ND-1300A and see whether the pickup is the same.

@KBDE

I can't upload attachments into this forum. What FW version do you currently have?

I have 1.75 and 1.A0 for the ND1100 and 1.05 for the ND1300. The binaries could be used with the Plextor loader (edit the INI to suit).

The NEC has two flash roms, one 512K (492K code space) on the H8 and one 128K (AMIC). Makes for a total of ~620K, take a look at the Plextor to see the two halves.

I'm working with Etna on this. He thinks there is a lock-out if the boot strap portion of the ROM, I'm not conviced, but we'll see.

TKM

My drive has 1.A0 (but soon i maybe also have a 1.9 to play with)
You could email the files to me: kbde@msn.com

But i wil not risk my drive @ the moment. I currenly have a lot of dvd+r's anyway and i need the writer

So i will not promise i'll try anything with the 1.A0 at the moment.


The pink marked line from W_MOZART looks interesting btw.


@W_MOZART i posted that tip of the swapping PCB on cdrwcentral hehe

If somebody would try that we at least know if the laserunit is the same.
When that works we could look further into the firmware / pcb differences.

If swapping the pcb doesn't work at all i guess the 'project' is hopeless anyway.

Keep it going ! 8)

Swapping is a very good idea. Try the following as well, as I stated before,: take your [*Profanity*] remove the PCB (perhaps also these two wires), and see what's written on the pickup assembly. That code is interesting as well, it might give us some idea of fabrication date/ revision or whatever.

If you don't have a camera, use your scanner instead!

Wolfgang Amadeus M.

To make it a bit more complicated i think that two hardware revisions of the ND1100A exists because the Nec_1.75 the Dell and also the TDK updater contains two firmwares with the same date and version number but a different servo libraries.

Etna