Somewhat bricked neo problem - continues

[Gary Oliver]

OK, I'm stuck.

My neo is sort-of bricked (as I mentioned in a previous message.)

The problem is that after  a long period of time connected to my desktop
USB port, my neo won't power up for very long.  It seems to be charging
(as indicated by the terminal voltage on the batteries, monitored while
the USB connection is in place.)

When connected to the DEBUG board (a as shipped with the bulk of the
'developer' kits.) the unit WILL power up and sort of run, but only gets
a spash screen up - uboot doesn't come up anymore - possibly due to a
failed flash attempt - see below.)

If I plug in the device's USB chain (so I can talk to it while connected
to the debug board - hope that isn't a problem) it will 'power down' as
soon as the USB system enumerates the device.

The problem started BEFORE I had attempted to flash uboot.  I only did
so (while attached to the debug board so power would remain applied)
thinking, perhaps, that a recent rebuild might not be compatible with
the uboot as shipped with the unit.  After flashing uboot, it DID come
up (while attached to the debug board) but wouldn't stay up when running
stand-alone.

How does one flash the unit using ONLY the debug board - I'm generally
familiar with JTAG tools, having used ARM's tools for the ARM9 system
and lots of JTAG systems for smaller micros, so this stuff is not new to
me.   I have installed openocd on my up-to-date Debian 'testing' release
(sid) and have installed an openocd.cfg per the wiki, but all I get when
trying to run it is:

Info:    openocd.c:92 main(): Open On-Chip Debugger (2007-07-31 19:00 CEST)
Error:   jtag.c:1346 jtag_validate_chain(): Error validating JTAG scan
chain, IR mismatch, scan returned 0x00
Error:   jtag.c:1346 jtag_validate_chain(): Error validating JTAG scan
chain, IR mismatch, scan returned 0x00
Error:   jtag.c:1346 jtag_validate_chain(): Error validating JTAG scan
chain, IR mismatch, scan returned 0x00
Error:   jtag.c:1346 jtag_validate_chain(): Error validating JTAG scan
chain, IR mismatch, scan returned 0x00
Error:   jtag.c:1346 jtag_validate_chain(): Error validating JTAG scan
chain, IR mismatch, scan returned 0x00
Error:   jtag.c:1346 jtag_validate_chain(): Error validating JTAG scan
chain, IR mismatch, scan returned 0x00
Error:   jtag.c:1442 jtag_init(): Could not validate JTAG chain, exit

libftdi0 is 0.10-1 from the Debian repository.

And I'm running with root privileges.

Apologies if this was covered somewhere, but I *have* looked.   I did
find a mention of how to flash code, but it presume a working openocd.
The version I'm running is from the Debian repository (r88), and not the
r82 mentioned on the wiki.  Is THIS important?

I've reported this problem to openmoko.com and have asked for
suggestions as to how to repair.  If my hardware has failed, I'm happy
to purchase another one (it IS experimental after all and we got good
deals because of this fact.)  But I don't want to buy another debug
phone, only to discover that my mishandling has somehow bricked the unit.

Stressing again: I DID NOT flash uboot until AFTER the problem arose.  I
was under the impression that it was virtually :-) impossible to brick
if one left uboot intact.

Suggestions?

Thanks,

Gary