HP Prime bricked after update

[XY0797]

Hello, I updated my HP prime a few days ago and installed Firmware 20210505. My HP primes is V1 version, Firmware 20200116. It was damaged during the update, but reference https://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-15862.html , I fixed it.
To my great shock, the third day after it was repaired, it broke down again.
I did some physics calculations that day. I normally turned it off (Shift + ON). After a few minutes, I wanted to turn it on again, but it didn't respond. I tried press Symb+ON, ON+Apps+Esc, Symb+Reset(press the button on the back with a pin and release the pin).
But no change :-(
The screen of the calculator is always black, but when the battery is removed and put in, the screen has a faint flash. I try again after full charge, but it is still invalid.
I'm almost desperate.
But strangely enough, after I replaced the calculator battery with a 4-volt regulated power supply, I measured that the calculator always had 0.34 watts of power.
I don't know if I'm the only one with this problem. Have you ever experienced it?

[Liamtoh Resu]

Have you tried recharging the prime with one of the external 2000-10000mah batteries
that are sold for the purpose of charging smartphones?

[XY0797]

(06-09-2021 07:13 PM)Liamtoh Resu Wrote:  Have you tried recharging the prime with one of the external 2000-10000mah batteries
that are sold for the purpose of charging smartphones?

I don't think it works because I used to use an external regulated power supply with a constant voltage of 4 volts and the calculator didn't respond.

[XY0797]

To my dismay, my HP Prime cannot be repaired.It is reported that there seems to be a problem with the quality control of the HP Prime V1 flash chip. The Beta version of the firmware incorrectly wrote data into the bad flash block, resulting in the empty flash data and unable to enter the recovery mode.Worse yet, in my country and region, HP does not have the business of providing flash memory chips for HP prime. I'm now going to buy a new HP prime.

[Eddie W. Shore]

That bites. I'm pretty sure that the majority of HP Primes on sale are hardware V2 which should handle new flashes much better.

[Stevetuc]

(06-21-2021 09:23 AM)XY0797 Wrote:  To my dismay, my HP Prime cannot be repaired.It is reported that there seems to be a problem with the quality control of the HP Prime V1 flash chip. The Beta version of the firmware incorrectly wrote data into the bad flash block, resulting in the empty flash data and unable to enter the recovery mode.Worse yet, in my country and region, HP does not have the business of providing flash memory chips for HP prime. I'm now going to buy a new HP prime.

If the hp supplied beta software trashed your Prime, I would expect that hp would replace it for you. Maybe contact via the beta email ?

[Eric Rechlin]

(06-21-2021 01:27 PM)Stevetuc Wrote:  

(06-21-2021 09:23 AM)XY0797 Wrote:  To my dismay, my HP Prime cannot be repaired.It is reported that there seems to be a problem with the quality control of the HP Prime V1 flash chip. The Beta version of the firmware incorrectly wrote data into the bad flash block, resulting in the empty flash data and unable to enter the recovery mode.Worse yet, in my country and region, HP does not have the business of providing flash memory chips for HP prime. I'm now going to buy a new HP prime.

If the hp supplied beta software trashed your Prime, I would expect that hp would replace it for you. Maybe contact via the beta email ?

The 20210505 firmware isn't beta firmware.

That said, unfortunately HP would just say that if it's outside the warranty (1 year in some markets, 2 years in others), it's not their responsibility even if their update did expose the problem in the flash.

HP won't provide flash chips for any market, not just that particular region. The Prime is considered unrepairable -- in fact, I'd even be surprised if they'd even simply replace the battery if it were faulty; all "service" is likely done by replacing the whole device. Labor in developed countries to solder in a new chip would likely be more expensive than just getting a whole new calculator anyway.

[Stevetuc]

(06-21-2021 02:51 PM)Eric Rechlin Wrote:  

(06-21-2021 01:27 PM)Stevetuc Wrote:  If the hp supplied beta software trashed your Prime, I would expect that hp would replace it for you. Maybe contact via the beta email ?

The 20210505 firmware isn't beta firmware.

That said, unfortunately HP would just say that if it's outside the warranty (1 year in some markets, 2 years in others), it's not their responsibility even if their update did expose the problem in the flash.
[..]

Depends on the territory . In the UK the Consumer rights act gives the consumer 6 years warranty when there is an underlying defect in the product. But after 6 months, the consumer needs to prove the fault was inherent at time of sale. Here's a description of that right from apple website:

https://www.apple.com/uk/legal/statutory-warranty/uk/

[Eric Rechlin]

(06-21-2021 03:11 PM)Stevetuc Wrote:  Depends on the territory . In the UK the Consumer rights act gives the consumer 6 years warranty when there is an underlying defect in the product. But after 6 months, the consumer needs to prove the fault was inherent at time of sale. Here's a description of that right from apple website:

https://www.apple.com/uk/legal/statutory-warranty/uk/

Wow, that's very nice. Of course, it would be hard for the customer to prove it was an inherent fault; this is actually the first I've heard about issues with the flash chip in the Prime G1, so it doesn't seem to be very widespread.

[rprosperi]

(06-21-2021 09:23 AM)XY0797 Wrote:  To my dismay, my HP Prime cannot be repaired.It is reported that there seems to be a problem with the quality control of the HP Prime V1 flash chip. The Beta version of the firmware incorrectly wrote data into the bad flash block, resulting in the empty flash data and unable to enter the recovery mode.Worse yet, in my country and region, HP does not have the business of providing flash memory chips for HP prime. I'm now going to buy a new HP prime.

What makes you think that the f/w update process wrote data to the wrong blocks? This is likely impossible using the normal update procedures, so very, very unlikely the cause. So while the device may no longer be working correctly, other factors may well be the cause. Have you tried all the various recovery techniques documented in various articles here, there must be more than a half-dozen procedures that have been proven successful in the past? If not, do more research here and give them a try, it makes more sense than buying a new machine, though OTOH, a G2 will certainly be much faster, store more data and programs, and likely be a lot easier to read.

Good luck

[BruceH]

(06-21-2021 09:23 AM)XY0797 Wrote:  To my dismay, my HP Prime cannot be repaired.It is reported that there seems to be a problem with the quality control of the HP Prime V1 flash chip. The Beta version of the firmware incorrectly wrote data into the bad flash block, resulting in the empty flash data and unable to enter the recovery mode.Worse yet, in my country and region, HP does not have the business of providing flash memory chips for HP prime. I'm now going to buy a new HP prime.

I don't understand this message at all. In your first post you say that you were using the calculator for physics calculations, turned it off, tried to turn it on again just minutes later and it failed to turn on properly.

Now, in this message, you are saying that there is a flash problem upgrading to the beta firmware. I don't see how you could have had a failed firmware upgrade if it was once working. And you can't have had a failed upgrade in the meanwhile because you say it isn't working.

Please can you state clearly what the exact current problem is and we can take this one step at a time, changing just one thing at a time.

[XY0797]

(06-21-2021 08:53 PM)BruceH Wrote:  

(06-21-2021 09:23 AM)XY0797 Wrote:  To my dismay, my HP Prime cannot be repaired.It is reported that there seems to be a problem with the quality control of the HP Prime V1 flash chip. The Beta version of the firmware incorrectly wrote data into the bad flash block, resulting in the empty flash data and unable to enter the recovery mode.Worse yet, in my country and region, HP does not have the business of providing flash memory chips for HP prime. I'm now going to buy a new HP prime.

I don't understand this message at all. In your first post you say that you were using the calculator for physics calculations, turned it off, tried to turn it on again just minutes later and it failed to turn on properly.

Now, in this message, you are saying that there is a flash problem upgrading to the beta firmware. I don't see how you could have had a failed firmware upgrade if it was once working. And you can't have had a failed upgrade in the meanwhile because you say it isn't working.

Please can you state clearly what the exact current problem is and we can take this one step at a time, changing just one thing at a time.

You seem to have misunderstood it. I mean that after the new firmware is installed, the data is wrongly written into the bad block in normal use.

[XY0797]

About how I came to this conjecture:
I saw a similar experience in a calculator forum in my country. It was 2016, and also HP Prime V1. His HP Prime V1 was unable to be opened after updating the new firmware at that time, and tried all the methods I mentioned earlier were invalid. There are other members of that forum who have HP Prime V1 unable to enter recovery mode, but his HP Prime V1 can work normally and can not enter recovery mode to update firmware. After discussion, they concluded that HP Prime V1 has bad blocks in its flash memory chip and that HP Prime V1, which cannot be opened after updating the new firmware, incorrectly writes data to the bad blocks while the new firmware is running, causing boot failures. HP Prime V1, which cannot enter recovery mode but can be used normally, has bad blocks in the flash memory area where the recovery mode is located.
I personally think this may just be an accident in a batch. However, my HP Prime V1 encountered almost the same problem, and I have reason to suspect that there was a quality control problem in the HP Prime V1 flash memory production line at that time. If it is a battery problem, using a regulated DC power supply should solve the problem, but it is not useful. If it is a screen problem, when connected to the computer, the software on the computer should respond, because the calculator can smoothly connect to the computer two days after the upgrade, and the malfunction occurs on the third day, but the software on the computer does not respond at all. If it's a keyboard problem, the reset button should be useful, but it's not. I can only make this guess because I tried what I know is that nothing can go into recovery mode or turn on the calculator.
My English is very bad and may mean something very strange. I apologize for this and hope you can forgive me. If there are any recovery methods that I have not mentioned, please reply to me. Thank you very much!

[Claudio L.]

(06-22-2021 09:45 AM)XY0797 Wrote:  About how I came to this conjecture:
I saw a similar experience in a calculator forum in my country. It was 2016, and also HP Prime V1. His HP Prime V1 was unable to be opened after updating the new firmware at that time, and tried all the methods I mentioned earlier were invalid. There are other members of that forum who have HP Prime V1 unable to enter recovery mode, but his HP Prime V1 can work normally and can not enter recovery mode to update firmware. After discussion, they concluded that HP Prime V1 has bad blocks in its flash memory chip and that HP Prime V1, which cannot be opened after updating the new firmware, incorrectly writes data to the bad blocks while the new firmware is running, causing boot failures. HP Prime V1, which cannot enter recovery mode but can be used normally, has bad blocks in the flash memory area where the recovery mode is located.
I personally think this may just be an accident in a batch. However, my HP Prime V1 encountered almost the same problem, and I have reason to suspect that there was a quality control problem in the HP Prime V1 flash memory production line at that time. If it is a battery problem, using a regulated DC power supply should solve the problem, but it is not useful. If it is a screen problem, when connected to the computer, the software on the computer should respond, because the calculator can smoothly connect to the computer two days after the upgrade, and the malfunction occurs on the third day, but the software on the computer does not respond at all. If it's a keyboard problem, the reset button should be useful, but it's not. I can only make this guess because I tried what I know is that nothing can go into recovery mode or turn on the calculator.
My English is very bad and may mean something very strange. I apologize for this and hope you can forgive me. If there are any recovery methods that I have not mentioned, please reply to me. Thank you very much!

If your calculator was updated to the latest recovery version before the "failed" flashing procedure, as far as I know it will skip over bad blocks when writing the firmware, so your calculator should still work. The flash chip is made by Samsung, not exactly rookies in the flash business so your quality control assumption seems baseless.
All flash chips have and develop more bad blocks as they age. The firmware should be able to handle bad blocks without crashing.
As another theory, there could've been a software crash that randomly erased some blocks, preventing Recovery from loading, that's extremely rare but it could be possible.
Other hardware failure is much more likely (a blown capacitor, resistor, etc.), that could prevent the flash chip, the CPU or other unrelated hardware from working, hanging your calculator.
You said it was recognized via USB for 3 days after the flash, so flashing was unlikely to be the cause. I think you won't know until you connect it via JTAG. If it was indeed an erased block problem, you'll be able to write the new recovery and bring it back to life.

[Albert Chan]

Instead of trying to get to recovery mode, have you considered a "factory-new" reset ?

http://hp-prime.com/files/composite_file...y_mode.pdf

[BruceH]

(06-22-2021 09:03 AM)XY0797 Wrote:  You seem to have misunderstood it. I mean that after the new firmware is installed, the data is wrongly written into the bad block in normal use.

You could try this technique but it is for a G2 not a G1 so you may need to dig out the relevant spec sheet for the G1's flash chip in case the pin number is different.

[XY0797]

(06-22-2021 03:12 PM)Claudio L. Wrote:  

(06-22-2021 09:45 AM)XY0797 Wrote:  About how I came to this conjecture:
.................

If your calculator was updated to the latest recovery version before the "failed" flashing procedure, as far as I know it will skip over bad blocks when writing the firmware, so your calculator should still work. The flash chip is made by Samsung, not exactly rookies in the flash business so your quality control assumption seems baseless.
All flash chips have and develop more bad blocks as they age. The firmware should be able to handle bad blocks without crashing.
As another theory, there could've been a software crash that randomly erased some blocks, preventing Recovery from loading, that's extremely rare but it could be possible.
Other hardware failure is much more likely (a blown capacitor, resistor, etc.), that could prevent the flash chip, the CPU or other unrelated hardware from working, hanging your calculator.
You said it was recognized via USB for 3 days after the flash, so flashing was unlikely to be the cause. I think you won't know until you connect it via JTAG. If it was indeed an erased block problem, you'll be able to write the new recovery and bring it back to life.

You still don't seem to understand what I mean. I mean: the calculator will work properly after firmware updates, and flash memory is good at this time, but three days after firmware updates, the new firmware failed to bypass the bad flash memory blocks and write data that caused the damage to the flash memory.
The day before the new firmware corrupted flash memory, I successfully connected to the computer using USB. At that time, I didn't know the calculator would be corrupted tomorrow. I just did a normal data backup.The new firmware then damaged the flash memory without warning during normal use.The new firmware can be connected normally by USB before, but it can not be connected after the accident, so screen problems can be excluded.

[XY0797]

(06-22-2021 03:52 PM)Albert Chan Wrote:  Instead of trying to get to recovery mode, have you considered a "factory-new" reset ?

http://hp-prime.com/files/composite_file...y_mode.pdf

Thank you, but it didn't work

[XY0797]

(06-22-2021 05:37 PM)BruceH Wrote:  

(06-22-2021 09:03 AM)XY0797 Wrote:  You seem to have misunderstood it........................

You could try this technique but it is for a G2 not a G1 so you may need to dig out the relevant spec sheet for the G1's flash chip in case the pin number is different.

Thank you very much, but it didn't work.

[rprosperi]

It is still difficult to understand, due to translation challenges, though we understand you are trying your best to explain.

You mention "damage to flash" many times, caused by the f/w. Why do you think it is damaged, what evidence of damage so you see, what are the precise symptoms? What exact steps do you follow and what are the results?

Without exact information, it isn't possible to narrow down the cause, so these details are needed to understand cause and possible solutions.

Also, have you tried to re-format the flash using the diagnostic menu?