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Do not buy Hypertech products

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  #11  
Old 03-03-2019, 12:06 AM
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Originally Posted by swartlkk
The realm of vehicle modification is one where you pay to play. Hypertech is and pretty much always has been the bargain basement option. There are definitely much more reliable ways of modifying PCM programming, but they aren't cheap.
Pay-to-play is fair; pay-to-paperweight gets annoying fast though. If I can keep someone else from getting burned in the future it's probably a good thing.

While it might be cheaper than some approaches, I wouldn't consider $300 to be "bargain basement" but maybe that's just me. It's also pretty comparable to what competing units from HP Tuners, Superchips etc. go for, and being the lowest price shouldn't mean they can just up and decide not to honor their own warranty because it's old and they don't feel like it. They won't even repair it for a fee like they say they would.




Originally Posted by Trukntigger
I actually can make a solid suggestion on this- former electronic engineering tech here. You should be able to recover the data using a cheap RaspberryPi like a 3b model with the GPIO pins and read the data, flash to a updated chip and insert back in unit. Getting a hold of the source bin to flash even better, then just start like new. Having two units, one could even compare the checksum of both units chips once read. Not saying super easy but very doable if you want to play with it.

Technically- you would look up the eprom chip specs, set the GPIO to match things like speed and voltage required and which pins to tap the data from. Most of the instructions are on the web and quite easy to follow. Hardest part is just isolating the chip and tapping into the correct pins, being handy with a soldering iron would help. Not seeing the unit itself I can’t guess if its socketed like say older PC motherboard bios roms are or hard soldered to board- if socket very easy to work with. Surprised actually if these things are prone to this that someone has not done a write up on fixing one. Lastly, if kinda confused look at reading and re-flashing pc bios chips, it would be very similar.

I want to add that normally those chips do not fail, biggest failure in electronic things like this normally occurs in the power supply area. Personally I’d look up the specs on that chip, fire up unit and ensure the voltages match the chip specs +/- tolerance (usually only a few points). Most read write commands are based on a voltage shift on a certain pin pulled high or low and corruption is rare without chip being put into a mode where it can change the values. Voltage spikes are another issue and just fry the darn things. (Sometimes you can see a crack in chip usually on bottom).
You mean that thing they promised they would do in their warranty?

Thanks, but it's beyond my technical abilities sadly and my soldering skills are just embarrassing. I've flashed PC BIOS and smartphone ROMs and such before but never worked at the chip level. I can't imagine Hypertech would just give out the source bin either since they just want everyone to buy new ones, so you'd need a known good unit that hasn't been VIN-locked to even have a chance at getting it anyway. And if I had a known good one I wouldn't need to fix my old one.

Everything I remember seeing was soldered to the board. I'd imagine the anti-tampering and anti-re-use protections might have limited the potential for development of 3rd party workarounds. If you could figure out a way you might make a tidy side business; Googling "Hypertech code 24" yields tons of hits.
 
  #12  
Old 03-03-2019, 07:40 AM
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Oh I agree with the poor support and not the first time I’ve seen it nor you or anyone else for that matter. Did do a quick google, does yours use a micro sd chip for the storage? 2mb? Try a new blank one- yea the old small capacity ones are harder to find but it has to be because I’m assuming the operating system wont recognize much bigger but might get away with a 4mb. Try using a computer to just erase the current one? By erase I mean reset to like new status, not reformat. Google reset usb flash drive. Real easy, worth a shot. Just stick chip in one of those cheap usb flash drive adaptors. My guess at this point without owning ones of those but from what I’ve read is they are a lot like the gps chips in things like my fish finder, micro flash sdcard at 2-4mb size usually key locked to the embedded serial number on the sdcard itself, prevents cloning and such but there are ways. Heck if I lived closer to you I’d tinker with it if its nothing more than a paperweight at this point. Semi retired (forced early retirement due to medical issue) not much else I’m doing around here other than play with my blazer till spring fishing starts up. I do wish I could help more, pity hypertech customer support is so horrid.
 
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Old 03-03-2019, 06:35 PM
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No, it's a EPROM chip soldered directly to the PCB. The unit is from 2003 and the model design was already a few years old by then. Micro SD wasn't on the market for a few years after that.

Thanks for the suggestion though.
 
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Old 06-08-2019, 05:00 AM
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Originally Posted by Rock18
No, it's a EPROM chip soldered directly to the PCB. The unit is from 2003 and the model design was already a few years old by then. Micro SD wasn't on the market for a few years after that.

Thanks for the suggestion though.
The EPROM technology works in general in the following way:
- You use a photoelectric phenomena to charge the memory cells with energy, so they all store '1' (charged)
. Then, while programming, the '1's are untouched, while the charge is discharged from the '0's
There is a high impedance circuit that protects the charge from being discharged while probing, but it's not a forever solution. In about 20 years, the charge dissipates, so it may give a false reading. An option here is to extract the memory chip and look for the programmer, that allows reading chips at a variable power supply (they got a voltage margin of 20%). Then prepare a bunch of a blank EPROMS, upload them and test. That strategy worked out for me quite often.

Well, the easiest way is to find a technician, that has the binary file of the EPROM.
 
  #15  
Old 06-08-2019, 04:42 PM
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No, the the easiest way is to not buy the garbage in the first place.

I'll just go to Wal-Mart and see if they have any 1s and 0s.
 
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