Creative use for a networkless HD300?

[eric3a]

Storm took out the NIC/ethernet port of one of my HD300's. The rest appears to still function.
I've reflashed the firmware, so fairly certain only the ethernet port is impacted. Everything else seems to continue to work fine.

I'm not confident a wireless USB dongle would allow me to watch HD. Not interested in trying to find out I think.

Any creative ideas for what I could do with the HD 300 now?

Eric

[jusjoken]

I have not tried this myself but I think you could attach a USB hard drive and run it in standalone mode.

[KryptoNyte]

Not sure if this issue has shown up enough for this solution to have been tried yet, but if there are Wifi adapters that work in the HD300, perhaps something like this?

http://homestore.cisco.com/viewprodu...FexFMgodSVQAoQ

[mechling-burgh]

I wonder if routrunner could tell you if there are any generic usb network cards supported by the hd300 Linux os. Maybe you could run it that way

[eric3a]

Thanks.

Yep. I've thought of the stand alone mode... But not sure what'd I'd want it for? I'm lacking some creative thinking here....
Make a photo frame to run photo slides?
A separate music jukebox? Not sure...

As far as I know USB to ethernet dongles don't work with the HD300 as the unit doesn't have drivers for them. i did try one I have lying around and it was not detected by the HD300.

Eric

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by mechling-burgh

I wonder if routrunner could tell you if there are any generic usb network cards supported by the hd300 Linux os. Maybe you could run it that way

The D-Link USB to Network device I mentioned in another thread will work (as it is explicitly listed as supported) providing you have the "usbnet" kernel module compiled for Linux 2.6.33-5 and a way to upload the software and running from a command line.

Eddy

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by eric3a

Thanks.

Yep. I've thought of the stand alone mode... But not sure what'd I'd want it for? I'm lacking some creative thinking here....
Make a photo frame to run photo slides?
A separate music jukebox? Not sure...

As far as I know USB to ethernet dongles don't work with the HD300 as the unit doesn't have drivers for them. i did try one I have lying around and it was not detected by the HD300.

Eric

As I said before in this thread, you need to have a way to telnet into the unit and a way to upload the software and without a network connection your possibilities a pretty low.

However, a possible solution is:
- A generic USB to Serial converter cable that should allow you to start a Telnet session via PuTTY, so you have comms.

- I can possibly make the "usbnet" kernel driver for you as I can use the Linux kernel source I used to make the OSS drivers for the squeezeslave player for the HD300 and that should work (no "modver" flags being used by SageTV people).

- A USB thumbdrive to copy the usbnet kernel module into the rewritable flash partition of the HD300.

- Run the usbnet kernel module and attach one of the supported USB to Network adapters and you have your network back.

If you have to hard power cycle the HD300, then the only thing to remember is to telnet into the unit, reload the kernel module from the HD300 flash file system and you're back to business, unfortunately that cannot be done automatically, sorry...

Please let me know whether you're interested in having the "usbnet" driver compiled to try that option.

Alternatively....

I can help you to make the HD300 a squeezeslave player, but you still require the USB to Serial adapter and the USB thumbdrive to load the squeezeslave player into the HD300 flash file system.

Eddy

[eric3a]

Thanks Eddy.

That's creative!

Yes I am interested in trying. I am traveling again this week, but I'm pretty sure I've got a generic USB to Serial adapter somewhere. And I have a generic USB to ethernet adapter too. Might even be a D-Link. Not sure.

Not sure I have a computer with a serial port though!

Once I dig around my stuff and hopefully find a USB to serial adapter, I'll follow-up on this.
Eric

[eric3a]

Eddy:
Had to check before leaving....

I have a generic USB/Serial cable.
Can't find a computer with a serial port though. Might still be hope there as I might have an old clunker somewhere I could revive just for this?

USB to ethernet dongle is a Trendnet TU-EC 100T but happy to buy another one if it helps.

What's next?
Eric

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by eric3a

Eddy:
Had to check before leaving....

I have a generic USB/Serial cable.
Can't find a computer with a serial port though. Might still be hope there as I might have an old clunker somewhere I could revive just for this?

USB to ethernet dongle is a Trendnet TU-EC 100T but happy to buy another one if it helps.

What's next?
Eric

Well, the serial connection is pretty vital, otherwise you don't have a way to upload the kernel module...all PC AFAIK have at least 1 COM port is pretty basic...

Eddy

[eric3a]

You'd think a serial port would be common!
Not at home to check physically, but my server's MB doesn't seem to have one :
Specs here

All other computers I have around are recent laptops, so no serial ports either.

I'll figure something out to have or get access to a PC with a serial port.

Would a null USB cable do the trick instead?

Thanks
Eric

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by eric3a

You'd think a serial port would be common!
Not at home to check physically, but my server's MB doesn't seem to have one :
Specs here

You're mobo doesn't have serial port on the back plate, but I'm pretty sure it has some headers on the modo, anyway moving forward, it appears that today is your lucky day, I've just compiled the required kernel modules for the HD300 and according to the documentation the supported USB dongle with ASIX AX88xxx based USB 2.0 are:

* Aten UC210T
* ASIX AX88172
* Billionton Systems, USB2AR
* Buffalo LUA-U2-KTX
* Corega FEther USB2-TX
* D-Link DUB-E100
* Hawking UF200
* Linksys USB200M
* Netgear FA120
* Sitecom LN-029
* Intellinet USB 2.0 Ethernet
* ST Lab USB 2.0 Ethernet
* TrendNet TU2-ET100

Now, as you can see a TrendNet model very similar to the one you've got is listed, however I do have the D-Link DUB-E100 model, so I will perform some test and report results here...

Eddy

[eric3a]

Eddy;

Thanks so much.

I downloaded the motherboard's manual and it clearly shows the header for the COM port and that the MB came with an additional back plate with a serial port. I'm sure I chose not to install it back then, but since I don't throw anything computer related away, I should still have it so it should be real easy to get a COM port on my server.
I should be in business on that front once I get home this week-end.

And the Trendnet USB/ethernet adapter being likely supported is great news.

I don't see anything too complicated ahead of me, but I'll still appreciate detailed instructions on how to telnet, commands to upload the driver and such when the time comes.

Eric

[BobPhoenix]

If you can't find yours you could purchase one of these. It would probably work.

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by eric3a

I don't see anything too complicated ahead of me, but I'll still appreciate detailed instructions on how to telnet, commands to upload the driver and such when the time comes.

You're welcome, I need to verify that everything works as expected first and of course I'll provide detailed instruction/script on how to achieve this.

Actually, I think is a good idea to have a sticky thread for future reference, you know, it appears that more and more HD300 are failing as recent and a backup method is more than welcome.

Cheers
Eddy

[eric3a]

If you can't find yours you could purchase one of these. It would probably work.

Thanks. Great to see a picture of it! I know I have some at home.... But it made me realize what I will need is a female to female serial adapter.

If I am successful getting this HD300 back to life I'm thinking of uploading the USB/ethernet drivers to the other HD300s in the house via telnet on ethernet port and usb drive just in case their ethernet ports fry one day. At that point all I'd need to do (thoeratically) is plug in a USB to ethernet adapter and keep going.

And yes. Once the procedure is solid, it would be a good sticky. Maybe 2 procedures?
1. To upload driver when the nic is dead (usb to serial, PuTTY, USB drive, etc...)
2. To upload driver when the nic is still functioning to prepare for problem?

Eric

[routerunner]

I thought to give a bit of update about this...

Good news, I finally managed to have the two required kernel modules "usbnet.ko" and "asix.ko" compiled and mounted on the existing HD300 kernel correctly

Bad news, as soon as I insert the D-Link DUB-E100 into one of the two USB port the main driver crashes trowing a beautiful memory access error

Overall, I'm very pleased with the result so far, in the next few days I will enable some debug options to hopefully tracking down the error...

Eddy

[mechling-burgh]

Eddy, Your the best it's nice to know we will have something to fall back on if we have too.

[eric3a]

Sounds like a good start to me. Thanks for the update.
Eric

[routerunner]

I managed to hopefully solve the exception error today

Still some way to go, but as you can see below I was able to initialize the USB driver and start a new network interface "eth1"

eth1: register 'asix' at usb-tangox-2, ASIX AX88772 USB 2.0 Ethernet, 00:80:c8:3a:                                         47:d6
usbcore: registered new interface driver asix
tango3[usb]# ifconfig
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:23:A5:00:00:DC
          inet addr:192.168.1.14  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:2317 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:1284 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:128
          RX bytes:2454460 (2.3 MiB)  TX bytes:110953 (108.3 KiB)
          Interrupt:46

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:702 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:702 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:449001 (438.4 KiB)  TX bytes:449001 (438.4 KiB)

tango3[usb]# ifconfig eth1 192.168.1.60
tango3[usb]# ifconfig
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:23:A5:00:00:DC
          inet addr:192.168.1.14  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:2442 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:1339 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:128
          RX bytes:2462649 (2.3 MiB)  TX bytes:114869 (112.1 KiB)
          Interrupt:46

eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:80:C8:3A:47:D6
          inet addr:192.168.1.60  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:702 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:702 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:449001 (438.4 KiB)  TX bytes:449001 (438.4 KiB)

tango3[usb]#

Eddy