[MLB-WIRELESS] hacking MSI RG54G2 - what it looks like inside

[Rowan Crowe]

On Fri, 8 Jul 2005, Chris Samuel wrote:

> On Friday 08 July 2005 19:00, you wrote:
> > Got this unit tonight for $70, and took a peek inside...
> >
> > http://satin.sensation.net.au/rowan/MSI-RG54G2-hack.html
> >
> > Anyone recognise the innards?
>
> Not from the picture, but downloading the firmware from the web and running
> the "strings" program on it shows (slightly reconstructed):
>
> Intersil ARM WLAN C!$ @S!6 Firmware (C)opyright 1993-200 2 PA, The
> Netherlands

Where did you find that? I ran strings over the file RG54G2_1_0_7_0.gzh,
but all I could find were a relatively small number of (compiler?) debug
msgs at the end. I tried renaming it to .gz and using gzip -d, but that
didn't work.

Here's firmware that works with the ISL3893 CPU - no idea if it will work
with this unit...

http://isl3893.sourceforge.net/index.orig.html

One thing I noticed is that the pads for the extra SDRAM chip are still
virgin gold (rather than solder plated) and there also appear to be SMD
support components for that missing chip installed around it. Might just
need the single chip soldered in to double the RAM.

Of course, that's little use if you can't hack the firmware... :)

Cheers.

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