Various details on Ultra 4

Disassembling my ReadyNAS gave me a few extra questions. Is there a document describing the pinouts of the unpopulated headers on the Ultra 4?
Interesting ones:

The header right next to the screw hole looks like a USB header, and happens to be right next to two USB ports.

The header right next to this screw hole sure looks a lot like a VGA header (which I thought the 4200 didn't have). The chipset is there, as can be confirmed by lspci:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Unknown device a001
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Unknown device a002

What this is, I don't know though.



Are these pinouts possible to confirm anywhere?

Looks like USB and VGA headers yes. The last one should be the LCD cable connector.

Following products uses UART which is TTL level, it needs a RS232 transceiver to take to PC serial port: Duo, NV+, Ultra 2/4, Pro 2/4, Ultra 6, RN2100/1500, NVX All other products including Pro/Pro 6 and other rack mounts have RS232 transceiver built on-board, So there is no need for external transceiver.

Flash will show up as as 128MB /dev/sda1 in Debian to use as you want.

chirpa wrote:
Looks like USB and VGA headers yes. The last one should be the LCD cable connector.

I'm referring to the empty header next to the LCD cable connector, 7 pins and one blank.

chirpa wrote:
Following products uses UART which is TTL level, it needs a RS232 transceiver to take to PC serial port: Duo, NV+, Ultra 2/4, Pro 2/4, Ultra 6, RN2100/1500, NVX All other products including Pro/Pro 6 and other rack mounts have RS232 transceiver built on-board, So there is no need for external transceiver.

I guess I'll have to dig out one of my USB->TTL cables again. It's been a while :)

chirpa wrote:
Flash will show up as as 128MB /dev/sda1 in Debian to use as you want.

Ok, good to know. I guess I'll have to boot from USB for accessing that though, since /dev/sda1 is one of the HDDs in RAIDiator.

I'm going to see if I can find a USB header cable and get the port working. If not, I guess I'll have to trace the pins and see if there are any resistors missing (which seems to be a pretty common way to disable usb headers on production boards).
A VGA cable has been ordered, crossing my fingers that that'll work.

Thanks for the reply!

repvik wrote:
I'm going to see if I can find a USB header cable and get the port working.

It'll just be another USB port, nothing special. You can get the same effect by plugging a hub into one of the existing ports.

repvik wrote:
If not, I guess I'll have to trace the pins and see if there are any resistors missing (which seems to be a pretty common way to disable usb headers on production boards).

It's not exactly a way to "disable" the header; if the pulldown resistors are missing, it's because they're unnecessary when the USB connector is missing.

repvik wrote:
A VGA cable has been ordered, crossing my fingers that that'll work.

That'll make more of a difference than the USB port. If the necessary components behind the VGA header are present, you'll be able to attach a monitor and a USB keyboard to change BIOS settings. But I think you can do that with the serial port, too, so if it were me, I'd probably start with the serial port only. If you can use it to get into the BIOS settings, there's no need to solder a VGA header onto the board.

fastfwd wrote:
repvik wrote: I'm going to see if I can find a USB header cable and get the port working. It'll just be another USB port, nothing special. You can get the same effect by plugging a hub into one of the existing ports.

I'm not expecting it to be "special". But I'm hoping for an internal USB port, since there's enough room to store a USB stick there - allowing me to keep a complete and full-featured OS off of the RAID. And that without having something external that my kid can yank out at any given time. I could remove one of the external ones and solder wires on, but that'd be ugly.

fastfwd wrote:
repvik wrote: If not, I guess I'll have to trace the pins and see if there are any resistors missing (which seems to be a pretty common way to disable usb headers on production boards). It's not exactly a way to "disable" the header; if the pulldown resistors are missing, it's because they're unnecessary when the USB connector is missing.

Imprecise, sorry. English isn't my first language. It's pretty common for the pulldowns to be missing when the headers are missing, but not always. I'm hoping they're still there, since soldering on the tiny buggers can be a bit of a pain.

fastfwd wrote:

repvik wrote: A VGA cable has been ordered, crossing my fingers that that'll work. That'll make more of a difference than the USB port. If the necessary components behind the VGA header are present, you'll be able to attach a monitor and a USB keyboard to change BIOS settings. But I think you can do that with the serial port, too, so if it were me, I'd probably start with the serial port only. If you can use it to get into the BIOS settings, there's no need to solder a VGA header onto the board.

There is no need, strictly speaking. But I'm going to try because I can. It does make it a tad easier to install and debug issues with a custom OS however.

repvik wrote:
I'm referring to the empty header next to the LCD cable connector, 7 pins and one blank.

Gotcha, J13 is a USB header.

chirpa wrote:
repvik wrote: I'm referring to the empty header next to the LCD cable connector, 7 pins and one blank. Gotcha, J13 is a USB header.

Isn't it two pins short?

Serial is acting as Console Redirection. So via serial you can get into the BIOS. Though some models hard-code boot order and won't let you modify. In that cause, you'll want to bootstrap the 128MB flash, that will be boot device, then point your images at the disks.

repvik wrote:
chirpa wrote: repvik wrote: I'm referring to the empty header next to the LCD cable connector, 7 pins and one blank. Gotcha, J13 is a USB header. Isn't it two pins short?

Maybe not regular USB header, but its related to the SM321U flash somehow, programming/flash port?

chirpa wrote:
repvik wrote: chirpa wrote: repvik wrote: I'm referring to the empty header next to the LCD cable connector, 7 pins and one blank. Gotcha, J13 is a USB header. Isn't it two pins short? Maybe not regular USB header, but its related to the SM321U flash somehow, programming/flash port?

Looks like it lets you access the SM312U in USB mode. Useful, but not what I'm looking for.