Compaq Evo T30

Introduction

The Compaq Evo T30 is a thin client. One day, while shopping at Weird Stuff, I happened to pick up several of these for a great price. About half didn't boot, but I think this is because they don't have a plugin memory card. My goal is to install Linux on them.

The ones I have don't appear to be a standard version:

  • Model No.: T30
  • Part No.: 238622-001
  • Spare No.: 292238-001
  • Date Manufactured: November 2002
  • Licenced for Windows CE.NET v4.0

From powering up into the OS:

  • RAM: 64MB
  • Flash Memory, Device 1: 32MB

From cracking the case:

  • National Geode CS5530A-UCE (this is the southbridge, now made by AMD)
  • Geode processor under heat sink on bottom of board

This suggests the model I have is similar to the 238617-xxx (DK408A)

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Power Up Sequence

Using a 12V power supply, 500mA is drawn after applying power. The LED is orange and will flash once before turning off. After a short period, the LED turns off and current draw drops to 300mA. Pressing the button for about 3 seconds will make the LED green and will return the current draw to 500mA.

Resources

Actual Steps

Preparation

Initial Firmware Download

Set up for initial transfer of standard firmware:

  • Make /tmp/evo and chmod 777.
  • Execute sp27933.exe (under vmware) and copy Rapport_4.X/Push_472-6-14-6Cme7D_T30_CEN/P472_6_14_6_Cme7D.bin to /tmp/evo/bootp.bin
  • /etc/init.d/tftpd stop
  • apt-get install dhcp3-server
  • Edit netxfer.sh to change all /home/blah to /tmp/evo.
  • Power up the Evo T30 while pressing the 'p' key (while the LED is orange), getting to the screen shown above.
  • sh netxfer.sh (I tried with my normal dhcpd and tftp setup, but that's not good enough. We need to be running on special ports for the Evo to communicate – these ports are set up by this script. I did not have to configure any special IP addresses.)
  • After the servers started and a few seconds passed, the T30 started printing stuff.
    • If you get the “error: not a tagged image” error, you might have used sp27933.exe directly instead of extracting its contents.
    • If you get errors about how the file cannot be read, perhaps you didn't chmod the file.
  • The T30 printed a lot of stuff and rebooted itself. It ended up in a configuration utility, and I played around and set up a 1024×768 mode. It then rebooted itself again.

Generate a new firmware

This section follows the preparing new firmware instructions noted above:

  • Untar and put the original firmware from the last step into the fw_builder. Name it orig.bin
  • apt-get install bin86
  • ./createfw
  • Note the new file ../bootp.bin
  • Then power up while pressing 'p', as above. This time, the process has different messages and goes faster, almost immediately rebooting into Linux.
linux/evo.txt · Last modified: 2009/04/29 20:14 by faith
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