Preventive eMMC replacement on MCU1

[scaesare]

I hope that what Service Center told you about a plug-in eMMc chip is an indication of a change Tesla had done! I had my MCU replaced last year after eMMc death so I am hoping the MCU replacement I received was a later iteration with a plug-in addition. But I understand it's still a glaring programming oversight that has remained unchanged but with newer Teslas there are higher capacity chips.

I've not heard of the change to socketed or plug-in storage. Would be great though.

 

[widodh]

I hope that what Service Center told you about a plug-in eMMc chip is an indication of a change Tesla had done! I had my MCU replaced last year after eMMc death so I am hoping the MCU replacement I received was a later iteration with a plug-in addition. But I understand it's still a glaring programming oversight that has remained unchanged but with newer Teslas there are higher capacity chips.

I haven't heard nor seen a plug-in chip design on the MCU. Not on MCU1 nor MCU2.

It would also make gaining root access to the vehicle way to simple. So I doubt it.

MCU1 does have an SD-Card though, but that's only used for the Navigation maps.

 

[LuckyLuke]

I think they mean the Tegra daughterboard when they mention the "plug-in card".

In theory this could be a very effective and cheap replacement part for anyone with a corrupted emmc, but sadly they will not replace it for you or sell it separately. For now they will swap the entire mcu at a cost of about €3000.

It is very remarkable that they do not offer to just swap the Tegra pcb, since they used to offer the 3G-4G conversion which is basically the same procedure by removing the mcu and replacing a small plug-in pcb inside. This would reduce cost of a corrupt emmc repair to like €500-€750 or so.

 

[FlatSix911]

I think they mean the Tegra daughterboard when they mention the "plug-in card". View attachment 455372

In theory, this could be a very effective and cheap replacement part for anyone with a corrupted emmc, but sadly they will not replace it for you or sell it separately. For now, they will swap the entire mcu at a cost of about €3000.

It is very remarkable that they do not offer to just swap the Tegra pcb, since they used to offer the 3G-4G conversion which is basically the same procedure by removing the mcu and replacing a small plug-in pcb inside. This would reduce the cost of a corrupt emmc repair to like €500-€750 or so.

Can you elaborate on how the 4G conversion can reduce the cost of the eMMC repair?

 

[Maarten]

Can you elaborate on how the 4G conversion can reduce the cost of the eMMC repair?

@Lucky Luke doesn't say that the 4G conversion can reduce the cost of the eMMC repair.
He says that just a replacement of the small plugin Tegra pcb could reduce costs.
That replacement is not much different from the conversion from 3G to 4G.
However, your remark does makes sense in a different way.
Doing both replacements at the same time would mean only one time disassembly and assembly of the MCU, reducing labour costs.

 

[scaesare]

So a few more tidbits...

1) It took 2 tries to successfully solder my new eMMC chip on to the daughtercard. The first time simply resulted in no boot. I specifically asked the shop use a board heater the second time, and after that reflow it worked.

2) The IC can be powered with 12VDC, but the LCD screen won't necessarily come on outside the car unless you've implemented a workaround.

3) My recovered keys are working fine to connect back to the mothership... as a matter of fact I got a firmware update only a few hours later...

4) I was unable to successfully retrieve mcu_commands.key from my failing Hynix flash. Thus I don't have remote unlock and app-drive capability. The rest of the app is fine.

5) For some reason passive unlock won't work. I have to click the fob. This may be related to #4 above, but not sure.


Still haven't sewn the car completely back up yet... still seeing if I can fix/tweak a few things. But it's been running fine for a week and a half now...

 

[scaesare]

#2 above should be "MCU", not "IC".

 

[widodh]

I have been a bit silent on this topic. Busy at work and other things. But I've started on a document on Google Docs. You'll find some pictures there: eMMC MCU Replacement - Google Drive

If somebody wants to participate on this document, feel free to send me your Google address and I'll give you write access to the document.

 

[T.R.T.e.s.l.a.]

I have been a bit silent on this topic. Busy at work and other things. But I've started on a document on Google Docs. You'll find some pictures there: eMMC MCU Replacement - Google Drive

If somebody wants to participate on this document, feel free to send me your Google address and I'll give you write access to the document.

It's looking very nice and detailed.
Huge thanks for this!

 

[mrg2jz]

I have been a bit silent on this topic. Busy at work and other things. But I've started on a document on Google Docs. You'll find some pictures there: eMMC MCU Replacement - Google Drive

If somebody wants to participate on this document, feel free to send me your Google address and I'll give you write access to the document.

That looks good, as we progress we could also share some of the files with each other if someones EMMC is completely fried

 

[mrg2jz]

I am too in the process of recovering an EMMC with the help of you guys from this post. I am in the process of recovery now. I understand there are 4 partitions, but the old EMMC is 8gb and the replacment i am using is the Swissbit 64GB, my question is how large should the new partitions be? I am guessing if we copy the old to the new, then we are only really using 8gb of the Swissbit, do we enlarge all the partitions or so some stay the same size and enlarge others?

Thanks

 

[widodh]

It's looking very nice and detailed.
Huge thanks for this!

Work in progress! Help is welcome Doing this in my spare time.

That looks good, as we progress we could also share some of the files with each other if someones EMMC is completely fried

More information is better.

I am too in the process of recovering an EMMC with the help of you guys from this post. I am in the process of recovery now. I understand there are 4 partitions, but the old EMMC is 8gb and the replacment i am using is the Swissbit 64GB, my question is how large should the new partitions be? I am guessing if we copy the old to the new, then we are only really using 8gb of the Swissbit, do we enlarge all the partitions or so some stay the same size and enlarge others?

Thanks

You can just leave the old partition table and don't use the other space. The MCU won't use any of the additional storage anyway.

I wrote a script on how to create a blank image for a MCU1: Tesla Model S/X MCU1 eMMC image creator

 

[mrg2jz]

Work in progress! Help is welcome Doing this in my spare time.


More information is better.


You can just leave the old partition table and don't use the other space. The MCU won't use any of the additional storage anyway.

I wrote a script on how to create a blank image for a MCU1: Tesla Model S/X MCU1 eMMC image creator

Thank you very much, i'm sure this will help us all in the next stages.

 

[.jg.]

we are only really using 8gb of the Swissbit, do we enlarge all the partitions or so some stay the same size and enlarge others?

Like widodh said, just copy the partitions as they are. The chip is smart and can use unallocated storage for things like wear levelling, where good bits are re-mapped to failing bits - similar to the re-mapping of bad sectors by hard disk controllers. So the unallocated space is not wasted space.

 

[mrg2jz]

Like widodh said, just copy the partitions as they are. The chip is smart and can use unallocated storage for things like wear levelling, where good bits are re-mapped to failing bits - similar to the re-mapping of bad sectors by hard disk controllers. So the unallocated space is not wasted space.

Thanks

Thats very good to know

 

[scaesare]

I have been a bit silent on this topic. Busy at work and other things. But I've started on a document on Google Docs. You'll find some pictures there: eMMC MCU Replacement - Google Drive

If somebody wants to participate on this document, feel free to send me your Google address and I'll give you write access to the document.

Excellent... I'll peruse and add as i have anything worthwhile.

 

[supratachophobia]

No. If you 'Power Off' the car, then kill the 12V you can take off the eMMC of the MCU.

Now you can bitcopy the eMMC using a Linux computer and then put the new eMMC back on the MCU.

Afterwards you connect all the wires and boot the MCU. Nothing has changed and the car still works.

Yes, it's like cloning a hard drive.

 

[meomyo]

I think they mean the Tegra daughterboard when they mention the "plug-in card".

View attachment 455372

In theory this could be a very effective and cheap replacement part for anyone with a corrupted emmc, but sadly they will not replace it for you or sell it separately. For now they will swap the entire mcu at a cost of about €3000.

It is very remarkable that they do not offer to just swap the Tegra pcb, since they used to offer the 3G-4G conversion which is basically the same procedure by removing the mcu and replacing a small plug-in pcb inside. This would reduce cost of a corrupt emmc repair to like €500-€750 or so.

remember its tesla we are talking about here. No way would they be smart enough and decent enough to just replace that part to make people happy..NO WAY!

 

[KLuuppo]

My own car got an appointment for thursday. They insisted to get the old unit back:

 

[LuckyLuke]

This comes too late for some ppl sadly but to anyone that is in the same boat: there is a way now to read the certificates (and root password) without taking the emmc off and possibly damaging it. Pm me.