TS-X4.0TL/R5 LCD display not working

[bleedish]

I had to restore factory defaults to my TS-X4.0TL/R5.  I powered on the unit and held down the reset button for five seconds per the manual.
After doing this the unit was in EM mode.  I had to reinstall the firmware to get the unit functioning again.  After the unit came back up the LCD no longer works.  I get no information on it.  It is lit up blue all the time with nothing on the screen.  It was working fine before the reset. 

Anyone have anything similar happen.  I've tried resetting the unit and reinstalling the firmware several times but it just won't work any more.  I've also tried older firmware versions and those don't work either.  I'm at a loss and Buffalo support has no idea what to do either.  It's driving me nuts cause it was working just before resetting.  I can't believe the LCD panel just decided to die.  Help please!!!

[1000001101000]

The LCD screen is controlled by a microcontroller which is somewhat separate from the rest of the system. It is possible (if unlikely) for that microcontroller to experience an issue. Sometimes this type of issue can be resolved by physically unplugging the Terastation and waiting several seconds before plugging it back in and trying again (shutdown/restart of the device doesn't cut power to the microcontroller).

 

[bleedish]

Yeah, I've tried that several times.  No dice.  Thanks for the suggestion though.

[1000001101000]

I suppose you could check to see if the cable to the lcd module came loose or something.

If the microcontroller wasn't working the device would probably not work, at the very least the leds/fans/lcd backlight/buttons would not work properly. If all of those work as expected you can be fairly sure it's just an lcd problem.

I've created a library for interfacing with the microcontroller on these devices, though it needs to be running linux (not the stock firmware) to work.
https://github.com/1000001101000/Python_buffalo_libmicon

I've been working on getting this model running linux but haven't had much success so far, I can get it to boot and recognize most of the hardware but haven't got sata working (kind of important on a nas). I have been able to confirm that the microcontroller library works on this model.

If I ever get the whole thing working that would give you some more tools to troubleshoot with but ultimately if the LCD isn't displaying messages and removing power from the microcontroller doesn't work it pretty much has to be an iccue with the lcd or it's connection to the board.

[jodysalazar]

Thanks for your answer. It helped me a lot.

[keltein]

Thank you so much. It really helped.

[Kane88]

I suppose you could check to see if the cable to the lcd module came loose or something.

If the microcontroller wasn't working the device would probably not work, at the very least the leds/fans/lcd backlight/buttons would not work properly. If all of those work as expected you can be fairly sure it's just an lcd problem.

I've created a library for interfacing with the microcontroller on these devices, though it needs to be running linux (not the stock firmware) to work.
https://github.com/1000001101000/Python_buffalo_libmicon

I've been working on getting this model running linux but haven't had much success so far, I can get it to boot and recognize most of the hardware but haven't got sata working (kind of important on a nas). I have been able to confirm that the microcontroller library works on this model.

If I ever get the whole thing working that would give you some more tools to troubleshoot with but ultimately if the LCD isn't displaying messages and removing power from the microcontroller doesn't work it pretty much has to be an iccue with the lcd or it's connection to the board.

If you get around to getting linux working, let me know.  I'd be happy to test out any install packages and such.  I'm trying to find a purpose for these older units, as they are pretty limited by only having SMB 1.x protocol with the stock firmware.

These units are interesting, even if they are a little slow.  Which brings up a question.  Is the 30mb/sec write transfer rate maximum, a result of the hardware limits on these older units?  Or was that more of a buffalo software programming thing?  It's funny that these units have gigabit ethernet ports, yet they don't even hit half of that xfer speed.

Is there a way to check to see if NAND is actually installed on these, and is just blank?  When this model boots, it detects 0 NAND.

[1000001101000]

Shortly after I wrote that I got around to adding support to that device to my Debian installer along with a few of the other older devices.

Installer files and instructions can be found here:

https://buffalonas.miraheze.org/wiki/Installing_Debian_on_MV78100_Devices
https://github.com/1000001101000/Debian_on_Buffalo

I don't believe I've done any benchmarks on this particular for network transfers. On the devices that I have run such tests on it usually seems that I can get more or less the maximum speed from the drive/sata controller/Ethernet controllers when performing raw transfer tests. For end to end tests of random r/w over samba the limiting factor seems to CPU/memory bound.

I've spent a little time looking for guides for faster configurations but never found a definitive guide for maximizing transfer speed for these types of configurations. I'd love it if someone put something like that together.

[1000001101000]

I should probably mention, in the other thread you referred to trying a TS-XEL and this thread referred to a TS-XL. I added support for both at around the same time (though they have pretty different hardware).

I've got more details about the hardware if you're interested:

https://buffalonas.miraheze.org/wiki/Terastation_TS-XL
https://buffalonas.miraheze.org/wiki/Terastation_TS-XEL

[Kane88]

I should probably mention, in the other thread you referred to trying a TS-XEL and this thread referred to a TS-XL. I added support for both at around the same time (though they have pretty different hardware).

I've got more details about the hardware if you're interested:

https://buffalonas.miraheze.org/wiki/Terastation_TS-XL
https://buffalonas.miraheze.org/wiki/Terastation_TS-XEL

Thanks, I didn't know.  I'm glad you said that.
Buffalo's firmware is labelled as TS-X series and works for both the TS-X and TS-XE.  So I assumed they had similar hardware.

The ones I have are the TS-XE4.0TL/R5 etc.  The front port slots are covered on these.

I'll read up on the TS-XEL steps, and see if I can get your debian loaded on it.

Edit:
Just wanted to check if these are the right instructions...  it took some searching to get there.  Thanks
https://github.com/1000001101000/Debian_on_Buffalo/wiki/Preparing-Device-for-Debian-Install

[1000001101000]

The github page has a wiki with installation instructions etc.
https://github.com/1000001101000/Debian_on_Buffalo/wiki

They are similar in that they are ARMv5 devices which allows them to use the same firmware (just with different kernels). They did the same thing with linkstation firmware for devices of that same time period.