SICKmods

so.. I have a MuVo V200 with 512MB that I think is a nice and simple mp3 player. My friend also had one, but his broke. Knowing what a hardware geek I am, he gave it to me.



This weekend I decided to crack em open to see if I can upgrade my player to double memory. In short, I could.

The mp3 player consists of two parts, the main part with the mp3 and fm chip, and a daughter board containing the lcd and the flash chips (and some other stuff). The main flash is hidden behind the LCD. But on the 512MB version that is the only flash chip. There is an empty space where a secondary flash can be added. I removed the flash chip from the broken player and put it on the empty spot on my player. I then traced the location of the CE pull up resistor and added that (a 10k 0402 resistor that I took from the broken player).

When this was done I connected it all together and... nothing. The player had 512MB as usual. I tried a firmware upgrade, but still nothing.

Back to the pcb to investigate further.. after a while I figured it all out. There are lots of unmounted resistors that are used to connect the two flash chips CE signals to the connector. I simply had to find the right resistor to jumper. In the picture below the result of my investigations can be seen.

The reason for it beeing four CEs on only tow flash chips, is because you can buy flash chips that have two flashes internally stacked in one package. Check the datasheet for more info on that.

So as you can see from the picture, F1-CE1 (Flash1) is jumpered to CE1 and F2-CE1 (the new flash chip) is jumpered to CE2.

I then connected the player to the computer, did a firmware upgrade and BAM! It works. 1024MB memory.


(Click for a much bigger version)

There are two additional CE signals left open after this upgrade. So by either piggy backing or using flash chips with internally stacked chips you can get up to 2048MB.

This was a nice and easy (if you are a good solderer) hack. Hope some one enjoys it!

/pablot

Hi,

probably, but I haven't seen the innards of the muvo slim, so I can't give you any real and accurate info about it.. sorry

not sure what you mean about the jumper wires, but you'll have to locate the jumper resistors for the additional CE's if they are not in place and you'll probably have to pull up the CE signal. If you take some pictures I can try and help you. They have to be high res.

I have Creative MuVo Tx Usb 2.0 Player and it all of a sudden hanged while i was listning, when I plug it in my pc and try to flash it with the firmware it doesnt respond, what should i do?
its only been 3 months i bought it!!!
Please help me how to fix it.

   ....

Hello Pablot,

I have the same Muvo and have taken it apart.   But after putting everything back, it doesn't stay together, however -- it just falls apart again unless I attach the battery pack.  I was careful not to reak any of the pegs that fit together.

Was the player glued together?  How did you keep the USB/player part from falling back apart.   What am I missing.

Thank you for your help in advance!

mholland

Hi pablot,

I've had a V200 for close to 5 years now. I'd say it's a sturdy little unit, having been bashed around and dropped many times. I'm afraid it's had one too many falls though. I think something came loose inside after a particularly bad fall a few nights back and now audio doesn't sound right and stutters. How do i open up the player?


EDIT:

Scratch my question. I managed to get it open without messing up the case. I couldn't find any component which came loose from the fall, so i guess i'm stuck with a player that's half-dead. :-(