Canon 70D Err 80 Brick

Started by TechnoPilot, February 16, 2018, 06:47:18 AM

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TechnoPilot

So I'm a long time user of the 70D and Magic Lantern on it since the early alphas...but tonight while playing with my camera and a new video rig setup (physical), my 70D err 80'd and locked up with what I thought in the moment was a low battery warning so I swapped out to another LP-E6N I had charging and the camera now won't respond or boot.  I have tried all the troubleshooting options and possibilities for soft-bricking related issues to micro-SD adapters, Magic Lantern issues, multiple different batteries, different lenses, booting in every mode, nothing displays anything on the camera or gets a single flash out of its busy light.  I'm highly suspicious of this being the Mainboard death issue I've now heard about in my search online of the symptoms which seems a common problem relatively on the 70D, and will try to reach out to some personal contacts at Canon Canada to see what I can have done...but suspect I will get the same run around on the issue as everyone outside of Brazil.  As someone who has done a lot of camera repair work myself, I am more than comfortable replacing the mainboard in the camera but would need the software to properly initialize it that outside of Canon SPT makes (http://www.spt.info/sptstore.php/canon-eos-70d/software-canon-eos-70d-professional-advanced).  I am wondering if anyone here owns this software because, from my research, the part and this software will cost me the same as doing the repair myself and very sadly, the software is HIGHLY model specific.

This could, unfortunately, push me out of Canon completely if I'm right...
Cameras: Canon 70D - 70D.111B (Beta 2B)
Lenses: Sigma 18-35mm F1.8, Sigma 50-150mm F2.8 II
Video Gear: Shure Lenshopper VP83F, Rode Filmmaker Kit, DSLR Controller w/ TPLink MR3040

a1ex

ERR80 is some error that comes from the MPU (a secondary processor currently outside our control; on DIGIC 5, even its CPU architecture is unknown). I assume this error is displayed on the tiny LCD only (not on the main display). That error can be triggered by what happens on the main CPU (for example, if it stops responding); if the cause is there, I can look into it.

First step: portable display test (just make sure the card is bootable - EosCard / MacBoot / make_bootable.sh).

Alternative procedure: simply use the card prepared with a recent ML build (after 2015) for any other camera model (advantage: you can check if the card is prepared correctly on a second camera). In this case, the firmware won't be recognized by ML, so it will print an error message using the portable display routines (that means, it only runs code compatible with all EOS models).

If you are looking for LED blinks: on 70D, Canon bootloader will also turn on the LED while loading autoexec.bin, so you should see a short blink with a bootable card and any kind of autoexec.bin on it. [ The LED blinking behavior from Canon bootloader is not the same on all cameras, but I can check it in QEMU. ]

If none of the above works, I'd recommend exploring this route, in particular the RXDMPU pin.

I don't know whether ERR80 can be triggered before the main CPU wakes up the MPU (the portable display test won't initialize the MPU). I have the disassembly of DIGIC 4 MPU code (TX19A) but I'm not fluent in reading it; maybe @leegong is reading and can give some hints?

I have no experience with the SPT software, sorry.

TechnoPilot

Hi a1ex, thanks for your fast and thorough reply.  So I have tried the portable display test you mentioned with my existing ML card (which was in the camera at the time of the lockup and brick).  Sadly the camera is completely unresponsive, nothing displayed, no LED blinks at all.  I tried this with all three of my fully charged Canon batteries and in all sequences of card and battery insert.   At the moment I don't have another Canon body on hand to use another correctly installed ML copy, will try that as soon as I can borrow my friend's 5D mkIII, but am not holding out hope of a difference.  I've got my original ROM dumps from the camera and checked for any LOGs that might have been triggered when this lockup/brick happened, but the last is from the end of last month.  Would any of this be helpful?  I've had ERR80 happen before in the past, but it was usually just a battery eject and I was good to go, just like if you insert a MicroSD card adapter into most Canon cameras and close the card door without a MicroSD card in it (in fact this soft-bricked it harder with the requirement to first boot the camera with no card in it, before reinserting a card)

I'm not sure what you mean in regards to the RXDMPU pin route, since the forum you link to doesn't seem to have much beyond speculation about the center four grip pin pads purpose and no real final results, would you mind explaining your intention?

Yeah, the developers behind SPT have found the very interesting ability to throw the camera into Service Mode over the USB port which allows the camera to boot even while major circuit boards/LCD screens are missing/disconnected.  Additionally the ability to disable the flash via software so you can work on the internals without the capacitors charged, definitely something that would be nice even just so you don't shock yourself like a stun gun if you accidentally touch the contacts (taught myself the hard way about a year ago when I had to fix the viewfinder in my camera).
Cameras: Canon 70D - 70D.111B (Beta 2B)
Lenses: Sigma 18-35mm F1.8, Sigma 50-150mm F2.8 II
Video Gear: Shure Lenshopper VP83F, Rode Filmmaker Kit, DSLR Controller w/ TPLink MR3040

a1ex

If it doesn't show any sign of life with the diagnostic programs, that means we cannot run code on it. Feel free to PM me the ROMs, but my gut feeling says the issue might be elsewere (and the ROMs are very likely good).

The RXDMPU pin (or maybe TXDMPU, depending from which side it's labeled) is likely a serial port (UART) that prints MPU messages. I have no idea how these look like, it was more of a (low-priority) curiosity of mine. However, we did manage to unbrick an EOS M3 using the UART pads on the mainboard (so I have good reasons to believe these are useful).

TechnoPilot

Hi a1ex,

Thank you for all your help, but I bit the bullet and made the leap over to the GH5 with T Cine Ultra Speedbooster.  I tried reaching out to my personal contact at Canon...and didn't have any luck.  I just can't trust that they fixed the underlying issue and risk having this fail in the field during a shoot.  I still hope to eventually repair it just for a backup body...but seems like I am out of the Magic Lantern community now for my daily body.

Thanks again,
Sean
Cameras: Canon 70D - 70D.111B (Beta 2B)
Lenses: Sigma 18-35mm F1.8, Sigma 50-150mm F2.8 II
Video Gear: Shure Lenshopper VP83F, Rode Filmmaker Kit, DSLR Controller w/ TPLink MR3040