Tiido wrote on 2019-10-09, 03:49:

AWE32 and AWE64 tend to get corrupt EEPROMs every once in a while, making the cards unusable and while there's a software way to […]
Show full quote

AWE32 and AWE64 tend to get corrupt EEPROMs every once in a while, making the cards unusable and while there's a software way to revive these cards you often lose some functionality since the util is for some other specific card instead.

I have dumped a number of Creative PnP EEPROMs and they could be used to revive some of these cards to what they're supposed to be, though you will probably need to desolder the chip and burn the correct image on it. Maybe someone will one day figure out how the software procedure works to upload new EEPROM content to the card so hardware method is no longer necessary...

Here are the dumps from CT3600, CT3980, CT3990, CT4380, CT4390, CT4520 and CT4540.
PnP.rar

Thank you so much for this collection! What software did you use to dump the EEPROMS?

DoutorHouse wrote on 2021-04-04, 00:21:

Tiido wrote on 2019-10-09, 03:49:

AWE32 and AWE64 tend to get corrupt EEPROMs every once in a while, making the cards unusable and while there's a software way to […]
Show full quote

AWE32 and AWE64 tend to get corrupt EEPROMs every once in a while, making the cards unusable and while there's a software way to revive these cards you often lose some functionality since the util is for some other specific card instead.

I have dumped a number of Creative PnP EEPROMs and they could be used to revive some of these cards to what they're supposed to be, though you will probably need to desolder the chip and burn the correct image on it. Maybe someone will one day figure out how the software procedure works to upload new EEPROM content to the card so hardware method is no longer necessary...

Here are the dumps from CT3600, CT3980, CT3990, CT4380, CT4390, CT4520 and CT4540.
PnP.rar

Thank you so much for this collection! What software did you use to dump the EEPROMS?

This might work to flash the EEPROM on at least some cards with de-soldering : SB2AWE EEPROM flasher utility.

EDIT : Sorry I misread the question

I didn't use any software, I dumped them by desoldering the chips and popping them into a dedicated programmer device.

It would be possible to read all the EEPROMs of any PnP device as part of the PnP process though but I don't know if any software exists specifically for it.

Tiido wrote on 2021-04-04, 01:29:

I didn't use any software, I dumped them by desoldering the chips and popping them into a dedicated programmer device.

It would be possible to read all the EEPROMs of any PnP device as part of the PnP process though but I don't know if any software exists specifically for it.

Ah, thanks!
I ask because i'm having a weird problem, described here:

Re: SB2AWE EEPROM flasher utility.

and i'm thinking maybe i could reflash my CT4520...

Thanks again!

darry wrote on 2021-04-04, 01:26:

DoutorHouse wrote on 2021-04-04, 00:21:

Tiido wrote on 2019-10-09, 03:49:

AWE32 and AWE64 tend to get corrupt EEPROMs every once in a while, making the cards unusable and while there's a software way to […]
Show full quote

AWE32 and AWE64 tend to get corrupt EEPROMs every once in a while, making the cards unusable and while there's a software way to revive these cards you often lose some functionality since the util is for some other specific card instead.

I have dumped a number of Creative PnP EEPROMs and they could be used to revive some of these cards to what they're supposed to be, though you will probably need to desolder the chip and burn the correct image on it. Maybe someone will one day figure out how the software procedure works to upload new EEPROM content to the card so hardware method is no longer necessary...

Here are the dumps from CT3600, CT3980, CT3990, CT4380, CT4390, CT4520 and CT4540.
PnP.rar

Thank you so much for this collection! What software did you use to dump the EEPROMS?

This might work to flash the EEPROM on at least some cards with de-soldering : SB2AWE EEPROM flasher utility.

EDIT : Sorry I misread the question

Thanks! Yeah, i actually wanna do the opposite. I'm having a weird problem with my CT4520 and i'm thinking about trying to reflash it with that russian tool.

Re: SB2AWE EEPROM flasher utility.

Tiido wrote on 2019-10-09, 03:49:

AWE32 and AWE64 tend to get corrupt EEPROMs every once in a while, making the cards unusable and while there's a software way to […]
Show full quote

AWE32 and AWE64 tend to get corrupt EEPROMs every once in a while, making the cards unusable and while there's a software way to revive these cards you often lose some functionality since the util is for some other specific card instead.

I have dumped a number of Creative PnP EEPROMs and they could be used to revive some of these cards to what they're supposed to be, though you will probably need to desolder the chip and burn the correct image on it. Maybe someone will one day figure out how the software procedure works to upload new EEPROM content to the card so hardware method is no longer necessary...

Here are the dumps from CT3600, CT3980, CT3990, CT4380, CT4390, CT4520 and CT4540.
PnP.rar

Thankyou for dumping these, I think the CT3990 dump may be bad.
I have a CT3990 and it currently identifies itself as a pnp card in the bios but doesnt initialise the card correctly in ctcu, however if I reprogram the chip with the file supplied then it no longer works at all.
I can go back to my original dump and it 'works' again.
I have supplied my dump for reference, there is 7 differences between the files but I dont know if my has some corruption in it since my card doesnt work 100%

Very interesting, there are 7 different bytes between the dumps. I'm not sure what the differences are exactly but first one is in PnP ID so that explains things breaking.

It is strange though, just few random bytes being different is not really indicative of a mechanical error when dumping... but it does seem that the dump I made is corrupt. I remember the card the EEPROM was dumped from did work and continued to work afterwards. I no longer have the card to redump it and verify things. You can try UNISOUND to initialize the card instead of Creative's stuff, it should be much less fussy about things.

Can I put your dump into the archive in first post ?

Not sure if my dump is 100% correct but feel free to add it to your archive.

My card is detects it in the bios pnp check but will not initialise correctly in dos/windows.
In ctcu it fails the I/O address test and doesnt allocate an address, DMA test locks the program.
I was hoping its from a corrupt eeprom but it could be a problem elsewhere.

My CT4520 does not work with the eeprom in your collection. I have a completely different one which works.

Attached for reference.

Your dump has reverse bit order of mine, so this is one more can of worms with these dumps... When I have dumped EEPROMs of YMF71x cards, they come out reversed like that and I have manually reversed the bit order so PnP strings etc. look readable, and some other cards like Creative ones have already the bit order is correct already for the programmer. So your programmer will dump YMF71x EEPROM with right order (for the human reading it), but reverses thngs for creative cards...

oh, interesting. Are you saying that your EEPROM dump would work on my card but first I need to reverse it? And what do you mean with "reverse"? I tinkered with the file a bit but I can't make any sense out of it.

What programmer do you use?

Thanks!

These chips are organized as 8 or 16bits per word, and the bit order in each word can be MSB or LSB first for a particular device.
I have a EE-Tools Topmax II

Ah, I see. So you're saying that your files are not compatible with my programmer - or better, it will flash it the rom incorrectly?
I have a few options on the TL866II but I do not see anything that changes the file so it becomes "readable".

Yeah, the programmer writes them the wrong bit order, so things aren't gonna work in the end.

There is no bit order reversing in the software of my progarmmer either, which is why I made a little program for that. If I give it some sort of user interface (command line) I could make it public but as is, it is just a source file where you have to manipulate variables and recompile to get needed actions 🤣. I think such tools already exist though, this cannot be a problem someone has not faced before...

Yes, that's why I was kind of expecting a way to do that on the TL-866II software which I believe is quite popular. I would definitely expect this to be available as an utility of some sort indeed. Weird.

Well, thanks for your input anyways, it was fun to test! If you have any other ideas for the other thread, feel free to mention! 😀

Out of curiosity, I disassembled the C4502_C1 file and did a quick and dirty hack to read dumps from AWE eeprom.
So the AWEDUMP v0.1 utility is here.
Runs without parameters and tries to read the EEPROM contents. Creates an AWEDUMP.BIN file on disk in current directory if successful.

Attention! Warning! Achtung! I did not test the program much, but at first glance it was able to dump sound cards CT2940, CT3670 and CT4520. How these dumps correspond to the real content of the EEPROM memory, I do not know, more testers are needed. Everything you do with this program you do at your own peril and risk.

PS: AWEFLASH (for write dumps to soundcard) is also availible here: Re: SB2AWE EEPROM flasher utility.

Great work Tronix! I've tried AWEDUMP on my CT4500 and it seems to work fine. This finally gave me the courage to try and use the Dell Flash Utility to fix my CT4500 AWE64 Value.
The card is detected properly in Windows 98 but Creative's AWE Control utility shows 0KB of available memory and the card makes strange hissing and humming sounds during/after playback.

Unfortunately flashing the EEPROM made no difference, the card must have a hardware failure. So i've flashed back my CT4500 EEPROM backup using your AWEFLASH tool, also worked great!
Here are the two dumps that I've made, I didn't find them elsewhere online.

Hi! I know this is old, but I've dumped the EEPROM of my CT4380 (trying to recover another CT4380) with Tronix's AWEDUMP tool. No problems whatsoever.

ViTi95 wrote on 2023-10-19, 17:46:

Hi! I know this is old, but I've dumped the EEPROM of my CT4380 (trying to recover another CT4380) with Tronix's AWEDUMP tool. No problems whatsoever.

Thanks! Does your CT4380 have an IDE header?