Flashing And Upgrading Chinese MP4 Player Firmware

If your are not an audiophile and don't care much about audio/video quality, cheap chinese MP3/MP4 players
are just for you, these devices are quite popular and just get the job
done, since there is no quality control over these devices they do not
last long, one of the most common problems faced with these portable
players is the issue of firmware software corruption, I encountered a
similar problem with my friends PMP which refused to start getting
stuck at loading screen, the only solution was to flash the firmware
but the problem was unavailability of any information and tools to get
the job done, after long research and flashing the firmware I was able
to successfully recover the MP4 player to working condition.
Here is an step-by-step tutorial on how to identify your MP4 player,
download its firmware and flash it using appropriate tools :

WARNING : This procedure can render your device dead, so do not try if your player is working fine.

1. The most important step of the whole process is to correctly
   identify your device CONTROL CHIP and CPU, using wrong firmware or
   flashing tool may cause damage to your device, unscrew and open your
   device and write down all chip id's and motherboard numbers you see,
   you can also try the EasyChips - firmware identification utility but it did not worked for me.
   
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2. You will now need to download the correct firmware and flashing
   utility for your device, visit sites below and search for your control
   chip and cpu to download the firmware and flashing utility, you can
   also post on user-forums to get help identifying the firmware :
   
   
   
   • S1FW
     
   • MyMpxPlayer
     
   • SKMP3
     

In my case the chipset was Sunplus AJ262-V7 and the utility needed to flash it was FRM Pro.

Once identified you need to connect your device to computer
via USB in camera mode (Press A + OK button and plugin USB cord on
player), for Windows to identify this mode you will need camera drivers
you need to point Windows Found New Hardware Wizard to Driver
folder downloaded with the FRM Pro utility above, this will install the
first camera driver, for correct identification by flashing utility you
need to install a second camera driver - open Windows Hardware Manager
and install unidentified camera device drivers by pointing the driver
wizard to Driver folder used earlier.

Now install and launch FSM Pro flashing utility and follow these instructions to install the new firmware.

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Let the process finish, this will take a while, do not disconnect
or interrupt the process until you see a success message in log window.

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Unplug your PMP from computer and it should be working now.

ou will Need to use FRM Pro Tools Firmware Update Utility to Update MP4/MP5 firmware.



Note:** Before using FRM Pro Tools, please check your PC computer to
confirm that the AP USB driver for your MP4/MP5 player has been
installed. If the driver has not been installed, you can download it
from our files download section. The driver is found in the 3050 driver
directory.


Driver installation method is as follows:

Connect your MP4/MP5 Player SPMP3050 to your PC computer. Your PC will
prompt you that it has found a new device. To install the driver,
select the 3050 driver folder, and then select ca536av.inf and ca536ai.inf (2 install files). The PC should then proceed through the driver install process. You can click 'finish' at the end.



Now your PC should properly recognize your Sunplus MP4/MP5 player.
These are the next steps to take to update the firmware using FRM PRO TOOLS version 1.1.9a:

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1. Double-click on the desktop icon of FRM Pro Tools to open the application tool. (DO NOT connect your Sunplus MP4/MP5 player at this time yet.)

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2. Right-click on RSV, then select "Set Working Folder" on menu:

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3. Choose the corresponding mp4/mp5 model in the "DOWNLOAD" folder path:

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4. Right-click on firmware, then select "set file", choose "SPMP3050A.bin"

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5. Return to the basic interface, then click on "Dev Detect Begin" :

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6. Connect the SPMP3050 device, you can see the LOG window display the word "Detect", then click on "Dev Detect End":

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7. If necessary, you can update another SPMP3050 device by simply
selecting "DOWNLOAD" again and going through steps 6 and 7, until you
have upgraded all devices.

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8. Please Note: ** If doing this for the first time, you will have
to go through the following 2-step process. So, if that's the case, go
to the advanced interface, right-click on the "Working Folder", select
"Create RSV Image":

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9. In the pop-up interface, select "Enable detect", then click on "Detect blk size":

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10. Select the appropriate folder under "DOWNLOAD" folder for the
MP4/MP5 device firmware that you want to update. Click the "ISP" button
to upgrade it:

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11. The tool will start going through the firmware upgrade/update
process, and once completed, the "Log Window" will give you a "SUCCESS"
display. This means the firmware update "DOWNLOAD" process has
completed:

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