Open Firmware Brings Broken Onkyo AV Receivers Back to Life. This is a known fault. In some of Onkyo’s AV receivers that use the Texas Instruments D830 chip, such as the TX-NR717, the device powers on and appears functional, yet produces no sound. According to developer Jokūbas, the problem stems either from the D830 itself or from the corruption of the 64 MiB NAND flash chip that holds the firmware.
Repair is far from easy. When you replace the D830 with a more readily available compatible chip, the original software won’t boot. And when you install a new NAND, the old software can only address 512-byte pages, while the flash chips on the market use 2 KiB or 4 KiB pages.
The open-source OSIRIS software developed by Jokūbas gets these receivers working again by supporting D830-compatible chips such as the OMAP-L137 and modern NAND flash. However, the software is not yet complete. The number of untested or unimplemented features exceeds the number of those that work. On some faulty devices, replacing just a few passive components is enough.
Why it matters
This development shows how the open-source community can step in when the manufacturer’s firmware no longer works with today’s parts. Replacing parts alone is not a solution; even if a compatible chip is installed, the original software won’t boot, and modern NAND flash is incompatible with the old addressing format. Because OSIRIS overcomes this software wall, users with an Onkyo receiver that has gone silent gain the option of repairing the device instead of throwing it away. Still, the fact that the project is not yet complete and that untested features outnumber working ones leaves open the question of how reliable the solution is in daily use. Moreover, since replacing just a few passive components is enough on some faulty devices, this software is not a remedy for every Onkyo owner.