HAI OmniPro II Upgrade chip problems. PLEASE HELP!

I am helping my father-in-law upgrade his firmware on his omnipro II 2.16a to the current 3.11. I purchased the chip and installed it yesterday following the instructions included.

The only variant from the instruction was my board did not have a chip already installed. I called HAI tech support to make sure that I was OK to proceed anyways. They informed me I was OK and the the chip I purchased was the correct chip.

After restoring power to the unit proceeding installation, everything came back online just fine. However it does not appear the firmware has changed. My SNAP-LINK software is still showing Omnipro II 2.16a and the iphone app (Haiku) is yelling at me with errors informing me i need a minimum of firmware 3.0 to use the app.

I powered down the unit again to make sure the chip was seated correctly and it appears to be. I'm at a loss...

Is there something that needs to do to enabled, like the socket where this chip sits? Being as there was no previous chip installed I though this might be possible.

ANY HELP WOULD BE VERY MUCH APPRECIATED.

This is installed in a Second home and we drove 4 hours for the purpose of installing this and are leaving tomorrow. I'd love to resolve this issue before then.


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I do not understand:

The only variant from the instruction was my board did not have a chip already installed.

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I looked at my flash upgradable board and see the flash chips under the sockets for the fw chips.

I am no expert but are you sure that you have an old board that needs a FW chip or do you have a new board that you can flash update?

The model number of the board is on the right hand side. Mine is a 24A01 which is flash upgradable. The older HAI OPII one that I have installed in Florida is a model number 10A00 or similiar.

pete_c is correct. If there was no chip to begin with, your controller should be flash upgradeable. You can upgrade using PC Access. Otherwise there is a process to upgrade off the chip you installed as well. I am sure HAI can walk you through it. It involves using a jumper next to the chip. The controller will then copy over the firmware from the chip to the flash. After which you can set the jumper back and remove the chip.

Yeah based on the number of serial ports I see it looks like the newer flash upgradeable version. When they went over to upgradeable flash they also added 2 more serial ports, here is a pic of my old non-flash version notice the missing ports. When I upgraded with a chip it just took effect when it restarted:

lupinglade said:

pete_c is correct. If there was no chip to begin with, your controller should be flash upgradeable. You can upgrade using PC Access. Otherwise there is a process to upgrade off the chip you installed as well. I am sure HAI can walk you through it. It involves using a jumper next to the chip. The controller will then copy over the firmware from the chip to the flash. After which you can set the jumper back and remove the chip.

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Yes i just looked, my board is the 20A01. My own fault for buying the chip i trusted my installer that i needed a chip. Is anyone aware of this procedure using the jumpers to copy the new firmware. I do not have any PC Access software. We are only here until tomorrow (its a second home) so will not be able to contact HAI before they open to get instructions.

I do not know about putting a FW chip on these OPII motherboards.

Maybe someone else can chime in about doing an update with the FW chip on a newer flashable board.

If you want to contact me via email link I can update the firmware remotely with PCA if the OPII is on the internet and I can get to it; we can do a conference call.

pete_c said:

I do not know about putting a FW chip on these OPII motherboards.

Maybe someone else can chime in about doing an update with the FW chip on a newer flashable board.

If you want to contact me via email link I can update the firmware remotely with PCA if the OPII is on the internet and I can get to it; we can do a conference call.

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Pete I just Emailed you my phone number.

Thanks again!!

I strongly recommend that you get PC Access. It will make setting up and configuring the controller so much easier, also many of the 3.x automation programming features can only be accessed with PC Access. If you are serious, get the right tools.

Also please PM me with the tech support incident #, or the date, time and rep you spoke to. They should have caught the fact that you have a flash board, but we do have a couple new hires. Not an excuse, but I would like to make sure the mistake is not repeated.

Fred,

My recommendation to bseal (OP) was to purchase PCA.

That said I downloaded his current OPII configuration using PCA across the wan, updated FW to 3.11, uploaded back his current configuration and zipped up the pca file and emailed it to him.

It only took a few minutes.

Kudos Pete! I love seeing this kind of help!

Thank God I found this thread!! I am having a similar issue with my update nightmare. I didn't purchase the chip because I found this thread initially, but I'm wondering if my board has a "2.16" chip installed, do I need to go for the upgraded flash chip or can I use the jumper trick mentioned earlier? Any help would be appreciated. I purchased the PC Access software and the dealer software (just in case) and am connecting just fine to my OPII through UDP over the Ethernet. The update just immediately fails leading me to believe I need to do something different. I downloaded the current config for the system and saved the PCA file, I just can't figure out how to force the update. Any help would be amazing.

Press 9 on a keypad, your installer code, then 6, to tell what version you have.  Whether you can upgrade firmware with PC Access or have to buy a new chip depends on the version of board you have as talked about above. If you have 5 serial ports like in the first post, you can upgrade your firmware with PC Access and an Internet connection.  If you only have 3 serial ports, you will likely need to purchase a new firmware chip.  The EPROM chips are actually reprogrammable, but it takes an EPROM programmer to do that, and I don't think I have ever heard of anyone who has been successful at that.  If I understand what lupinglade is saying, there is a way to save the firmware from a chip to a new board that can have upgradable firmware, but that only allows you to save firmware on a chip to the board, which PC Access can do over the Internet anyway.  It can't reprogram an EPROM chip on an older board. 
 
If PC Access can't seem to upgrade the firmware, and you do have 5 serial ports meaning your board can be upgraded without a chip, I'd contact HAI for support.  If you have an older board, you'll need to buy a firmware update chip.

I just ordered the chip. Ours is an older style. This is my first experience with HAI equipment, but I would assume the installation is as follows:
 
Save PCA file to computer
Unplug AC power from OPII
Disconnect battery
Remove 2.16 eeprom chip
install new flash eeprom
reconnect battery
reconnect AC power
upload PCA
 
Is that about the jist of it? let me know if I missed something. Also, are the encryption keys tied to the chip or to the board? Will I have to update all of the keypads and does that info come with the new chip or do I need to contact HAI.
 
You guys are awesome and super helpful. Thanks again for your time.

Actually is should be even easier.  If all goes well, you won't lose your programming, even when you replace the FW chip, but it never hurts to make a PC access backup.  Its good you bought the dealer PC access. I learned the hard way that the "client" PC access will not record and store all the "dealer" type settings, like zone details. The dealer PC access will restore everything. 
 
So you don't have to restore the PC access unless something goes bad, and it shouldn't. 
 
As for power, you should always disconnect the battery FIRST, then the AC.  When you plug it back in, restore the AC FIRST, then wait a few seconds and make sure the activity LED on the top is blinking, then attach the battery.  If the activity light doesn't start blinking, unplug it and check for errors.
 
Make sure you touch something metal ground before starting. Use a flat screwdriver to pry the old chip up.  You will find that the pins on the new chip are usually spread apart a bit wide. Find a flat surface and push one side of pins toward the other side so both side of pins are ALMOST parallel to each other. this makes it easier to install. Line up one row of pins with the socket, then the other side, and GENTLY push watching for any bent pins. 
 
Also, if your alarm is monitored, its not a bad idea to put the monitoring in "test mode" with the alarm company while your working on it in case it goes off by mistake.