How many times have you flashed?
I've been tempted to start a thread on this a few times.
Supposedly there is a limit to how many times you can flash an area of memory. Ecuflash only reflashes the data that has been changed, not the whole memory space. This makes it more unlikely that you'll burn out any one memory address....
But, what is the limit?
I've not seen any number backed up by research or practical experience, yet.
And how would too many writes manifest itself? Does Ecuflash verify it's writes?
Another thought, if someone did run into this, is it possible to replace the flash memory (or upgrade it so it wouldn't be an issue again?), or are we stuck trying to source a compatible ECU?
Supposedly there is a limit to how many times you can flash an area of memory. Ecuflash only reflashes the data that has been changed, not the whole memory space. This makes it more unlikely that you'll burn out any one memory address....
But, what is the limit?
I've not seen any number backed up by research or practical experience, yet.
And how would too many writes manifest itself? Does Ecuflash verify it's writes?
Another thought, if someone did run into this, is it possible to replace the flash memory (or upgrade it so it wouldn't be an issue again?), or are we stuck trying to source a compatible ECU?
Last edited by cmz; Nov 26, 2006 at 05:48 PM.
Trending Topics
Three different purchaced ROMs, and 35 personally made ROMs (38 total) have been edited to my ECU.
Healthy electrical and ignition system, and carefull flashing practices are required for 1000 more - I hope
Healthy electrical and ignition system, and carefull flashing practices are required for 1000 more - I hope
I've probably flashed my personal car 2 dozen times or so..
I think the company that makes the flash chip certified the chip for 100 fault-free writes.. its obviously quite higher than that.
I wouldn't worry too much about it. But just so you know, the way ECUFlash works, is it only writes areas of the rom which has changed.. so if you reflash your ECU once for injector scaling, then another time for your boost control, then another time for your fuel map, each of those reflashes only overwrites changed bytes in those specific areas.
Errors begin to happen when you overwrite the same location, for instance if you changed the injector scaling byte hundreds to thousands of times, then you may get write errors for the specific byte. Obviously its a bad thing, but its unlikely to cause you a problem unless your reflashing your car so often (for instance overwriting your timing map repeatedly for along period of time, hundreds of times)
I keep a working backup ECU around just in case (it also has my stock flash on it) but its only because I want to be safe, and I always keep backup components in my shop.
I think the company that makes the flash chip certified the chip for 100 fault-free writes.. its obviously quite higher than that.
I wouldn't worry too much about it. But just so you know, the way ECUFlash works, is it only writes areas of the rom which has changed.. so if you reflash your ECU once for injector scaling, then another time for your boost control, then another time for your fuel map, each of those reflashes only overwrites changed bytes in those specific areas.
Errors begin to happen when you overwrite the same location, for instance if you changed the injector scaling byte hundreds to thousands of times, then you may get write errors for the specific byte. Obviously its a bad thing, but its unlikely to cause you a problem unless your reflashing your car so often (for instance overwriting your timing map repeatedly for along period of time, hundreds of times)
I keep a working backup ECU around just in case (it also has my stock flash on it) but its only because I want to be safe, and I always keep backup components in my shop.
FWIW there will be a point in the near future where we will be able to alter values in the ECU ram through software, which means tuning the car and updating values, without reflashing the ECU until you have a map that is complete..
It looks like this is very close, and requires only minimal mods to do it (and of course software capable of doing it) this has been discussed on my site during the disassembly of the rom, and one of the main contributors had mentioned a method of reading/writing the ram area using a modified mut request..
It looks like this is very close, and requires only minimal mods to do it (and of course software capable of doing it) this has been discussed on my site during the disassembly of the rom, and one of the main contributors had mentioned a method of reading/writing the ram area using a modified mut request..
