2012-12-09, 08:15
First post - but large one - it is in a way a summary of steps taken to get the remote working - it doesn't contain all the "dead ends" I've encountered - possibly I've skipped something important, and if that's the case I'll do my best to post missing parts.
Please be careful - it involves modifying RL70 that could potentially render it unusable - be sure you know what are you doing - you have been warned
Some time ago I purchased Acer RL70 w/o DVD/BluRay (this version is not available in my country) under impression that the CIR is functional even if it's not coming with Acers own remote. Well CIR connector is there, but there is nothing connected to it.
In service manual (http://www.manualowl.com/m/Acer%20Comput...oad/319370) I found the pinout of the connector, and here it is:
After my Asrock330HT MB died i had it's IR receiver and remote - here is picture of the receiver, and it's pinout (it's hard to read what type of receiver is - it has letters EAPA on top back side, styled letters LMC in circe on the middle of the back side and some numbers below that I can't identify - they are too scratched) I suggest you use USB receiver+IR Remote combo, and to take apart the receiver and desolder the IR receiver - that should work, just be sure about it's pinout - it could be different than this:
Take some wire that fits (ie some old CD-ROM audio cable, or 4 PIN fan cable...) the CIR connector and connect them to the IR receiver (power to power, ground to ground and signal to signal), connect this to the CIR port and place the receiver in the holder in the RL70 case - you should get something like this:
Now go to BIOS and set the "Deep Power Off" to "Disabled" (this will keep CIR powered even when the RL70 is powered off) and "Onboard CIR Controller" to "Enabled" like this:
I installed xbmcbuntu and in order to make it work you must setup lirc with the following configuration (/etc/lirc/hardware.conf)
Note the "ite-cir" in the REMOTE_MODULES part - RL70 has ITE CIR Controller - this will be the same for every remote you use:
Icing on the cake - your remote can power up RL70 even when it's powered off - you just need to start the xbmcbuntu once after every power loss. If you plug in the power and try - it won't work. You need to power xbmcbunt and then shut down - it will work from there - there is probably something wrong in the BIOS that prevents this from working at first - probably some ACPI setting that gets set by the OS, and lost after power loss.
Please be careful - it involves modifying RL70 that could potentially render it unusable - be sure you know what are you doing - you have been warned
Some time ago I purchased Acer RL70 w/o DVD/BluRay (this version is not available in my country) under impression that the CIR is functional even if it's not coming with Acers own remote. Well CIR connector is there, but there is nothing connected to it.
In service manual (http://www.manualowl.com/m/Acer%20Comput...oad/319370) I found the pinout of the connector, and here it is:
After my Asrock330HT MB died i had it's IR receiver and remote - here is picture of the receiver, and it's pinout (it's hard to read what type of receiver is - it has letters EAPA on top back side, styled letters LMC in circe on the middle of the back side and some numbers below that I can't identify - they are too scratched) I suggest you use USB receiver+IR Remote combo, and to take apart the receiver and desolder the IR receiver - that should work, just be sure about it's pinout - it could be different than this:
Take some wire that fits (ie some old CD-ROM audio cable, or 4 PIN fan cable...) the CIR connector and connect them to the IR receiver (power to power, ground to ground and signal to signal), connect this to the CIR port and place the receiver in the holder in the RL70 case - you should get something like this:
Now go to BIOS and set the "Deep Power Off" to "Disabled" (this will keep CIR powered even when the RL70 is powered off) and "Onboard CIR Controller" to "Enabled" like this:
I installed xbmcbuntu and in order to make it work you must setup lirc with the following configuration (/etc/lirc/hardware.conf)
Note the "ite-cir" in the REMOTE_MODULES part - RL70 has ITE CIR Controller - this will be the same for every remote you use:
Code:
# /etc/lirc/hardware.conf
#
#Chosen Remote Control
REMOTE="Windows Media Center Transceivers/Remotes (all)"
REMOTE_MODULES="lirc_dev ite-cir"
REMOTE_DRIVER="default"
REMOTE_DEVICE="/dev/lirc0"
REMOTE_LIRCD_CONF="mceusb/lircd.conf.mceusb"
REMOTE_LIRCD_ARGS=""
#Chosen IR Transmitter
TRANSMITTER="None"
TRANSMITTER_MODULES=""
TRANSMITTER_DRIVER=""
TRANSMITTER_DEVICE=""
TRANSMITTER_LIRCD_CONF=""
TRANSMITTER_LIRCD_ARGS=""
#Enable lircd
START_LIRCD="true"
#Don't start lircmd even if there seems to be a good config file
#START_LIRCMD="false"
#Try to load appropriate kernel modules
LOAD_MODULES="true"
# Default configuration files for your hardware if any
LIRCMD_CONF=""
#Forcing noninteractive reconfiguration
#If lirc is to be reconfigured by an external application
#that doesn't have a debconf frontend available, the noninteractive
#frontend can be invoked and set to parse REMOTE and TRANSMITTER
#It will then populate all other variables without any user input
#If you would like to configure lirc via standard methods, be sure
#to leave this set to "false"
FORCE_NONINTERACTIVE_RECONFIGURATION="false"
START_LIRCMD=""
REMOTE_SOCKET=""
TRANSMITTER_SOCKET=""Icing on the cake - your remote can power up RL70 even when it's powered off - you just need to start the xbmcbuntu once after every power loss. If you plug in the power and try - it won't work. You need to power xbmcbunt and then shut down - it will work from there - there is probably something wrong in the BIOS that prevents this from working at first - probably some ACPI setting that gets set by the OS, and lost after power loss.
