MBL Hardware Internals

I know I should be working on grading, or on the subsonic guide, but i’m a hardware geek at heart. So here’s some thoughts.

The MBL motherboard doesn’t have a lot on it. Basically the CPU and SATA connection(s). Most of the components are shrouded by an EM shield.

(Source: http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/nas/nas-reviews/31314-wd-my-book-live-reviewed)

Not much. There are two banks of solder pads, J4 and J8. J8 has 4+2 pins, and J4 has 16 (8x2) pins.

Another forum discussed the topic of adding USB ports [http://mybookworld.wikidot.com/forum/t-306607/extend-my-book-live-with-usb-ports] The original idea was that J8 may be a USB2.0 connector. Actually, it turns out that the 4-conn header is not usb, but rather a UART for debugging.[http://mybookworld.wikidot.com/wd-mybook-live-uart ] J4 is likely a JTAG programming port.

However, the CPU is an Applied Micro APM82181 SoC, according to /proc/cpuinfo:

chris@MyBookLive:~$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
cpu : APM82181
clock : 800.000008MHz
revision : 28.131 (pvr 12c4 1c83)
bogomips : 1600.00
timebase : 800000008
platform : PowerPC 44x Platform
model : amcc,apollo3g
Memory : 256 MB

 And it has an onboard USB2.0 controller, wifi AP capabilities, and is designed for a 1GHz clock.

So… I wonder if that USB controller has leads available on the motherboard? Or I guess it’s possible that the controller is configured as a UART and just tied into j8. And I wonder if the 800MHz clock can be… adjusted?

I ran the cat cpuinfo on My Book Live Duo and got the exact same specs with the only difference in

revision : 28.130 (pvr 12c4 1c83)

 and you know, it has a USB that works as a host (pretty well indeed), so being the same exact hardware, I think it should be possible to add a USB port!

And also… did I just read… overclocking? :smiley: Would be great too!