Open Firmware Fixes Dead Onkyo AV Receivers

October 13, 2026 by Tom Nardi 4 Comments

If you’ve been reading Hackaday for any length of time, you’ll know we love seeing hackers replacing the stock firmware on their devices with open source alternatives. Usually this is done because the open firmware offers more features, or lifts some arbitrary limitation. But if you find yourself installing OSIRIS on an Onkyo AV receiver such as the TX-NR717, it’s probably because you’re trying to bring the thing back to life.

As developer [Jokūbas] explains, certain Onkyo receivers that use the Texas Instruments D830 are known to suffer from a very specific failure — the device will power on and appear functional, but no audio will come through. When this happens, it’s either because the D830 itself has failed or the 64 MiB NAND flash chip that holds the firmware it runs is cooked. Unfortunately, replacing either component is a bit more difficult than you might expect.

Everything passes through the Texas Instruments D830. If it goes, you’ve got a problem.

If you swap the D830 with a pin-compatible chip that’s easier to find and less prone to failure, the stock firmware won’t boot. If you try to replace the NAND, you’ll find that the original software is only capable of addressing 512-byte pages, while the flash you’ll find on the market today uses 2 KiB or 4 KiB pages. In both cases, it’s ORISIS to the rescue.

The open firmware not only supports D830 compatible chips such as the OMAP-L137, but it’s able to address modern NAND flash, making the replacement of either or both component far more practical. With fresh hardware and the new firmware installed, your Onkyo receiver should spring back to life. That said, ORIRIS isn’t feature complete yet, and truthfully the items listed as untested or not implemented on the feature list currently outnumber the entries for what actually does work. But at least it’s a start.

Of course, not all the burned out parts on your Onkyo receiver require a firmware flash to replace. Sometimes a misbehaving unit just needs to have a few of its passive components replaced.

Onkyo Receiver Saved With An ESP32

April 24, 2025 by Zoe Skyforest 23 Comments

[Bill Dudley] had a problem. He had an Onkyo AV receiver that did a great job… until it didn’t. A DSP inside failed. When that happened, the main microprocessor running the show decided it wouldn’t play ball without the DSP operational. [Bill] knew the bulk of the audio hardware was still good, it was just the brains that were faulty. Thus started a 4-month operation to resurrect the Onkyo receiver with new intelligence instead.

[Bill’s] concept was simple. Yank the dead DSP, and the useless microprocessor as well. In their place, an ESP32 would be tasked with running things. [Bill] no longer cared if the receiver had DSP abilities or even the ability to pass video—he just wanted to use it as the quality audio receiver that it was.

His project report steps through all the hard work he went through to get things operational again. He had to teach the ESP32 to talk to the front panel display, the keys, and the radio tuner. More challenging was the core audio processor—the obscure Renaisys R2A15218FP. However, by persevering, [Bill] was able to get everything up and running, and even added some new functionality—including Internet radio and Bluetooth streaming.

It’s a heck of a build, and [Bill] ended up with an even more functional audio receiver at the end of it all. Bravo, we say. We love to see older audio gear brought back to life, particularly in creative ways. Meanwhile, if you’ve found your own way to save a piece of vintage audio hardware, don’t hesitate to let us know!