(09-12-2021, 11:56 AM)rotwang Wrote: OK, gave Armbian a shot on the emmc.
Same result: Sometimes boots fine. Sometimes freezes still showing the desktop after boot. Sometimes freezes with a black screen after boot. Sometimes goes to a frozen orange and green blinking power light as soon as I press the start button. No solution to any of them but cold restart.
So... how many more operating systems do I have to try before we're convinced this isn't a software problem?
Thanks guys!
In that case, get in touch with Pine64. We can't help you with hardware problems.
09-12-2021, 08:17 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-12-2021, 08:19 PM by KC9UDX.)
Well we can, sort of.
Try putting it in a freezer for a while before turning it on and see if it takes longer to get it going. It, warm it up first.
Also, you can try to isolate the problem to the SD card or the eMMC.
(09-12-2021, 08:17 PM)KC9UDX Wrote: Well we can, sort of.
Try putting it in a freezer for a while before turning it on and see if it takes longer to get it going. It, warm it up first.
Also, you can try to isolate the problem to the SD card or the eMMC.
Wait, is putting it in the freezer a serious suggestion? Or an oblique joke? (Freezing was one of the ways to try to deal with the old hard drives when they had the click-of-death, wasn't it?)
It did occur to me that it might be the warm weather was contributing to the problem. But it hasn't been as hot in NYC lately.
It would be nice to isolate the emmc, but that is difficult when the SD card reader won't read SD cards. I haven't messed more with trying to get USB to boot yet, but it does seem like that might be next because maybe I just need a new emmc.
Putting electronics that seem to fail or work with time in the freezer is a good diagnostic. Things that change with time are usually due to heat. Changing the starting heat (either warm or cold) can help isolate temperature change as the actual problem.
Is your non-working SD card slot plugged in? If so, unplug it and see if anything changes. Your non-working SD slot may be contributing to your problem.
Given that, I would start then to suspect media (although less so with eMMC perhaps), power supply, and after those perhaps some faulty hardware.
https://docs.armbian.com/User-Guide_Basi...eshooting/
(09-13-2021, 10:05 PM)TRS-80 Wrote: Given that, I would start then to suspect media (although less so with eMMC perhaps), power supply, and after those perhaps some faulty hardware.
https://docs.armbian.com/User-Guide_Basi...eshooting/
I've tried a number of SD cards in the sd slot, including the brand new one from pine64 and nothing shows with lsblk. All of the cards work fine in my other laptop, and I can see them with lsblk fine on the pbp if I mount them with a USB adapter.
For power supply, I'm using the one that comes with pbp and alternately a Raspberry Pi brand USB-c powersupply. (And of course a 100% charged battery.)
I'm gonna try the freezer thing. And also disconnecting the smallboard. (If it works fine with the smallboard disconnected, I can buy that as a replacement part, right?)
Incidentally -- and I ask this purely out of curiosity with no judgment about pine64 or the pbp -- why do you guys have such faith in the hardware? I mean, I know lots of SD cards and power supplies go bad, and lots of people mistake those for bigger problems. But this pbp _came_ with a bad keyboard that had to be replaced. Don't you think doing that keyboard swap operation (which from what I read looks kinda hairy) had a decent chance of zapping something in there? The SD card reader worked before the keyboard swap and not after.
Also, generally it just hasn't been my experience that the quality control on electronics is very good. I used to order computers and IT gear for Harvard, and my rule of thumb was that 1 in every 10 things we bought was shipped to us broken. Didn't matter if it was a $20,000 Sun server or a dumb little vga dongle. I've been out of that game for a long time, but it doesn't seem like it has improved much. For the last nonprofit I worked for, I ordered 10 mac minis, and one was shipped to us broken.
My pinephone and my raspberry pi work great. I feel like I was kinda due for a lemon.
I think by power supply, meaning the internal one in the PBP, not the one you plug into it.
(09-14-2021, 09:35 PM)KC9UDX Wrote: I think by power supply, meaning the internal one in the PBP, not the one you plug into it.
OK, gotcha!
(09-14-2021, 07:29 PM)rotwang Wrote: Incidentally -- and I ask this purely out of curiosity with no judgment about pine64 or the pbp -- why do you guys have such faith in the hardware? I mean, I know lots of SD cards and power supplies go bad, and lots of people mistake those for bigger problems. But this pbp _came_ with a bad keyboard that had to be replaced.
Speaking only for myself, it's not that I have faith but rather that you want to make sure to eliminate all common problems first in your troubleshooting process. Even the most experienced of us have been bitten by this. It is not by accident that the page I linked is referenced so frequently (at least in Armbian forums anyway) and they gave it such a prominent place in the documentation and troubleshooting sections.
Quite the contrary, you can find a number of threads around these (PINE64) forums about faulty hardware, from (often seemingly) knowledgeable people who are not simply griping. Therefore, in fact, I am not sure how much faith I actually have in Pine64 hardware, after all... 
Given PINE64's parsimonious return policies, I think is all the more reason to make absolutely sure it is hardware issue before pursuing that (difficult?) route. Unless you want to just say "to hell with it" and purchase another one...
(09-14-2021, 07:29 PM)rotwang Wrote: Also, generally it just hasn't been my experience that the quality control on electronics is very good. I used to order computers and IT gear for Harvard, and my rule of thumb was that 1 in every 10 things we bought was shipped to us broken. Didn't matter if it was a $20,000 Sun server or a dumb little vga dongle. I've been out of that game for a long time, but it doesn't seem like it has improved much. For the last nonprofit I worked for, I ordered 10 mac minis, and one was shipped to us broken.
My pinephone and my raspberry pi work great. I feel like I was kinda due for a lemon.
I think this point of view is very valid. Personally I still want to make sure it's none of the basic things, which it sounds like you certainly have, by now.
(09-17-2021, 07:47 PM)TRS-80 Wrote: I think this point of view is very valid. Personally I still want to make sure it's none of the basic things, which it sounds like you certainly have, by now.
I'm certainly with you on that. I have definitely been stymied by multiple SD card failures making the troubleshooting difficult before.
(09-17-2021, 07:47 PM)TRS-80 Wrote: I think this point of view is very valid. Personally I still want to make sure it's none of the basic things, which it sounds like you certainly have, by now.
(09-17-2021, 07:47 PM)TRS-80 Wrote: I think this point of view is very valid. Personally I still want to make sure it's none of the basic things, which it sounds like you certainly have, by now.
(09-17-2021, 07:47 PM)TRS-80 Wrote: I think this point of view is very valid. Personally I still want to make sure it's none of the basic things, which it sounds like you certainly have, by now.
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My PBP starts up like a 1977 Chevy Nova
