Nothing but red light.

[tkaiser]

tkaiser is right. The best way to determine DOA status will likely be a serial connection.

[...]

The two biggest technical tragedies of the Pine are the lack of testing of the 2Gb device before shipment and the HORRID lack of real HDMI functionality. In the end the lack of HDMI functionality will cost them a fortune in returned boards.

Well, as already pointed out: using a more recent Linux OS image DOA detection also works by watching Ethernet activity (and frewind's suggestion to use the leds is way better than mine!)

'Funnily' both tragedies are simply the result of underestimating the efforts needed to provide good software. Since this specific Ethernet issue is just the result from relying on Allwinner's BSP kernel/drivers (32-bit code that triggers an integer overflow when detected DRAM exceeds 1GB -- fortunately longsleep found it and fixed it almost immediately and now the Remix folks also adopted that single line of fixed code) and the same applies to HDMI/EDID issues.

We talked about that stuff 2 weeks ago and I did also some tests just to realize to better stay away from this horrible BSP kernel (nearly all of the linux-sunxi devs are looking forward to run mainline kernel on the device so expect that software support situation for the old 3.10.65 kernel might get even worse as soon as apritzel is rolling out mainline kernel images )

[pine.tree]

Try verifying your SD card's integrity with this tool. Even though PhoenixCard may give you a good result, testing with H2testw will give definite results. Post your results here and we'll see what's up with your board/peripherals.

Hope this helps!

[tkaiser]

Try verifying your SD card's integrity with this tool. Even though PhoenixCard may give you a good result, testing with H2testw will give definite results.

Thx for recommending this one basic prerequisit (I don't have the guts to tell everyone to check his card any more). Unfortunately he has the HDMI problem for sure since when Phoenix Card gets past the "[bootload]Burn success" and "[env]Burn success" stage then u-boot has been written and at least the Pine64 logo should be displayed with Android and RemixOS images.

@GorillaHuman: So when you're done testing the card you should try out a Linux image since this will tell you whether the board is DOA or not since you can use Ethernet activity as indicator.

[GorillaHuman]

Great to see this many input. Hope it helps those silent readers as well.
Installed the Linux version (arch-pine64-bspkernel-20160304-1-xfce4) using Win32DiskImager. No video output.
Waited patiently and inserted an ethernet cable. Voila, LEDs. Awesome suggestion, at least the board is not dead. Well.. It currently is to me. I mean, what is it for me if I cannot use it with any monitor or beamer? I am not gonna buy a new beamer for a 20 dollar piece of hardware now am I?

So. Is this a software issue? As in, can we fix HDMI / DVI troubles using a different kernel? Or should I just give up and buy another rasp. pi which I used / am using for other projects?

Or can we create an pine compatible linux image with a VNCserver running by default? Then we might be able to connect to it and clone its display to tweak it from there?

[tkaiser]

Installed the Linux version (arch-pine64-bspkernel-20160304-1-xfce4) using Win32DiskImager. No video output.

Is this the OS image from Pine64 wiki? If yes, better avoid it, it's outdated. Take one of longsleep's from "Linux Development" forum.

And of course this is fixable in software (the same we're experiencing now with A64 SoC happened a few years ago with A10/A20 and the community wrote better display drivers back then). The question is: Who will spend time on this?

[tllim]

Installed the Linux version (arch-pine64-bspkernel-20160304-1-xfce4) using Win32DiskImager. No video output.

Is this the OS image from Pine64 wiki? If yes, better avoid it, it's outdated. Take one of longsleep's from "Linux Development" forum.

And of course this is fixable in software (the same we're experiencing now with A64 SoC happened a few years ago with A10/A20 and the community wrote better display drivers back then). The question is: Who will spend time on this?

The build that mentioned in Pine64 wiki page has been outdated and we will refresh on this week.

[fire219]

Finally managed to get a serial connection working (pins 6/7/8 on EXP port are GND, RX, and TX respectively).

Code:

BOOT0 is starting!
boot0 commit : 045061a8bb2580cb3fa02e301f52a015040c158f

boot0 version : 4.0.0
set pll start

It gets there and stops indefinitely. Checking other people's boot logs, the next line should be "set pll end". So either something is wrong when it tries to set the PLL clock speed, or it's a power issue that is cutting it off early...

Help would still be greatly appreciated.

---

Got further, by random:

Code:

HELLO! BOOT0 is starting!
boot0 commit : 045061a8bb2580cb3fa02e301f52a015040c158f

boot0 version : 4.0.0
set pll start
set pll end
rtc[0] value = 0x00000000
rtc[1] value = 0x00000000
rtc[2] value = 0x00000000
rtc[3] value = 0x00000000
rtc[4] value = 0x00000000
rtc[5] value = 0x00000000
DRAM driver version: V1.1
rsb_send_initseq: rsb clk 400Khz -> 3Mhz
PMU: AXP81X
ddr voltage = 1500 mv
DRAM Type = 3 (2:DDR2,3:DDR3,6:LPDDR2,7:LPDDR3)
DRAM clk = 672 MHz
DRAM zq value: 003b3bbb
ZQ calibration error,check external 240 ohm resistor.
DRAM init error!
initializing SDRAM Fail.

Doesn't look good though.

[frewind]

So. Is this a software issue? As in, can we fix HDMI / DVI troubles using a different kernel? Or should I just give up and buy another rasp. pi which I used / am using for other projects?

As the P64 does not currently work with my Dell monitor (which although now getting on a bit, is still a fantastic bit of kit) and I want to play with the P64 in my computer room, I've installed xrdp server and use remote desktop from my windows machine.

So first up you need to find out what DHCP allocated IP address the P64 was assigned, so on your PC do the following...

You'll need to know the local lan setup for your home network, (ipconfig /all on window or ifconfig on Linux), now replace the 192.168.0. if required in the commands below with your home configuration. Assuming your using IP4.

If Windows, open a cmd shell and enter

FOR /L %i IN (1,1,255) DO (
  PING -n 1 192.168.0.%i
)

If Linux open a command shell and enter...

for i in {1..255}; do ping -c 1 192.168.0.$i; done

The above command will loop through the subnet and test each address. look at the output for each address, you should get a message something like "64 bytes from " then the address if there is a device on that address. Make a note of all the address which respond.

You should now be able to work out which address is your P64 by trying to connect via ssh (.1 is probably your internet gateway.)

One of the guy's on here with network know how will probably be able to give us a command to work out all the devices on your local network with one command, but try this until someone post a better option.

As for HDMI-DVI it's a problem that must be solved, but I understand at the moment we need an updated closed source binary or the source code for it be become open source before it can be fixed.

[rahlquist]

Great to see this many input. Hope it helps those silent readers as well.
Installed the Linux version (arch-pine64-bspkernel-20160304-1-xfce4) using Win32DiskImager. No video output.
Waited patiently and inserted an ethernet cable. Voila, LEDs. Awesome suggestion, at least the board is not dead. Well.. It currently is to me. I mean, what is it for me if I cannot use it with any monitor or beamer? I am not gonna buy a new beamer for a 20 dollar piece of hardware now am I?

So. Is this a software issue? As in, can we fix HDMI / DVI troubles using a different kernel? Or should I just give up and buy another rasp. pi which I used / am using for other projects?

Or can we create an pine compatible linux image with a VNCserver running by default? Then we might be able to connect to it and clone its display to tweak it from there?

sudo apt-get install xrdp

works great with a headless pine...

[GorillaHuman]

Thanks for the replies once again. XRDP is a good suggestion. But, now I know my board is not dead, I will be patient for a better version which supports DVI/HDMI adapters as well. I retought my set-up for the project and this part remains key unfortunately.
The kickstarter newsupdate kept me positive towards the project as they now start to focus on software. And ofcourse with the quick replies I got on this thread, I am certain the community will step in as well, and I will be the one who helps testing. Not much of a dev-part in me though.