Hardware problem, Initialisation and Reset

[superpat]

Hi

After  installing a Linux downloader  I have managed to download many Linux distro's from Github.

My board is a pre production Rockpro64_V2 2018-4-11

Trying with many Linux images and Android, also 3 different 12v power supplies I constantly see a major issue to achieving  successful booting.

Symptoms.

Board set up with SD card or emmc media loaded with bootable image, (any). Serial console connected.

1. insert 12v power jack... System starts to boot, either gets errors loading  and crashes or succeeds with NO errors about 50% of power ups.  Sometimes errors are shown on console,  initialising USB3 interface for example, and errors from  image CRC on media.

2.  With successful booted system, (logged in),   pressing reset reboots system, then reboot starts to occur,   ALWAYS (100%) fails to conclude boot, most often hangs at end of Uboot load.

3.  Pressing power switch either does nothing, no reboot  or reboots to hang at end of Uboot as above.

4. Pulling 12v power jack out and reinserting successfully reboots to login prompt. 100%  (after successful boot from initial power up (1. above)

This is repeatable!

The first thing that strikes me is that the board starts to boot at the INSTANT of power connection.  There does not appear to be any delays to allow power supplies to settle,  there needs to be a short delay to allow the power supplies on the board to stabilise before the boot runs.

It seems as though the  SBC logic is not cleared or reset properly on initial power up.  in fact the reset does nOt reset properly.

It appears that the reset push button doesn't reset properly.

It appears that once the system has booted correctly then it is more likely to boot correctly on subsequent reboots (by pulling and reinserting 12v jack).

I cannot find the post at the mo, but someone else was complaining about random boot errors.

I am wondering whether the board is electrically "noisy" and is suffering from an inadequate ground plane, or perhaps lack of filtering on the logic  supplies.   How many layers are there in the pcb? I am certain this is an electrical problem and not software.

I hope this issue has been addressed in the second batch of boards to be released.  This board is very flakey at the moment.  It still needs a lot of work!

regards

Patrick

[tllim]

Hi

After  installing a Linux downloader  I have managed to download many Linux distro's from Github.

My board is a pre production Rockpro64_V2 2018-4-11

Trying with many Linux images and Android, also 3 different 12v power supplies I constantly see a major issue to achieving  successful booting.

Symptoms.

Board set up with SD card or emmc media loaded with bootable image, (any). Serial console connected.

1. insert 12v power jack... System starts to boot, either gets errors loading  and crashes or succeeds with NO errors about 50% of power ups.  Sometimes errors are shown on console,  initialising USB3 interface for example, and errors from  image CRC on media.

2.  With successful booted system, (logged in),   pressing reset reboots system, then reboot starts to occur,   ALWAYS (100%) fails to conclude boot, most often hangs at end of Uboot load.

3.  Pressing power switch either does nothing, no reboot  or reboots to hang at end of Uboot as above.

4. Pulling 12v power jack out and reinserting successfully reboots to login prompt. 100%  (after successful boot from initial power up (1. above)

This is repeatable!

The first thing that strikes me is that the board starts to boot at the INSTANT of power connection.  There does not appear to be any delays to allow power supplies to settle,  there needs to be a short delay to allow the power supplies on the board to stabilise before the boot runs.

It seems as though the  SBC logic is not cleared or reset properly on initial power up.  in fact the reset does nOt reset properly.

It appears that the reset push button doesn't reset properly.

It appears that once the system has booted correctly then it is more likely to boot correctly on subsequent reboots (by pulling and reinserting 12v jack).

I cannot find the post at the mo, but someone else was complaining about random boot errors.

I am wondering whether the board is electrically "noisy" and is suffering from an inadequate ground plane, or perhaps lack of filtering on the logic  supplies.   How many layers are there in the pcb? I am certain this is an electrical problem and not software.

I hope this issue has been addressed in the second batch of boards to be released.  This board is very flakey at the moment.  It still needs a lot of work!

regards

Patrick

Please try the stock Android build to check whether your board still observing the unstable sitaution. This is a 8 layer PCB.

[pfeerick]

Trying with many Linux images and Android, also 3 different 12v power supplies I constantly see a major issue to achieving successful booting.

Just note that depending on which linux image you use, it will be unstable - this is known issue and is software related, NOT hardware. This is also 100% repeatable, including third reboot complete system failure with some images.

3.  Pressing power switch either does nothing, no reboot  or reboots to hang at end of Uboot as above.

See if pressing and holding to force power off, and then a short press to power on does anything?

The first thing that strikes me is that the board starts to boot at the INSTANT of power connection.  There does not appear to be any delays to allow power supplies to settle,  there needs to be a short delay to allow the power supplies on the board to stabilise before the boot runs.

It seems as though the  SBC logic is not cleared or reset properly on initial power up.  in fact the reset does nOt reset properly.

It appears that the reset push button doesn't reset properly.

You might have to press and hold the reset button down for a second... I suspect there is a minimum result pulse time period, and it hasn't been implemented. Startup on instant of power connnect seems normal... that's what all my other boards do... you see the initial boot0 etc messages if you have a serial console connected as that kicks in milliseconds of power up.

[pfeerick]

Oh, btw, as far as CPU resets, make sure that the TX line of your UART is disconnected, as it seems a common issue that they backfeed a little power and stop quite a few different SBC cpus from being reset properly. It doesn't stop you from seeing power on messages as you only need the GND and RX lines, but it's a giveaway on the rock64 as the power light comes on dimly even if there is no power connected to the board - just the serial console.