Rock64 bricked

[shawwwn]

Hello, everybody.

My Rock64 bricked after I incorrectly booted a SD card loaded with an unknown OS (I have many boards, lost track of which OS I put in).
Now it just won't boot anymore, just two solid LEDs.

I tried following instructions from these posts with no avail:
https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=6508
https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=5008
https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=8668

To summarize the things I have done so far:

• stretch-minimal-rock64-0.8.3-1141-arm64.img
  
• u-boot-flash-spi-rock64.img
  
• u-boot-erase-spi-rock64.img
  
• And many different OS images ...
  
• Shorted pin 20/21 or 23/25 to disable boot into SPI
  
• Unplug UART TX line prior to boot up
  
• Connect USB OTG to computer but computer do not recognize such hardware even with driver installed
  

None of above works. Any suggestion?
 
Here are my UART outputs: (it won't even get to the SPL stage)

DDR version 1.13 20180428
ID:0x805 Y
In
LPDDR3
786MHz
Bus Width=32 Col=10 Bank=8 Row=15/15 CS=2 Die Bus-Width=32 Size=2048MB
ddrconfig:6
OUT

Is my board gone for good?
Any help is appreciated!

[Rocklobster]

You don't say where you are downloading your images from so could I suggest you download from this link, start with a freshly formatted known good SD card and use a reliable image writing method to burn the downloaded image. https://www.armbian.com/rock64/

Are you looking at the same LED light sequence when you power up your board both with and without an SD card inserted. You may have damaged the SD card reader. I strongly doubt putting an alien OS SD card in your card reader would have damaged the board.

[shawwwn]

You don't say where you are downloading your images from so could I suggest you download from this link, start with a freshly formatted known good SD card and use a reliable image writing method to burn the downloaded image. https://www.armbian.com/rock64/

Are you looking at the same LED light sequence when you power up your board both with and without an SD card inserted. You may have damaged the SD card  reader. I strongly doubt putting an alien OS SD card in your card reader would have damaged the board.

Thank you for the reply.

Yes, I have tried both the factory image(from pine64) and Armbian image. None will be able to make my board boot.

When connect to power, the white and red LED are always on. There is no blinking. I wasn't able to observe any difference whether the board is powered on with or without an SD card.
In fact, the only difference it makes, when an SD card is inserted, is the UART will print something from the 1st stage bootloader (as shown above).

[shawwwn]

Oh, I forgot to mention I tried multiple images(from authentic sources) and multiple SD cards. To bad none has worked for me.

[Rocklobster]

The SD boot is the most reliable source for booting so it sounds like the SD card may well be faulty now. Maybe its somehow come loose from pushing in and out SD cards. Those units are very fragile. It is possible to boot from USB. Search the forum for instructions.

[shawwwn]

The SD boot is the most reliable source for booting so it sounds like the SD card may well be faulty now. Maybe its somehow come loose from pushing in and out SD cards. Those units are very fragile. It is possible to boot from USB. Search the forum for instructions.

I tried multiple SD cards.
If the onboard card reader is faulty, I don't think there should be any 1st stage bootloader message showing on UART. That bootloader is burnt into the card, is it not?

Booting the unit from USB (the normal way) would require one to a least get to a 'proper' bootloader (e.g. u-boot). Obviously, my board won't even allow me to even do that.
I tried to force the unit to go into maskrom mode (please read my post) and then use Rockchip tools to flash the firmware via USB OTG. The thing is, when I connected Rock64 to my PC via USB OTG, my PC could detect a usb device, but there was no PID/VID associates with it (faulty device warning). In other words, the board won't even get recognized by my PC. 

I think something must have gone seriously wrong in my board.
Is there anything else I can do to save it?

Thanks.

[shawwwn]

After investigation, it was probably the boot rom that got corrupted.

On an Armbian image, this was shown on UART.

U-Boot TPL 2020.10-armbian (Aug 08 2021 - 18:02:43)
LPDDR3, 800MHz
BW=32 Col=10 Bk=8 CS0 Row=15 CS1 Row=15 CS=2 Die BW=16 Size=2048MB
Trying to boot from BOOTROM
Returning to boot ROM...

It seems that, after the TPL loader, boot rom was unable to jump to the SPL loader, which results in the device being stuck.
Something inside the Rockchip SOC must have messed up big time, although I have no idea how it got there.

[dmitrymyadzelets]

Have you solved the problem? It would be useful to the community.