My PBP starts up like a 1977 Chevy Nova

[rotwang]

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.