LED Does not Remain Lit

[KaranP]

Whats a "smart" charger? I only use the chargers I ordered as accessory from the website. I ordered the cable, and the wall charger. Both produce the same result. I have tried plugging the USB cable into regular wall chargers, iPad charger, and Ps4. Same results are produced. I have plugged the wall charger provided in many different outlets, again the same results. 

Appreciate the response. 

Thanks

tllim hasn't realised you said you used the official cable and power supply available for the pine64, so will hopefully have something more to add to that soon.

If you are powering up the pine64 from that power supply, with a valid image on the sd card, and there is nothing else plugged into the pine64, and it still does those 15 second reboots, I suspect it is faulty. Does it still do the reboot loop when there is nothing plugged into it at all except for power (if you can tell... maybe the power led goes out for a moment when it reboots?). And do you see anything on the screen before it does reboot when the HDMI is connected?

Smart charger is in reference to a USB power supply/power bank that automatically switches off when there is no load on it, which should not be the case here.

Note that KaranP and selcar (original poster) are different people. 

As for the smart charger, I thought this was where the charger negotiates the best possible power draw for the connected device, provided the device connected is able to talk with the charger and tell it its power requirements via a circuit, which unfortunately the Pine doesn't have, apparently. If optimum power cannot be negotiated, then 500mA is provided as standard for USB. Which would indeed in the case of the Pine cause it to switch off, as you have said.

@KaranP: as pfeerick says, can you be a bit more descriptive regarding what you see (or don't see) on screen during this booting/re-booting process, and what devices you have connected at the time of booting up. Thanks.

That is the other form of smart charger logic... but there are a few algorithms they use... some negotiate, some just switch the data pin resistor values and see which combination makes the device suck the must current up, and others also rapidly turn on and off the output (to reset things) as part of that rather dumb auto-detection. 

However, most (if not nearly all) power banks really are just making available their full current capacity, and convincing the device that plugs in that it can draw more than 500ma, as it's onboard governor is what is trying to prevent too much current from being drawn. Even so, I think 500ma would be enough to get the pine64 up and running with no peripherals (even with the wifi module plugged in)... might test that tomorrow with a 500ma current limited supply

Thanks for the mention about different posters... that would help confuse a bit also! 

Hi guys, 

Thanks for the response. I did have it plugged in with both hdmi cable and without. The light on the pine A64 would still turn off and turn back on. Initially I was stupid and accidentally formatted the SD card that came with the device. But I put the image back on. Now when i boot Pine A64 logo comes up, and then stays there for the duration before it resets again. This process keeps repeating in a loop lol. Again I use original cables provided with the accessories. I tried with Ps4 usb, Ipad Charger (2.1 AMP), and the provided wall charger. The same results as above occurred.

[pfeerick]

Whats a "smart" charger? I only use the chargers I ordered as accessory from the website. I ordered the cable, and the wall charger. Both produce the same result. I have tried plugging the USB cable into regular wall chargers, iPad charger, and Ps4. Same results are produced. I have plugged the wall charger provided in many different outlets, again the same results. 

Appreciate the response. 

Thanks

tllim hasn't realised you said you used the official cable and power supply available for the pine64, so will hopefully have something more to add to that soon.

If you are powering up the pine64 from that power supply, with a valid image on the sd card, and there is nothing else plugged into the pine64, and it still does those 15 second reboots, I suspect it is faulty. Does it still do the reboot loop when there is nothing plugged into it at all except for power (if you can tell... maybe the power led goes out for a moment when it reboots?). And do you see anything on the screen before it does reboot when the HDMI is connected?

Smart charger is in reference to a USB power supply/power bank that automatically switches off when there is no load on it, which should not be the case here.

Note that KaranP and selcar (original poster) are different people. 

As for the smart charger, I thought this was where the charger negotiates the best possible power draw for the connected device, provided the device connected is able to talk with the charger and tell it its power requirements via a circuit, which unfortunately the Pine doesn't have, apparently. If optimum power cannot be negotiated, then 500mA is provided as standard for USB. Which would indeed in the case of the Pine cause it to switch off, as you have said.

@KaranP: as pfeerick says, can you be a bit more descriptive regarding what you see (or don't see) on screen during this booting/re-booting process, and what devices you have connected at the time of booting up. Thanks.

That is the other form of smart charger logic... but there are a few algorithms they use... some negotiate, some just switch the data pin resistor values and see which combination makes the device suck the must current up, and others also rapidly turn on and off the output (to reset things) as part of that rather dumb auto-detection. 

However, most (if not nearly all) power banks really are just making available their full current capacity, and convincing the device that plugs in that it can draw more than 500ma, as it's onboard governor is what is trying to prevent too much current from being drawn. Even so, I think 500ma would be enough to get the pine64 up and running with no peripherals (even with the wifi module plugged in)... might test that tomorrow with a 500ma current limited supply

Thanks for the mention about different posters... that would help confuse a bit also! 

Hi guys, 

Thanks for the response. I did have it plugged in with both hdmi cable and without. The light on the pine A64 would still turn off and turn back on. Initially I was stupid and accidentally formatted the SD card that came with the device. But I put the image back on. Now when i boot Pine A64 logo comes up, and then stays there for the duration before it resets again. This process keeps repeating in a loop lol. Again I use original cables provided with the accessories. I tried with Ps4 usb, Ipad Charger (2.1 AMP), and the provided wall charger. The same results as above occurred.

If you can, I'd try a different disk image just incase something went wrong with it's creation. Either the Ubuntu or Debian linux images on from the software releases page would be good candidates. If they start up ok, or run for more than 15 seconds, then it is more likely there is something wrong with the SD card or the image wasn't written properly.

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If optimum power cannot be negotiated, then 500mA is provided as standard for USB. Which would indeed in the case of the Pine cause it to switch off, as you have said.

@Ghost: I know this is slightly off-topic, but thought you might be interested to know that with 5v & 500ma of current available, the pine64 will fail to boot. Same with 600ma. It's only when at least 700ma is available that the pine64 can boot (with the wifi/bt module connected). It nominally only needs around 350ma to boot, but has some spikes of around 700ma which will cause it to power off it it can't get the current it needs. So with a 750ma or above power supply that does give 5v ( not 4.9, or 4.5v!!!), there shouldn't be any issues with bootup (until peripherals are added).

[Ghost]

(@pfeerick: thanks for the info, could be helpful!)

[selcar]

@tllim, I have PM'd you.

[tllim]

@tllim, I have PM'd you.

noted, needed 2 days to responded, Just landed back from Asia trip.