My PBP starts up like a 1977 Chevy Nova

[rotwang]

Welp,

I tried disconnecting the smallboard, and my pbp still froze the same way described above: sometimes black screen, sometimes frozen with the screen still on.

I tried putting it in the freezer --- I really had hope that we could isolate it to a temperature issue --- but it crashed about 2 minutes out of the freezer.

Could the emmc be bad? That seems unlikely to me because I dd doesn't throw any errors when I write an image to it with the usb adapter.

I'm outta ideas here. It crashes too much to be usable. I first received this thing in April and I have been poking at it since I got it, but it has never worked.

[rotwang]

Oh! Here's something that may be a clue. The pbp crashed while I was on one of the consoles and it gave a kernel panic and dump:

kernel panic above
kernel panic below


Does that suggest anything in particular?

[TRS-80]

I'm outta ideas here. It crashes too much to be usable. I first received this thing in April and I have been poking at it since I got it, but it has never worked.

This level of frustration is likely to put you off from entire companies or perhaps even categories of products (SBC in general)?  I applaud you for sticking with it.  OTOH, if you do ever get it working, you will obtain a (well deserved, IMO) sense of accomplishment. 

Could the emmc be bad? That seems unlikely to me because I dd doesn't throw any errors when I write an image to it with the usb adapter.

I would check, again just in the name of thorough troubleshooting, especially since it seems you have tried everything else.  If you don't want to spend the money/time to purchase another, and are willing to share your location, maybe (slim chance) someone can meet you to help (if they have a spare)?

Above is one big reason to become friendly with local hacker spaces, LUGs, HAM clubs, etc...

[rotwang]

I'm outta ideas here. It crashes too much to be usable. I first received this thing in April and I have been poking at it since I got it, but it has never worked.

This level of frustration is likely to put you off from entire companies or perhaps even categories of products (SBC in general)?  I applaud you for sticking with it.  OTOH, if you do ever get it working, you will obtain a (well deserved, IMO) sense of accomplishment. 

Could the emmc be bad? That seems unlikely to me because I dd doesn't throw any errors when I write an image to it with the usb adapter.

I would check, again just in the name of thorough troubleshooting, especially since it seems you have tried everything else.  If you don't want to spend the money/time to purchase another, and are willing to share your location, maybe (slim chance) someone can meet you to help (if they have a spare)?

Above is one big reason to become friendly with local hacker spaces, LUGs, HAM clubs, etc...

Alright... so I'm not _really_ out of here. I was just being dramatic.

If I were seeing errors or something when I was writing the emmc with the USB adapter, I'd buy a new one in a second. But it seems to write fine, which makes me not much inclined to shell out for a new one that isn't likely to solve my problem.

I'm in NYC -- if anyone reading this is in the area and wants to loan me an emmc to try booting, there's a coffee in it for ya!

As for my sense of accomplishment -- I think it will be severely diminished if I have to buy a new $100 mainboard for a machine that never worked! You might be right about the category of products for me. I'm not really super into buying lots of hardware, Making old reliable hardware work years past its life expectancy is more my thing than getting my hands on lots of iterations of new experimental stuff. The long life expectancy and availability of spare parts is what got me excited about pine in the first place!

[KC9UDX]

You can rule out your eMMC pretty easily by writing a unique pattern to its entirety, reading it back, and comparing.

[wdt]

Have you tried the mrfixit original OS?
It seems fairly reliable, but a bit dated
Userland is 32 bit, kernel 64 bit, so somewhat unique
If you do, be sure to do the mrfixit update

[rotwang]

So to wrap this up (finally).

Replacement mainboards for the pbp finally became available and I ordered one. I replaced the mainboard, and (surprise!) everything now works the way it's supposed to. My pbp sees inserted SD cards, and boots alternative OS images off the SD card. The machine no longer crashes randomly. Basically I feel vindicated that my instinct that there was some major hardware problem with my unit was correct.

I now have a working pbp -- almost precisely 1 year after my machine arrived. I have to say this has been a pretty frustrating experience. I mean, in my gut I _knew_ it was a hardware problem, but I followed the PIne64 support's advice and went back to the forum to try and troubleshoot software problems. I diligently tried (every) other OS. I bought an emmc reader. I got a replacement brand new high quality SD card. And none of this worked. And, you know, I have like a day job, so this all took a while (it takes a month just to get an emmc reader shipped from Hong Kong!). By the time I went back to the Pine64 support with my now unimpeachable evidence that they had sold me a lemon of a unit, they told me it was out of the 30 day warranty.

I support the idea of hobbyist hardware, and I support the idea of testing and fixing stuff yourself, and I support Pine64 running tight margins. But that shouldn't come at the expense of just writing off the unavoidably certain percentage of bad units as the customer's problem, and cutting out of responsibility for those by citing the technicality of a 30 day warranty.

Hobbyists should be hobbyists all the way: if you made a huge effort to make sure your machine has bad hardware before asking for technical support, Pine64 should be _eager_ to help you get a replacement mainboard as a way to incentivize customers to try working through their own issues first.

Instead I feel kinda screwed by Pine64. (Basically: screwed for the $100 the replacement mainboard cost. It's not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but I'm an open-source guy! I have an over-developed sense of what's right!) Now a lot of my goodwill towards Pine64 is burned off.

Still love my pinephone keyboard though. 

And a final thanks to those who offered suggestions on this thread!

[TRS-80]

FWIW, I agree with your assessment of PINE64.

I know you have a bad taste in your mouth (and rightfully so, IMO), but at least you have a working unit now. Hopefully eventually the enjoyment of a (now) working unit lessens the bad taste somewhat.

I really hope that they can continue to improve in some of these areas, as there is really no one else making any hardware quite like they are. Maybe I am deluding myself but like Mulder's famous poster, I WANT TO BELIEVE.

I suppose you may have learned a few things along the way as well (or maybe just more wishful thinking on my part). Anyway, glad to hear it's working finally.

[rotwang]

FWIW, I agree with your assessment of PINE64.

I know you have a bad taste in your mouth (and rightfully so, IMO), but at least you have a working unit now.  Hopefully eventually the enjoyment of a (now) working unit lessens the bad taste somewhat.

I really hope that they can continue to improve in some of these areas, as there is really no one else making any hardware quite like they are.  Maybe I am deluding myself but like Mulder's famous poster, I WANT TO BELIEVE. 

I suppose you may have learned a few things along the way as well (or maybe just more wishful thinking on my part).  Anyway, glad to hear it's working finally.

Hey, a little sympathy lessons the bad taste even more than the working unit. Thanks for that!
I want to believe too, I haven't stopped buying hardware yet!