Pine64 won't boot

[tripledee]

Hello. I used the Pine64 (2GB) with android on the 64 GB SD card provided last year with Pine's provided LCD panel without trouble. Then I didn't boot it for months, waiting for a project to develop.
I tried yesterday to boot it, but without success. The red led lights up for a pair a second, then switch off. I noticed that without SD the led stays on.

I decided to re-flash Android 6.0.1 on my Mac (using either dd on terminal, or Etcher) with three 16GB and 64GB cards. But nothing happens. The led lights up for a pair of seconds and then switch of, with no boot, nor display on the LCD. Any idea of what is going on?

Thanks

[dkryder]

i would re-set all connections if you have not already. that includes the lcd panel cable connections. the led being on with no sd card is , i think, normal. it does it on both of mine. double check what is being used to power the board. if a battery make sure it is fully charged.

[MarkHaysHarris777]

I decided to re-flash Android 6.0.1 on my Mac (using either dd on terminal, or Etcher) with three 16GB and 64GB cards. But nothing happens. The led lights up for a pair of seconds and then switch of, with no boot, nor display on the LCD. Any idea of what is going on?

This symptom is almost always a power problem.

...  make sure your board is powered via 5v @2.5A switching PSU ( not charger ) via the euler bus pin(6  +5v) and pin(4  -ground).  Avoid using the micro usb connector for power;  it does not handle the current well, and often is not soldered properly ( cold joints ).

Usually when the pine board appears to not boot , it really is booting , but the video output is having problems for some reason usually because the monitor and the hdmi mode line of the pine are not behaving well together.  You can prove this ( and or get around it ) by using a serial console to monitor the bootup process.  Use a serial bridge cable TTL usb from your PC to the pine board EXP header Tx-->pin(8),  Rx-->pin(7),  ground-->pin(9).

( If you're using the LCD, make certain your image is an LCD image; that the configuration is set for LCD. Re-seat all connections and make they are tight and square. )

You can then use either 'screen' or minicom on your PC or mac to watch the bootup ( should it boot up you can also logon to the pine board via the serial console ).

[tripledee]

I decided to re-flash Android 6.0.1 on my Mac (using either dd on terminal, or Etcher) with three 16GB and 64GB cards. But nothing happens. The led lights up for a pair of seconds and then switch of, with no boot, nor display on the LCD. Any idea of what is going on?

This symptom is almost always a power problem.

...  make sure your board is powered via 5v @2.5A switching PSU ( not charger ) via the euler bus pin(6  +5v) and pin(4  -ground).  Avoid using the micro usb connector for power;  it does not handle the current well, and often is not soldered properly ( cold joints ).

Usually when the pine board appears to not boot , it really is booting , but the video output is having problems for some reason usually because the monitor and the hdmi mode line of the pine are not behaving well together.  You can prove this ( and or get around it ) by using a serial console to monitor the bootup process.  Use a serial bridge cable TTL usb from your PC to the pine board EXP header Tx-->pin(8),  Rx-->pin(7),  ground-->pin(9).

( If you're using the LCD, make certain your image is an LCD image;  that the configuration is set for LCD.   Re-seat all connections and make they are tight and square. )

You can then use either 'screen' or minicom on your PC or mac to watch the bootup ( should it boot up you can also logon to the pine board via the serial console ).

Thanks both of you. The Pine has always worked with the micro-usb PSU provided by Pine as a Kickstarter (5V@2A), so there is no reason to use another powering way (I have no regulated 5V source, by the way). I tested the PSU yesterday on several other devices, including Raspberry Pis and hard drives, with no trouble. I double checked all connections on the Pine64, including the LCD's. I use Android 6.0.1 version for LCD provided by Pine on its website. How can the Mac access to the bus provided by a TTL-USB cable?

---

I decided to re-flash Android 6.0.1 on my Mac (using either dd on terminal, or Etcher) with three 16GB and 64GB cards. But nothing happens. The led lights up for a pair of seconds and then switch of, with no boot, nor display on the LCD. Any idea of what is going on?

This symptom is almost always a power problem.

...  make sure your board is powered via 5v @2.5A switching PSU ( not charger ) via the euler bus pin(6  +5v) and pin(4  -ground).  Avoid using the micro usb connector for power;  it does not handle the current well, and often is not soldered properly ( cold joints ).

Usually when the pine board appears to not boot , it really is booting , but the video output is having problems for some reason usually because the monitor and the hdmi mode line of the pine are not behaving well together.  You can prove this ( and or get around it ) by using a serial console to monitor the bootup process.  Use a serial bridge cable TTL usb from your PC to the pine board EXP header Tx-->pin(8),  Rx-->pin(7),  ground-->pin(9).

( If you're using the LCD, make certain your image is an LCD image;  that the configuration is set for LCD.   Re-seat all connections and make they are tight and square. )

You can then use either 'screen' or minicom on your PC or mac to watch the bootup ( should it boot up you can also logon to the pine board via the serial console ).

Thanks both of you. The Pine has always worked with the micro-usb PSU provided by Pine as a Kickstarter (5V@2A), so there is no reason to use another powering way (I have no regulated 5V source, by the way). I tested the PSU yesterday on several other devices, including Raspberry Pis and hard drives, with no trouble. I double checked all connections on the Pine64, including the LCD's. I use Android 6.0.1 version for LCD provided by Pine on its website. How can the Mac access to the bus provided by a TTL-USB cable?

I made new tests. When booting after disconnecting the LCD, everything seems fine, as I can see the Pine64's IP address on my LAN. (and I can see on a HDMI monitor). I tried four times to disconnect the LCD panel, without success: the Pine doesn't boot when the panel is attached to it. Any idea? (I am using the Android 6.0.1 (LCD output) release 20170209 provided here: http://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/Pine_A6...re_Release

[tripledee]

I decided to re-flash Android 6.0.1 on my Mac (using either dd on terminal, or Etcher) with three 16GB and 64GB cards. But nothing happens. The led lights up for a pair of seconds and then switch of, with no boot, nor display on the LCD. Any idea of what is going on?

This symptom is almost always a power problem.

...  make sure your board is powered via 5v @2.5A switching PSU ( not charger ) via the euler bus pin(6  +5v) and pin(4  -ground).  Avoid using the micro usb connector for power;  it does not handle the current well, and often is not soldered properly ( cold joints ).

Usually when the pine board appears to not boot , it really is booting , but the video output is having problems for some reason usually because the monitor and the hdmi mode line of the pine are not behaving well together.  You can prove this ( and or get around it ) by using a serial console to monitor the bootup process.  Use a serial bridge cable TTL usb from your PC to the pine board EXP header Tx-->pin(8),  Rx-->pin(7),  ground-->pin(9).

( If you're using the LCD, make certain your image is an LCD image;  that the configuration is set for LCD.   Re-seat all connections and make they are tight and square. )

You can then use either 'screen' or minicom on your PC or mac to watch the bootup ( should it boot up you can also logon to the pine board via the serial console ).

Thanks both of you. The Pine has always worked with the micro-usb PSU provided by Pine as a Kickstarter (5V@2A), so there is no reason to use another powering way (I have no regulated 5V source, by the way). I tested the PSU yesterday on several other devices, including Raspberry Pis and hard drives, with no trouble. I double checked all connections on the Pine64, including the LCD's. I use Android 6.0.1 version for LCD provided by Pine on its website. How can the Mac access to the bus provided by a TTL-USB cable?

---

I decided to re-flash Android 6.0.1 on my Mac (using either dd on terminal, or Etcher) with three 16GB and 64GB cards. But nothing happens. The led lights up for a pair of seconds and then switch of, with no boot, nor display on the LCD. Any idea of what is going on?

This symptom is almost always a power problem.

...  make sure your board is powered via 5v @2.5A switching PSU ( not charger ) via the euler bus pin(6  +5v) and pin(4  -ground).  Avoid using the micro usb connector for power;  it does not handle the current well, and often is not soldered properly ( cold joints ).

Usually when the pine board appears to not boot , it really is booting , but the video output is having problems for some reason usually because the monitor and the hdmi mode line of the pine are not behaving well together.  You can prove this ( and or get around it ) by using a serial console to monitor the bootup process.  Use a serial bridge cable TTL usb from your PC to the pine board EXP header Tx-->pin(8),  Rx-->pin(7),  ground-->pin(9).

( If you're using the LCD, make certain your image is an LCD image;  that the configuration is set for LCD.   Re-seat all connections and make they are tight and square. )

You can then use either 'screen' or minicom on your PC or mac to watch the bootup ( should it boot up you can also logon to the pine board via the serial console ).

Thanks both of you. The Pine has always worked with the micro-usb PSU provided by Pine as a Kickstarter (5V@2A), so there is no reason to use another powering way (I have no regulated 5V source, by the way). I tested the PSU yesterday on several other devices, including Raspberry Pis and hard drives, with no trouble. I double checked all connections on the Pine64, including the LCD's. I use Android 6.0.1 version for LCD provided by Pine on its website. How can the Mac access to the bus provided by a TTL-USB cable?

I made new tests. When booting after disconnecting the LCD, everything seems fine, as I can see the Pine64's IP address on my LAN. (and I can see on a HDMI monitor). I tried four times to disconnect the LCD panel, without success: the Pine doesn't boot when the panel is attached to it. Any idea? (I am using the Android 6.0.1 (LCD output) release 20170209 provided here: http://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/Pine_A6...re_Release

Lasts tests: with LCD panel connected, the Pine boots with former Android 5.1.1 (IP ok on the LAN) but no image appear on screen. Seems that there is a problem with this LCD hardware...

[MarkHaysHarris777]

Depending on the chip in your ttl usb serial bridge cable, and the associated driver, your mac will see a new device in /dev.  
Read this link:
You access the serial link via the device.   pl2303 and cp2102 based devices are the most common, but there are others, too.

[tripledee]

After many tests, I re-flashed again another SD card with 5.1.1 This time everything is fine. So, there is probably a problem in LCD management in Android 6.1.0 version...