Rock64 doesn't boot

[artocignus]

I'm having no success booting up my Rock64 for the first time. I have successively with two 16GB Toshiba micro SD cards (backward compatible UHS-I). I first flashed a Debian image with Etcher. Then I read that it's recommended to use the Pine64 installer. So, I downloaded that and started with the Xenial Base image. Then I tried again with the Xenial Mate image thinking that the base image might not have the necessary HDMI driver. But no luck booting with any of these. The three LEDs light up solid, but nothing comes on the HDMI screen. I'm using the barrel socket power supply by Pine64 so power is not the issue. I even substituted a working micro SD card from my Raspberry Pi with a Raspbian OS, but the result is always the same. I'm a noob, but I really can't see what I'm doing wrong. Any help will be greatly appreciated!

[eloranta]

Hi,

I am not able to boot any of the newer images (0.6.x). Try the 0.5.x series of the images - those seem to work for me.

Jussi

[Lamensis]

How long is your HDMI cable? i had similar issues until i used a very short one (i was trying with a 3m cable first).
I also only realized the Rock was working cause i had SSH access to it on LibreELEC.

[sparklerchen]

When I power the board "ROCK64 4GB" with the SD card image "xenial-mate-rock64-0.6.1-141-arm64.img.xz" that download from url "https://github.com/ayufan-rock64/linux-build/releases"

, and all 3 leds light up and remains on, nothing else happens.

It is need to reconnect the power for several times to finally boot successfully

[artocignus]

Thanks for the feedback guys! I'll try the different suggestions and report back.

[artocignus]

How long is your HDMI cable? i had similar issues until i used a very short one (i was trying with a 3m cable first).
I also only realized the Rock was working cause i had SSH access to it on LibreELEC.

I've now tried with a 1m HDMI cable, but the monitor still says "No signal". I did think of trying to SSH into the Rock64, but how do I determine the Rock64's IP without being able to connect it to a screen?

[Luke]

How long is your HDMI cable? i had similar issues until i used a very short one (i was trying with a 3m cable first).
I also only realized the Rock was working cause i had SSH access to it on LibreELEC.

I've now tried with a 1m HDMI cable, but the monitor still says "No signal". I did think of trying to SSH into the Rock64, but how do I determine the Rock64's IP without being able to connect it to a screen?

It would probably simplest to check on your access point / router.

[eloranta]

When I power the board "ROCK64 4GB" with the SD card image "xenial-mate-rock64-0.6.1-141-arm64.img.xz" that download from url "https://github.com/ayufan-rock64/linux-build/releases"

, and all 3 leds light up and remains on, nothing else happens.

It is need to reconnect the power for several times to finally boot successfully

Exactly - this is the behavior I get with all 0.6.x images. The last working one is 0.5.10.

[Mrfixit2001]

I'm thinking the issue we are all seeing is due to the way the rock is sending HDMI signal. I started with the 0.5.10 image and did a dist-upgrade and it still works, but not on ALL tv/monitors, and when it does work the TV shows that it switches back and forth between HDMI and DVI modes at the same res (1080p@60). There's no boot/config.txt so I don't know how to force the HDMI settings, does anyone else? (I tried making a config.txt but it had no effect)

[matteobp]

I have the same problem. :-(
https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=5398
This is just another post like this.
https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=5463