Another non-booting ROCK64

[SuburbanDad]

Hey all,

I picked up a ROCK64 from ebay for a project I am working on.  But I have been unable to get it to boot.

The board was new, in a sealed static bag, with a 32gb SanDisk card and a 3amp wall wort.  The board is marked "V2"

I have tried numerous images and numerous SD cards including Samsung EVO cards, numerous writing methods, pine64 installer, etcher, dd, etc.

99% of the time I just get 3 solid LEDs on the board and no video output.  One image booted to a command prompt ONE time, the MrFixit image that was prepared for the v3 board, linked in this post:  Rock64 v3 and SD-Cards.  However, that singular boot has never been repeated.

a few of the images I have tried:
 Armbian_5.88_Rock64_Ubuntu_bionic_default_4.4.180_desktop
 rock64-debian-mrfixit-050919_2
 xenial-minimal-rock64-0.5.10-118-arm64
 bionic-lxde-rock64-0.7.9-1067-arm64


and most of the options available in the pine64 installer for a rock64 v2.

I checked the power supply, and it shows 5.2v without load.  I don't have access to hardware to try to hit the serial TTY. 

I am fresh out of ideas here.  What is the likelihood that I am just unlucky and this board is bad?  Anybody have other ideas?

[evilbunny]

99% of the time I just get 3 solid LEDs on the board and no video output.  One image booted to a command prompt ONE time, the MrFixit image that was prepared for the v3 board, linked in this post:  Rock64 v3 and SD-Cards.  However, that singular boot has never been repeated.

Are you using a tv or monitor?

Are the LAN LEDs lit?

if it gets a dhcp address is it pingable?

[Rocklobster]

Have you tried booting without an SD card installed. If so what does your LED light sequence look like in comparison. Might be a faulty card reader on board.

[SuburbanDad]

99% of the time I just get 3 solid LEDs on the board and no video output.  One image booted to a command prompt ONE time, the MrFixit image that was prepared for the v3 board, linked in this post:  Rock64 v3 and SD-Cards.  However, that singular boot has never been repeated.

Are you using a tv or monitor?

Are the LAN LEDs lit?

if it gets a dhcp address is it pingable?

1080p tv.  The ethernet port shows a link light, but it definitely never shows up on the network.  The one time I was able to get this thing to boot, it was not connected to a network.  Mostly, all the lights light up and stay lit, no flashing or anything that indicates it is doing anything at all.

Have you tried booting without an SD card installed. If so what does your LED light sequence look like in comparison. Might be a faulty card reader on board.

Without an sd card, it does the same thing - nothing.  I don't have an eMMC module, and I'd like to see this board do something (anything) before I drop more $ on bits for it.

[Rocklobster]

The Armbian image is the most stable in my experience. Definitely sounds like a faulty card reader. A dry solder joint possibly as you managed to boot to the CLI at one stage. The LEDs on the board stay powered on even when the board has booted.

One option would be to use a different card reader/writer to create your SD card image. Might be worth a try before you get in any deeper.

Like you say throwing more money at the problem is not desirable. What you could do is gently heat the board around the card reader area with a hair dryer or a heat gun to see if this might isolate the problem, obviously with the board powered down and the card out of the reader

[SuburbanDad]

The Armbian image is the most stable in my experience. Definitely sounds like a faulty card reader. A dry solder joint possibly as you managed to boot to the CLI  at one stage. The LEDs on the board stay powered on even when the board has booted.

One option would be to use a different card reader/writer to create your SD card image. Might be worth a try before you get in any deeper.

Like you say throwing more money at the problem is not desirable. What you could do is gently heat the board around the card reader area with a hair dryer or a heat gun to see if this might isolate the problem, obviously with the board powered down and the card out of the reader

I re-tried armbian 5.75.  And although I still get no video (with a ~5' hdml cable to 1080p tv) it actually booted after about 10 minutes.  I did finally find it on the network and was able to login 

`dmesg` output ends with these pertinent errors:

[  730.304133] [drm:dw_hdmi_rockchip_set_property] *ERROR* failed to set rockchip hdmi connector property
[  730.304164] [drm:dw_hdmi_rockchip_set_property] *ERROR* failed to set rockchip hdmi connector property
[  730.304177] [drm:dw_hdmi_rockchip_set_property] *ERROR* failed to set rockchip hdmi connector property
[  730.304189] [drm:dw_hdmi_rockchip_set_property] *ERROR* failed to set rockchip hdmi connector property
[  730.304200] [drm:dw_hdmi_rockchip_set_property] *ERROR* failed to set rockchip hdmi connector property
[  730.304212] [drm:dw_hdmi_rockchip_set_property] *ERROR* failed to set rockchip hdmi connector property

does that ring a bell for anyone? a rock64 v2 running armbian 5.75

TIA

[SuburbanDad]

managed to get the Android 8.1 image to work with HDMI, so it is definitely a software issue.

Armbian 5.75 comes up without video, but with network and ssh
Armbian 5.88 no video, no network - but I noticed while changing the hdmi between it and an rpi, the rock64 briefly displayed tell tale init script output.

It is promising enough that I went ahead and snagged an eMMC module 

Thx for the armbian tip @Rocklobster  - I just needed to find an image that failed gracefully enough to still boot with networking and ssh.  Now just need to figure out what knobs to fiddle with to get hdmi working.

[Rocklobster]

Just a tip. Avoid hot plugging the HDMI cable at the board end connector. I've seen many Raspberry Pis fried by doing this. Just to rule out a cable issue, try a different HDMI cable. They vary in quality. Post back your results

[SuburbanDad]

Just a tip. Avoid hot plugging the HDMI cable  at the board end connector. I've seen many Raspberry Pis fried by doing this. Just to rule out a cable issue, try a different  HDMI cable. They vary in quality. Post back your results

I didn't have another cable on hand, but did have a spare cheapo tv to try, and it works like a champ.     Well, the console displays, but the aspect ratio is very wrong, it looks like what I get when I do the RPI hot-swap. I am guessing the cheapo tv is a bit more forgiving. There are wide black bars on either side of the diplay and the top and bottom are chopped off, quite a lot - 18 lines on the console.

Thx for the help so far, any tips about hdmi setup greatly appreciated

---

Just a tip. Avoid hot plugging the HDMI cable  at the board end connector. I've seen many Raspberry Pis fried by doing this. Just to rule out a cable issue, try a different  HDMI cable. They vary in quality. Post back your results

I didn't have another cable on hand, but did have a spare cheapo tv to try, and it works like a champ.      Well, the console displays, but the aspect ratio is very wrong, it looks like what I get when I do the RPI hot-swap.  I am guessing the cheapo tv is a bit more forgiving.  There are wide black bars on either side of the diplay and the top and bottom are chopped off, quite a lot - 18 lines on the console.

Thx for the help so far, any tips about hdmi setup greatly appreciated

Rebooting with the new tv connected, the aspect ratio is fixed.  I am guessing the auto-sensing hdmi on the other TV is causing uboot to get incorrect display info.

Thx

[Rocklobster]

90% of HDMI issues are caused by badly manufactured or poorly screened cables. If you're using a desktop version Distro your system is left hanging as you've seen. Don't forget avoid plugging your HDMI cable when your board is powered up. Glad you got sorted!!!