doesn't boot, no video

[cjyar]

I have a new ROCK64, but it doesn't boot. I plug in HDMI, USB keyboard, and a generic 5V 2A power supply. Three LEDs light up on the board: DC IN, PWR, and STBY. No video signal comes in, and the keyboard doesn't respond to caps lock. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

[evilbunny]

I have a new ROCK64, but it doesn't boot. I plug in HDMI, USB keyboard, and a generic 5V 2A power supply. Three LEDs light up on the board: DC IN, PWR, and STBY. No video signal comes in, and the keyboard doesn't respond to caps lock. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

The rock64 needs up to 3A when you have stuff plugged into the USB ports.

As for HDMI, are you using a monitor or tv? Monitors can be a bit iffy if they or DVI adaptors send corrupt or blank EDID. I have to force my monitor to 1080p to get it to work reliably.

[cjyar]

I have a new ROCK64, but it doesn't boot. I plug in HDMI, USB keyboard, and a generic 5V 2A power supply. Three LEDs light up on the board: DC IN, PWR, and STBY. No video signal comes in, and the keyboard doesn't respond to caps lock. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

The rock64 needs up to 3A when you have stuff plugged into the USB ports.

As for HDMI, are you using a monitor or tv? Monitors can be a bit iffy if they or DVI adaptors send corrupt or blank EDID. I have to force my monitor to 1080p to get it to work reliably.

Thanks for your quick reply. I bought 2 new power supplies, both rated at 5V/3A. I've tried the board against 3 different (old) monitors. Two of those require an HDMI to DVI cable; the other is a pretty old TV that's at least got an HDMI port. I'm seeing the same results in every case. The LEDs light up on the board, but there's no video signal. Maybe I just need a newer monitor?

[cjyar]

More experiments: I took out the SD card and unplugged everything except the ethernet cable, then applied power to the board. No lights came on on that ethernet jack, or on the switch port. If it has no media, it should be trying to netboot, shouldn't it?

The funny thing is, I ordered 5 of these boards together, and they're all showing the same behavior. I must be doing something wrong. The only thing they respond to is holding the power button for 5 seconds; then the STBY and PWR LEDs both turn off.

[Rocklobster]

Try accessing your board remotely via SSH. Can you see your board's address on your LAN. Sounds like you may be having video issues with the monitors you are using.

[evilbunny]

Thanks for your quick reply. I bought 2 new power supplies, both rated at 5V/3A. I've tried the board against 3 different (old) monitors. Two of those require an HDMI to DVI cable; the other is a pretty old TV that's at least got an HDMI port. I'm seeing the same results in every case. The LEDs light up on the board, but there's no video signal. Maybe I just need a newer monitor?

For my DVI monitor I had to add the following:

Code:

drm_kms_helper.edid_firmware=edid/1920x1080.bin

To the end of the kernel append line, otherwise it was more miss than hit with auto detection.

[cjyar]

Thanks for all the help. I think I get it now: The boot on these little boards doesn't know how to initialize the network. So it was pointless for me to watch for network activity when there was no boot media. I flashed an SD card with ayufan's bionic, and it booted just fine. I'll mess with the video later, or maybe hook up a serial console.

[ab1jx]

I went through the EDID thing on my Rock64 maybe a year ago and it worked.  I was using it with an old Dell s2409w from about 2008 which has an EDID version the Rock64 wasn't recognizing.

But isn't there more to it?  You have to actually have the edid/1920x1080.bin file somewhere.  And initramfs, I remember having to run update-initramfs.  I'm just going through it all over again with a new SD card and no notes that I can find.  Somebody on here told me how to do it (maybe it was on IRC), but there's no search here or links to previous posts?

I'm facing the same thing and wondering if my Rock64 took a power line spike or something.  I used your addition to the kernel append line and I still get nothing on the monitor.  Red, white and green LEDs are on, but no blinking or signs of life.  Doing a new post.