PBP won't power. Charge light solid orange/red but turns off.

[KC9UDX]

That's very interesting. I'm not sure what to say about that. Hopefully someone else with experience with the SPI flash chimes in. I don't know how it would come into play this late in the boot sequence. But maybe just zero it out.

I don't want to sound tedious, but per point 2, there have been other reports exactly like yours where someone ended up finding that for some reason, the PBP just wouldn't work with all the ones currently tried.

[cmicallef]

That's very interesting.  I'm not sure what to say about that.  Hopefully someone else with experience with the SPI flash chimes in.  I don't know how it would come into play this late in the boot sequence.  But maybe just zero it out.

I don't want to sound tedious, but per point 2, there have been other reports exactly like yours where someone ended up finding that for some reason, the PBP just wouldn't work with all the ones currently tried.

Do you know of a wiki or post that outlines which distros/SD cards have worked?

UPDATE

If I short pins CLK and VCC ( as per https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/Pinebook_Pr...ash_device ), the SPI boot ROM isn't read and the CRC errors disappear. Doesn't boot though. It's as if the main board is turning off about 3 seconds into the boot process.

[KC9UDX]

No. The odd thing is that I've seen reports that the exact ones I use don't work. I've not personally found any that don't work. I've got some Sandisk ones (don't know offhand what model) and some from the Pine64 store.

Do you see the same thing on the console with different operating systems? I'd be inclined to try NetBSD just because it gives you the boot menu and the boot prompt, which if nothing else, you could stall a while before booting to see if something is indeed overheating or something.

[cmicallef]

No.  The odd thing is that I've seen reports that the exact ones I use don't work.  I've not personally found any that don't work.  I've got some Sandisk ones (don't know offhand what model) and some from the Pine64 store.

Do you see the same thing on the console with different operating systems?  I'd be inclined to try NetBSD just because it gives you the boot menu and the boot prompt, which if nothing else, you could stall a while before booting to see if something is indeed overheating or something.

I've already tried NetBSD. I can't remember if it was -current or 9 but I'll try again and pay more attention to the u-boot console over UART. If I remember correctly, it was -current and it referred to a CRC error on the SPI Flash and that I only tried it with one SD card. I'll give it another go and let you know how I go.

Same behaviour on different operating systems however not all of them report the CRC errors with the SPI flash. For example, OpenBSD says nothing at all about it.

UPDATE

I think it's definitely a power issue. Before flashing NetBSD on one of my SD cards, I gave mrfixit's debian desktop image another go but I increased the log level to 5. Various messages relating to voltage regulators, cpus not finding power_model nodes, etc were coming up.

I might just step through the suggestions on this thread (https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=8971) before flashing more SD cards.

[KC9UDX]

Ok. Please make sure to keep us posted.

[cmicallef]

SUMMARY OF THREAD

Symptoms: Laptop (with power bypass connected and battery disconnected) powers immediately on power being plugged in and then turns off after about 3 seconds (i.e. shortly after the display starts). The laptop should not do this. After plugging in the power, the laptop should only power on after pressing the power button. Other symptoms included (1) various kernel messages about voltage problems in connection with CPU and other peripherals (provided over UART) and (2) brief high pitch low volume noise from display or main board (possibly because of insufficient voltages). 
Problem: Faulty keyboard.

Solution: Swap keyboard.



Other comments: The Pine Team had sent through a replacement display and keyboard (because of an earlier unrelated postal issue, not their fault and it was very kind of them to send the replacement parts through). I had received it about a week or two ago but only had a chance to look at them today. Swapped over the keyboard this morning and FreeBSD from the eMMC boots without problem!



I'll leave this thread open until I finish swapping over all the parts.



Thanks again for everyone's help!


UPDATE: Finished swapping over all parts. Took a while because I was testing as I swapped parts over. All working now!