RP64 Won't Boot After Power Down

[ColPanic_]

Hi all,

I've been seeing this issue ever since I got my RP64, where the board sometimes just decides not to boot anymore after being powered down. I've always gotten it to recover eventually, but I really don't know how. The only consistent factors seem to be replugging the SD card and time. Maybe someone can help me out? I promise if I get this working, I'll post my project on here, with scripts and schematics

Symptoms:
- No red or white LED
- Green power LED is on, amber ethernet LED is blinking at a constant rate
- UART output only shows 

DDR Version 1.19 20190305
In

- Root and boot partitions on the SD card are OK, I can still mount them on a PC

What I've tried:
- 3 different SD cards: sometimes one of them works, but none seems to be more more reliable than the others
- Boot from USB disk: USB boot hasn't worked yet from this state
- Reflash the SD card image: sometimes this works, usually it doesn't
- Reflash u-boot: the u-boot flashing image has the same boot problem as the OS image. if it does run, then the RP64 boots normally again.
- Jumper the boot pins: no effect
- Jumper pins 23 and 25: no effect


My setup:
- Ayufan's OpenMediaVault image, running from an SD card
- U-boot. Only for troubleshooting this issue; I wanted to try booting from USB
- Powered from an ITX PSU. After the RP64 is shut down, PSU power is also killed

[LMM]

Hi all,

I've been seeing this issue ever since I got my RP64, where the board sometimes just decides not to boot anymore after being powered down. I've always gotten it to recover eventually, but I really don't know how. The only consistent factors seem to be replugging the SD card and time. Maybe someone can help me out? I promise if I get this working, I'll post my project on here, with scripts and schematics

Symptoms:
- No red or white LED
- Green power LED is on, amber ethernet LED is blinking at a constant rate
- UART output only shows 

DDR Version 1.19 20190305
In

- Root and boot partitions on the SD card are OK, I can still mount them on a PC

What I've tried:
- 3 different SD cards: sometimes one of them works, but none seems to be more more reliable than the others
- Boot from USB disk: USB boot hasn't worked yet from this state
- Reflash the SD card image: sometimes this works, usually it doesn't
- Reflash u-boot: the u-boot flashing image has the same boot problem as the OS image. if it does run, then the RP64 boots normally again.
- Jumper the boot pins: no effect
- Jumper pins 23 and 25: no effect


My setup:
- Ayufan's OpenMediaVault image, running from an SD card
- U-boot. Only for troubleshooting this issue; I wanted to try booting from USB
- Powered from an ITX PSU. After the RP64 is shut down, PSU power is also killed

Hi,

   Perhaps you have an issue with the sd card reader or the sd does not plug properly.
   You may try to
       - erase the SPI flash
       - boot another kernel (for example Armbian).

   May be it worth trying an emmc instead (the performance is really better than sd) or make the boot from USB work.
   When it boots you may also check dmesg from time to time if errors appear.

Looking forward to see your project.

LMM

---

One more thing I've just remember : I don't know why but sometimes I have to push the two button (power + reset) for launching the boot. If it still does not work I touch all the GPIO pins (when it is power off of course) and then power on.

[ColPanic_]

Thanks LMM!

I think I've actually found the solution to my latest boot problem: if I have UART2 TX connected when I bring up the external power supply, the RP64 consistently fails to boot. Otherwise, it's booting up just fine. The wiki only mentioned UART2 RX should be disconnected during boot, so this was unexpected.
This should be easy to work around, I can probably just tri-state that pin on my microcontroller for a few seconds during power up and be OK.

This wasn't the first time I had problems booting from SD, though it was the first time I had the UART connected. I think I'll order an EMMC module just to be safe.

I'll post my project as soon as I know everything's working as it should!

ColPanic_

[ColPanic_]

Ha!
I just had the same issue again, without the UART connected. What do you know, holding power + reset did the trick!

[LMM]

An interresting thread about the 4-pin power/reset button and uart here : https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?pid=77022. Using this header is interesting because it properly powers off / on / reset the card.

[belveder79]

We found that the most reliable way to get the board back up is to press power for 2 secs, and then press reset for 2 secs... has worked all the time for us

https://github.com/belveder79/rock64reset

[LMM]

We found that the most reliable way to get the board back up is to press power for 2 secs, and then press reset for 2 secs... has worked all the time for us

https://github.com/belveder79/rock64reset

 
This is a nice project !

[ColPanic_]

Thanks everyone for you help!
@belveder79 , I just might have to incorporate your reset trick into my system eventually. I'll probably break out the soldering iron the next time it doesn't boot and I have to take everything apart again.

[gechu]

@belveder79, thanks for sharing your work
I've read it, still not sure what I need though.

I use this board with an Intel i350 nic + openwrt, and need to make the setup more reciliant to power outages. As described here https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=14779

What hardware do I need to setup the watchdog? And was all the software (scripts etc) available at the github page? Read something about some ".. not open source the hardware files" in the end of the github page - but I don't understand what it means? Is this something I need to get the watchdog working?

Thanks, Erik

[tizbac]

I'm using a 555 timer pulling down power button for 1 sec every about 3 secs, seems to work for now, 555 is disabled when 3v3 comes up