That is expected. We use the same u-boot with the same settings on all releases. You have one of those boards, which can probably be booted only with a stock Allwinner bootloader, which we don't use for many reasons.
What can you do to run a modern and supported OS? Play with u-boot settings (recompile and write u-boot to SD card), especially with a different DRAM speed. I have a pile of boards around and not a single is affected by this problem, but I saw a few people bump into this.
