stamasd

I'm trying to get a Rock64 board working with a wifi USB dongle, sold as RTL8188 and which is in fact a 8188eu. I use the latest armbian-buster as downloaded a few days ago. The dongle appears in dmesg when plugged in, but no module is loaded. I can manually load the 8188eu module and get no errors, but no wifi interface appears. Ifconfig, iwconfig and nmtui don't see anything they could use for wlan. I have installed the firmware-realtek package as well, it made no difference. I can get the module 8188eu autoloaded at boot, but that doesn't change the non-availability of a wlan interface. Any help appreciated. I have posted the armbianmonitor -u output in the required field. ( here it is again: http://ix.io/2Dee )

Don't think so, the connectors are snug on both power supplies, and the boards do start uboot but stall when the kernel kicks in. Maybe there's a momentary power demand increase that the smaller PS can't cope with and it stalls the kernel.

I'm not using any USB cables for power. I use dedicated power supplies with barrel connectors. With a 2.5A power supply, the boards don't run. With a 5A supply, they do. But I agree they're running cool. So maybe my 2.5A power supply is faulty.

Huh, I became suspicious that it may be a power problem when the kernel wouldn't load correctly with the serial monitor attached, so I changed the power supply from a 2.5A one to a 5A one, and now all boards boot correctly. Please ignore the above. I didn't realize that these boards were quite so power hungry. It's funny because the CPU doesn't get even slightly warm while doing an update. I wonder where all that power is going.

I have several Orange Pi One and Orange Pi PC boards (the original ones, H3-based). I have downloaded the latest Armbian release for them Armbian_5.91_Orangepipc_Debian_buster_next_4.19.59 and imaged several SD cards in Linux with dd. The cards are all class 10, some are Sandisk and some are Samsung. I am using a 2.5A power supply for the boards. For all the boards and all the SD cards I get the same result. U-boot starts, gets to the point of loading the kernel, clears the screen then displays "Loading, please wait" then "Starting version 241" and stalls there. Nothing else happens no matter how long I wait. If I power the board off and then back on, the same thing happens. This happens with 3 different boards (one Orange Pi One and 2 Orange Pi PCs), and 5 different SD cards. The SD cards are all 16GB, class 10, 3 are Sandisk and 2 are Samsung. Any combination of board+card gives me the same result. The way the cards are written is with: dd if=Armbian_5.91_Orangepipc_Debian_buster_next_4.19.59.img of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=4M I have used the same approach with Armbian for the Odroid-C2 with the corresponding version of Armbian, and that worked well. If I connect any of the boards to the Linux PC via USB-TTL adapter and use a serial console, the boards freeze before loading the kernel. Here is the serial console output. U-Boot SPL 2019.04-armbian (Jul 15 2019 - 17:15:48 +0200) DRAM: 1024 MiB Trying to boot from MMC1 U-Boot 2019.04-armbian (Jul 15 2019 - 17:15:48 +0200) Allwinner Technology CPU: Allwinner H3 (SUN8I 1680) Model: Xunlong Orange Pi PC DRAM: 1 GiB MMC: mmc@1c0f000: 0 Loading Environment from EXT4... ** File not found /boot/boot.env ** ** Unable to read "/boot/boot.env" from mmc0:1 ** In: serial Out: vidconsole Err: vidconsole Net: phy interface0 eth0: ethernet@1c30000 230454 bytes read in 12 ms (18.3 MiB/s) starting USB... USB0: USB EHCI 1.00 USB1: USB OHCI 1.0 USB2: USB EHCI 1.00 USB3: USB OHCI 1.0 USB4: USB EHCI 1.00 USB5: USB OHCI 1.0 USB6: USB EHCI 1.00 USB7: USB OHCI 1.0 scanning bus 0 for devices... 1 USB Device(s) found scanning bus 1 for devices... 1 USB Device(s) found scanning bus 2 for devices... 1 USB Device(s) found scanning bus 3 for devices... 2 USB Device(s) found scanning bus 4 for devices... 2 USB Device(s) found scanning bus 5 for devices... 1 USB Device(s) found scanning bus 6 for devices... 1 USB Device(s) found scanning bus 7 for devices... 1 USB Device(s) found scanning usb for storage devices... 0 Storage Device(s) found Autoboot in 1 seconds, press <Space> to stop switch to partitions #0, OK mmc0 is current device Scanning mmc 0:1... Found U-Boot script /boot/boot.scr 3798 bytes read in 2 ms (1.8 MiB/s) ## Executing script at 43100000 U-boot loaded from SD Boot script loaded from mmc 152 bytes read in 1 ms (148.4 KiB/s) 6746780 bytes read in 326 ms (19.7 MiB/s) 7494376 bytes read in 361 ms (19.8 MiB/s) Found mainline kernel configuration 29890 bytes read in 6 ms (4.8 MiB/s) 4155 bytes read in 4 ms (1013.7 KiB/s) Applying kernel provided DT fixup script (sun8i-h3-fixup.scr) ## Executing script at 44000000 ## Loading init Ramdisk from Legacy Image at 43300000 ... Image Name: uInitrd Image Type: ARM Linux RAMDisk Image (gzip compressed) Data Size: 6746716 Bytes = 6.4 MiB Load Address: 00000000 Entry Point: 00000000 Verifying Checksum ... OK ## Flattened Device Tree blob at 43000000 Booting using the fdt blob at 0x43000000 EHCI failed to shut down host controller. Loading Ramdisk to 49990000, end 49fff25c ... OK Loading Device Tree to 49920000, end 4998ffff ... OK Starting kernel ... Uncompressing Linux... done, booting the kernel.

Yes, that is exactly what I tried using, and why I said that the documentation doesn't apply to the current state of ALSA. For instance,anything I put in /etc/asound.conf is thoroughly ignored and doesn't have any effect; same for /usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf; /proc/asound/modules doesn't exist anymore, etc.

From the CLI that is. I plan on using the OPi as a headless MIDI processor, and I'd like to be able to switch remotely the audio output of ALSA between the default audio-out, the HDMI out and a USB sound card (CM108-based, tested working with the current kernel). ALSA documentation isn't well maintained, most of it is old and doesn't correspond with the current state of the software (config files locations and names, contents etc). I tried various examples I found on several bulletin boards, but none really worked since Armbian seems to do things a bit differently. So I'm asking here: on Armbian, how do I switch remotely the output audio device in ALSA? No remote desktop, just ssh/CLI.

Also, after compiling the kernel again, when I try to install the packages it gives me sudo dpkg -i linux-dtb-odroidc2_5.06_arm64.deb (Reading database ... 48160 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to unpack linux-dtb-odroidc2_5.06_arm64.deb ... Unpacking linux-dtb-odroidc2 (5.06) over (5.06) ... dpkg: error processing archive linux-dtb-odroidc2_5.06_arm64.deb (--install): unable to make backup link of `./boot/dtb/meson64_odroidc2.dtb' before installing new version: Operation not permitted Errors were encountered while processing: linux-dtb-odroidc2_5.06_arm64.deb

BTW my problem yesterday with not being able to connect to the C2 with my self-built image - it was a power supply problem. With a good PS it boots just fine. However apt-get update fails with W: Failed to fetch http://apt.armbian.com/dists/jessie/InRelease Unable to find expected entry 'main/binary-arm64/Packages' in Release file (Wrong sources.list entry or malformed file)

64bit. Having a pure 32bit image is only feasible for a headless server-type install, since some drivers (notably the mali-fbdev) are 64bit only AFAIK.

Well I managed to build the image after the change. I did notice some errors during the build (unfortunately I can't copy/paste as I did the building in a real console not a xterm) 1. unsupported ioctl, cmd=0x5331 after update-initramfs 2 missing cp destination file operand after installing RT8192 external driver I wrote the image to a card, plugged it in and connected the odroid to my router via cable, the blue LED blinks meaning it's alive, but it makes no DHCP request to the router. I don't have a display available right now to plug it into, I'll try that tomorrow.

I had cloned your repository in an empty directory about 10 minutes prior to posting. Here's gcc (it's the latest available in Xubuntu 14.04) $ gcc -v Using built-in specs. COLLECT_GCC=gcc COLLECT_LTO_WRAPPER=/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/4.8/lto-wrapper Target: x86_64-linux-gnu Configured with: ../src/configure -v --with-pkgversion='Ubuntu 4.8.4-2ubuntu1~14.04.1' --with-bugurl=file:///usr/share/doc/gcc-4.8/README.Bugs --enable-languages=c,c++,java,go,d,fortran,objc,obj-c++ --prefix=/usr --program-suffix=-4.8 --enable-shared --enable-linker-build-id --libexecdir=/usr/lib --without-included-gettext --enable-threads=posix --with-gxx-include-dir=/usr/include/c++/4.8 --libdir=/usr/lib --enable-nls --with-sysroot=/ --enable-clocale=gnu --enable-libstdcxx-debug --enable-libstdcxx-time=yes --enable-gnu-unique-object --disable-libmudflap --enable-plugin --with-system-zlib --disable-browser-plugin --enable-java-awt=gtk --enable-gtk-cairo --with-java-home=/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-gcj-4.8-amd64/jre --enable-java-home --with-jvm-root-dir=/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-gcj-4.8-amd64 --with-jvm-jar-dir=/usr/lib/jvm-exports/java-1.5.0-gcj-4.8-amd64 --with-arch-directory=amd64 --with-ecj-jar=/usr/share/java/eclipse-ecj.jar --enable-objc-gc --enable-multiarch --disable-werror --with-arch-32=i686 --with-abi=m64 --with-multilib-list=m32,m64,mx32 --with-tune=generic --enable-checking=release --build=x86_64-linux-gnu --host=x86_64-linux-gnu --target=x86_64-linux-gnu Thread model: posix gcc version 4.8.4 (Ubuntu 4.8.4-2ubuntu1~14.04.1)

I tried to compile a Jessie desktop image for the C2 on my Xubuntu 14.04 laptop. The compile script fails at the u-boot image. The only changes I made to compile.sh were setting both KERNEL_CONFIGURE and KERNEL_KEEP_CONFIG to "yes" because I wanted to add some modules to the default config. But of course the point where it fails is before it even gets to that part. Displaying message: Preparing host info Config: linux-odroidc2-default Kernel source: https://github.com/hardkernel/linux Branch: odroidc2-3.14.y linuxsource: linux-odroidc2 Offset: 1 bootsize: 32 bootloader: https://github.com/hardkernel/u-boot.git bootsource: u-boot-odroidc2 bootbranch: odroidc2-v2015.01 CPU 500000 / 2016000 with conservative 27.03.2016 02:58:24 Armbian 5.06 Odroidc2 Debian jessie default Displaying message: Starting Armbian build script @host info Displaying message: Building Armbian 5.06 Odroidc2 Debian jessie default info Displaying message: Syncing clock host info Displaying message: source downloading @host info Displaying message: ... updating u-boot-odroidc2 info Displaying message: ... updating linux-odroidc2 info Displaying message: ... updating sunxi-tools info Displaying message: ... updating rt8192cu info Displaying message: ... updating sunxi-display-changer info Displaying message: ... updating mt7601 info Displaying message: Cleaning /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/sources/u-boot-odroidc2/odroidc2-v2015.01 info Displaying message: Cleaning /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/sources/linux-odroidc2/odroidc2-3.14.y info Displaying message: Cleaning /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/output/debs for odroidc2 default info Displaying message: Started patching process for kernel odroidc2-default 3.14.29 info Displaying message: Looking for user patches in userpatches/kernel/odroidc2-default info /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/lib/patch/kernel/odroidc2-default/02-packagin-odroidc2.patch odroidc2-default 3.14.29 Displaying message: ... 02-packagin-odroidc2.patch succeeded info /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/lib/patch/kernel/odroidc2-default/fbtft_drivers.patch odroidc2-default 3.14.29 Displaying message: ... fbtft_drivers.patch succeeded info /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/lib/patch/kernel/odroidc2-default/patch-3.14.29-30.patch odroidc2-default 3.14.29 Displaying message: ... patch-3.14.29-30.patch succeeded info /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/lib/patch/kernel/odroidc2-default/patch-3.14.30-31.patch odroidc2-default 3.14.29 Displaying message: ... patch-3.14.30-31.patch succeeded info /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/lib/patch/kernel/odroidc2-default/patch-3.14.31-32.patch odroidc2-default 3.14.29 Displaying message: ... patch-3.14.31-32.patch succeeded info /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/lib/patch/kernel/odroidc2-default/patch-3.14.32-33.patch odroidc2-default 3.14.29 Displaying message: ... patch-3.14.32-33.patch succeeded info /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/lib/patch/kernel/odroidc2-default/patch-3.14.33-34.patch odroidc2-default 3.14.29 Displaying message: ... patch-3.14.33-34.patch succeeded info /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/lib/patch/kernel/odroidc2-default/patch-3.14.34-35.patch odroidc2-default 3.14.29 Displaying message: ... patch-3.14.34-35.patch succeeded info /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/lib/patch/kernel/odroidc2-default/patch-3.14.35-36.patch odroidc2-default 3.14.29 Displaying message: ... patch-3.14.35-36.patch succeeded info /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/lib/patch/kernel/odroidc2-default/patch-3.14.36-37.patch odroidc2-default 3.14.29 Displaying message: ... patch-3.14.36-37.patch succeeded info /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/lib/patch/kernel/odroidc2-default/patch-3.14.37-38.patch odroidc2-default 3.14.29 Displaying message: ... patch-3.14.37-38.patch succeeded info /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/lib/patch/kernel/odroidc2-default/patch-3.14.38-39.patch odroidc2-default 3.14.29 Displaying message: ... patch-3.14.38-39.patch succeeded info /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/lib/patch/kernel/odroidc2-default/patch-3.14.39-40.patch odroidc2-default 3.14.29 Displaying message: ... patch-3.14.39-40.patch succeeded info /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/lib/patch/kernel/odroidc2-default/patch-3.14.40-41.patch odroidc2-default 3.14.29 Displaying message: ... patch-3.14.40-41.patch succeeded info /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/lib/patch/kernel/odroidc2-default/patch-3.14.41-42.patch odroidc2-default 3.14.29 Displaying message: ... patch-3.14.41-42.patch succeeded info /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/lib/patch/kernel/odroidc2-default/patch-3.14.42-43.patch odroidc2-default 3.14.29 Displaying message: ... patch-3.14.42-43.patch succeeded info /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/lib/patch/kernel/odroidc2-default/patch-3.14.43-44.patch odroidc2-default 3.14.29 Displaying message: ... patch-3.14.43-44.patch succeeded info /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/lib/patch/kernel/odroidc2-default/patch-3.14.44-45.patch odroidc2-default 3.14.29 Displaying message: ... patch-3.14.44-45.patch succeeded info /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/lib/patch/kernel/odroidc2-default/patch-3.14.45-46.patch odroidc2-default 3.14.29 Displaying message: ... patch-3.14.45-46.patch succeeded info /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/lib/patch/kernel/odroidc2-default/patch-3.14.46-47.patch odroidc2-default 3.14.29 Displaying message: ... patch-3.14.46-47.patch succeeded info /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/lib/patch/kernel/odroidc2-default/patch-3.14.47-48.patch odroidc2-default 3.14.29 Displaying message: ... patch-3.14.47-48.patch succeeded info /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/lib/patch/kernel/odroidc2-default/patch-3.14.48-49.patch odroidc2-default 3.14.29 Displaying message: ... patch-3.14.48-49.patch succeeded info /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/lib/patch/kernel/odroidc2-default/patch-3.14.49-50.patch odroidc2-default 3.14.29 Displaying message: ... patch-3.14.49-50.patch succeeded info /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/lib/patch/kernel/odroidc2-default/patch-3.14.50-51.patch odroidc2-default 3.14.29 Displaying message: ... patch-3.14.50-51.patch succeeded info /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/lib/patch/kernel/odroidc2-default/patch-3.14.51-52.patch odroidc2-default 3.14.29 Displaying message: ... patch-3.14.51-52.patch succeeded info /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/lib/patch/kernel/odroidc2-default/patch-3.14.52-53.patch odroidc2-default 3.14.29 Displaying message: ... patch-3.14.52-53.patch succeeded info /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/lib/patch/kernel/odroidc2-default/patch-3.14.53-54.patch odroidc2-default 3.14.29 Displaying message: ... patch-3.14.53-54.patch succeeded info /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/lib/patch/kernel/odroidc2-default/patch-3.14.54-55.patch odroidc2-default 3.14.29 Displaying message: ... patch-3.14.54-55.patch succeeded info /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/lib/patch/kernel/odroidc2-default/patch-3.14.55-56.patch odroidc2-default 3.14.29 Displaying message: ... patch-3.14.55-56.patch succeeded info /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/lib/patch/kernel/odroidc2-default/patch-3.14.56-57.patch odroidc2-default 3.14.29 Displaying message: ... patch-3.14.56-57.patch succeeded info /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/lib/patch/kernel/odroidc2-default/patch-3.14.57-58.patch odroidc2-default 3.14.29 Displaying message: ... patch-3.14.57-58.patch succeeded info /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/lib/patch/kernel/odroidc2-default/patch-3.14.58-59.patch odroidc2-default 3.14.29 Displaying message: ... patch-3.14.58-59.patch succeeded info /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/lib/patch/kernel/odroidc2-default/patch-3.14.59-60.patch odroidc2-default 3.14.29 Displaying message: ... patch-3.14.59-60.patch succeeded info /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/lib/patch/kernel/odroidc2-default/patch-3.14.60-61.patch odroidc2-default 3.14.29 Displaying message: ... patch-3.14.60-61.patch succeeded info /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/lib/patch/kernel/odroidc2-default/patch-3.14.61-62.patch odroidc2-default 3.14.29 Displaying message: ... patch-3.14.61-62.patch succeeded info /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/lib/patch/kernel/odroidc2-default/patch-3.14.62-63.patch odroidc2-default 3.14.29 Displaying message: ... patch-3.14.62-63.patch succeeded info /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/lib/patch/kernel/odroidc2-default/patch-3.14.63-64.patch odroidc2-default 3.14.29 Displaying message: ... patch-3.14.63-64.patch succeeded info /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/lib/patch/kernel/odroidc2-default/patch-3.14.64-65.patch odroidc2-default 3.14.29 Displaying message: ... patch-3.14.64-65.patch succeeded info /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/lib/patch/kernel/odroidc2-default/unlock_atheros_regulatory_restrictions.patch odroidc2-default 3.14.29 Displaying message: ... unlock_atheros_regulatory_restrictions.patch succeeded info Displaying message: Started patching process for u-boot u-boot-odroidc2-default 2015.01 info Displaying message: Looking for user patches in userpatches/u-boot/u-boot-odroidc2-default info Displaying message: Compiling uboot. Please wait. 2015.01 info 27.03.2016 02:58:40 /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/sources/u-boot-odroidc2/odroidc2-v2015.01/odroidc2_config Displaying message: Target directory /home/silviu/armbian/odroidc2/output/debs/ info Displaying message: Building deb linux-u-boot-odroidc2_5.06_arm64.deb info Displaying message: ERROR in function compile_uboot common.sh:161 err Displaying message: Building u-boot failed, check configuration err Displaying message: Process terminated info

Well, so far it seems stable. I have checked the barrel connector and solder joints seem good, no play and very little resistance across. I have found a dual USB charger (one of the ports is high-current, 2A). I'm feeding the current from the 2A plug through the barrel connector, and the other port (1A) through the GPIO. Works well so far, but for some reason if I use just one or the other it doesn't boot correctly. It definitely doesn't use nowhere near as much current as the charger is rated for, and it does heavy tasks (compiling a whole game) without crashing.

I stand corrected; I hadn't actually looked close at how he makes the backup in the first place. But it still wouldn't work if there is more than 16GB of data, simply because there isn't enough space on the 16GB card to hold it all.

That assumes, of course, that you don't already have more than 16GB of data on the 32GB card. Because if you do it won't work. It also has a chance of losing data even if you have less that 16GB on the card, because of the way ext2/ext4 work. There's no guarantee that some files haven't already been written beyond the first 16GB point.

Right now I'm powering it from 2 sources simultaneously: 1. Through the barrel connector via a USB-barrel cable from an USB port 2. Through pin 2 on the GPIO connector from the USB-serial converter which is also connected to GND at the serial port When using this dual supply scheme it seems to boot reliably even with the wifi dongle attached. When using only one of the supplies, it doesn't. It's very dodgy but it works. I'll have to figure out why beefier power supplies don't work with it. Thanks for your help!

At this point I don't know what an adequate power supply is for this board. An ATX power supply that gives 5.02V (measured) on the 5V rail and is rated at up to 13A on the same rail failed to power this board correctly.

I've reimaged the card with the same image, and this time I'm able to boot repeatedly from it while the board is powered from the USB port on my laptop. Login through serial, change password, make new user, update packages, reboot all worked, and the board came up again after the reboot and let me login again. All done headlessly through serial. But only one of the 3 USB ports on this laptop that it can power through reliably (if I use one of the other two for power, it hangs). And if I attach a wifi dongle, it won't boot again. It's fine if I boot it without the dongle then plug the wifi card in, but if it's attached at boot time it hangs at the same point as above. Grr.

I have a similar one (came with the board in a kit). The board doesn't boot completely when powered from it. U-Boot SPL 2016.03-rc2-armbian (Mar 08 2016 - 20:18:51) DRAM: 1024 MiB Trying to boot from MMC U-Boot 2016.03-rc2-armbian (Mar 08 2016 - 20:18:51 +0100) Allwinner Technology CPU: Allwinner H3 (SUN8I) I2C: ready DRAM: 1 GiB MMC: SUNXI SD/MMC: 0 *** Warning - bad CRC, using default environment In: serial Out: serial Err: serial Net: No ethernet found. starting USB... No controllers found Hit any key to stop autoboot: 0 switch to partitions #0, OK mmc0 is current device Scanning mmc 0:1... Found U-Boot script /boot/boot.scr 2193 bytes read in 192 ms (10.7 KiB/s) ## Executing script at 43100000 gpio: pin PA15 (gpio 15) value is 1 gpio: pin PG11 (gpio 203) value is 1 ** File not found /boot/.verbose ** ** File not found /boot/.next ** ** Unrecognized filesystem type ** ** File not found .next ** 35916 bytes read in 577 ms (60.5 KiB/s) 4866320 bytes read in 4867 ms (975.6 KiB/s) Kernel image @ 0x48000000 [ 0x000000 - 0x4a4110 ] Using machid 0x1029 from environment Starting kernel ... [sun8i_fixup]: From boot, get meminfo: Start: 0x40000000 Size: 1024MB ion_carveout reserve: 160m@0 256m@0 130m@1 200m@1 ion_reserve_common: ion reserve: [0x70000000, 0x80000000]!...then hangs there indefinitely.

I've done that with other boards, haven't tried with the OPiPC (yet). Usually I would power them from the USB/serial adapter. Worked very well with Raspberry Pi One. That would not be a long-term solution though, I need to find an external power supply that works as my plan is to have this board eventually function as a standalone headless server.

I managed to boot this board using Armbian (the server image http://mirror.igorpecovnik.com/Armbian_5.05_Orangepih3_Debian_jessie_3.4.110.zip),but only once. I was able to login via serial, change root password, make a new user, upgrade some packages then rebooted - but it never came back up completely. On subsequent attempts to boot it stalls part way through booting the kernel. Besides, this board has some crazy power requirements. It will not boot if powered from its adapter, from a number of 5V USB adapters, or even from the 5V rail of an ATX power supply. The one and only time it booted was when powered from the USB port of my laptop (with a USB-to-barrel adapter cable).

So I've gone ahead and got an Orange Pi PC. I've already been using a few Raspberry Pi boards, as well as the Odroid C2. I wanted to see what the Orange looks like in comparison. It fails to boot properly. I've read a few things around the web, tried the official as well as a few of the Loboris images, including the Raspbian, Jessie and Slackware ones; used the newer script.bin and uImages, etc. But still no go. The board isn't dead, the power LED and the other 2 LEDs near the ethernet port light up. I get activity through the debug serial port, but that's about it. No image through the HDMI, no DHCP request to my router (I connected it through a wired connection, so I eliminate any wifi variables). Here's what I get through the serial port: HELLO! BOOT0 is starting! boot0 version : 4.0.0 fel_flag = 0x00000000 rtc[0] value = 0x00000000 rtc[1] value = 0x00000000 rtc[2] value = 0x00000000 rtc[3] value = 0x00000000 rtc[4] value = 0x00000000 rtc[5] value = 0x00000000 rtc[6] value = 0x00000000 rtc[7] value = 0x00000000 DRAM DRIVE INFO: V0.8 DRAM Type = 3 (2:DDR2,3:DDR3,6:LPDDR2,7:LPDDR3) DRAM CLK = 672 MHz DRAM zq value: 003b3bfb READ DQS LCDL = 001e1e1e DRAM SIZE =1024 M odt delay dram size =1024 card boot number = 0 card no is 0 sdcard 0 line count 4 [mmc]: mmc driver ver 2014-12-10 21:20:39 [mmc]: ***Try SD card 0*** [mmc]: SD/MMC Card: 4bit, capacity: 15193MB [mmc]: vendor: Man 00035344 Snr 53a94a68 [mmc]: product: SL16G [mmc]: revision: 8.0 [mmc]: ***SD/MMC 0 init OK!!!*** sdcard 0 init ok The size of uboot is 000dc000. sum=ede66ee7 src_sum=ede66ee7 Succeed in loading uboot from sdmmc flash. Ready to disable icache. Jump to secend Boot. SUNXI_NORMAL_MODE [ 0.358]e mode U-Boot 2011.09-rc1 (Jun 21 2015 - 19:33:17) Allwinner Technology [ 0.366]version: 1.1.0 normal mode [ 0.373]pmbus: ready not set main pmu id axp_probe error [ 0.388]PMU: pll1 1200 Mhz,PLL6=600 Mhz AXI=400 Mhz,AHB=200 Mhz, APB1=100 Mhz sid read already fel key new mode run key detect no key found no key input dram_para_set start dram_para_set end normal mode [ 0.418]DRAM: 1 GiB relocation Offset is: 35af9000 [box standby] read rtc = 0x0 [box_start_os] mag be start_type no use user_gpio config user_gpio ok gic: normal or no secure os mode workmode = 0 MMC: 0 [ 0.493][mmc]: mmc driver ver 2014-12-10 9:23:00 [ 0.498][mmc]: get sdc_phy_wipe fail. [ 0.502][mmc]: get sdc0 sdc_erase fail. [ 0.506][mmc]: get sdc_f_max fail,use default 50000000Hz [ 0.511][mmc]: get sdc_ex_dly_used fail,use default dly [ 0.517][mmc]: SUNXI SD/MMC: 0 [ 0.530][mmc]: *Try SD card 0* [ 0.574][mmc]: CID 0x3534453 0x4c313647 0x8053a94a 0x6800fbe1 [ 0.579][mmc]: mmc clk 50000000 [ 0.583][mmc]: SD/MMC Card: 4bit, capacity: 15193MB [ 0.588][mmc]: boot0 capacity: 0KB,boot1 capacity: 0KB [ 0.593][mmc]: ***SD/MMC 0 init OK!!!*** [ 0.602][mmc]: erase_grp_size:0x1WrBlk * 0x200 = 0x200 Byte [ 0.607][mmc]: secure_feature 0x0 [ 0.611][mmc]: secure_removal_type 0x0 [ 0.615]sunxi flash init ok script config pll_de to 864 Mhz Not Found clk pll_video1 in script script config pll_video to 297 Mhz [boot]disp_init_tv [DISP_TV] disp_init_tv enter g_tv_used screen 0 do not support TV TYPE! [BOOOT_DISP_TV] disp tv device_registered unable to find regulator vcc-hdmi-18 from [pmu1_regu] or [pmu2_regu] enable power vcc-hdmi-18, ret=-1 DRV_DISP_Init end boot_disp.auto_hpd=1 auto hpd check has 100 times! auto check no any connected, the output_type is 4 [disk_read_fs] no the partition error: open disp_rsl.fex, maybe it is not exist not support this mode[4], use inline mode[4] attched ok, mgr0<-->device0, type=4, mode=4---- ready to set mode [ 1.998]finally, output_type=0x4, output_mode=0x4, screen_id=0x0, disp_para=0x0 fail to find part named env Using default environment In: serial Out: serial Err: serial --------fastboot partitions-------- mbr not exist base bootcmd=run setargs_mmc boot_normal bootcmd set setargs_mmc key 0 cant find rcvy value cant find fstbt value no misc partition is found to be run cmd=run setargs_mmc boot_normal [ 2.035][mmc]: MMC Device 2 not found [ 2.039][mmc]: Can not find mmc dev [ 2.042][mmc]: read first backup failed in fun sdmmc_secure_storage_read line 1849 sunxi_secstorage_read fail get secure storage map err the private part isn't exist WORK_MODE_BOOT adver not need show sunxi_bmp_logo_display [disk_read_fs] no the partition error: open bootlogo.bmp, maybe it is not exist sunxi bmp info error : unable to open logo file bootlogo.bmp [ 2.075]Hit any key to stop autoboot: 0 ## Booting kernel from Legacy Image at 40007800 ... Image Name: Linux-3.4.39 Image Type: ARM Linux Kernel Image (uncompressed) Data Size: 10915552 Bytes = 10.4 MiB Load Address: 40008000 Entry Point: 40008000 Verifying Checksum ... OK Loading Kernel Image ... OK OK [ 5.983][mmc]: MMC Device 2 not found [ 5.987][mmc]: mmc not find,so not exit [ 5.991] Starting kernel ... [sun8i_fixup]: From boot, get meminfo: Start: 0x40000000 Size: 1024MB ion_carveout reserve: 160m@0 256m@0 130m@1 200m@1 ion_reserve_common: ion reserve: [0x70000000, 0x80000000]! [ 0.000000] Booting Linux on physical CPU 0 [ 0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpu [ 0.000000] Linux version 3.4.39 (boris@UbuntuMate) (gcc version 4.6.3 20120201 (prerelease) (crosstool-NG linaro-1.13.1-2012.02-20120222 - Linaro GCC 2012.02) ) #1 SMP PREEMPT Mon Oct 12 12:02:29 CEST 2015 [ 0.000000] Ignoring tag cmdline (using the default kernel command line) [ 0.000000] bootconsole [earlycon0] enabled [ 0.000000] cma: CMA: reserved 256 MiB at 70000000 [ 0.000000] Memory policy: ECC disabled, Data cache writealloc [ 0.000000] On node 0 totalpages: 262144 Then nothing. That BTW is with the Loboris Raspbian image and new uImage and script.bin; the OPi is attached to a router, but from the router side I see no DHCP request. The microSD card is a class-10 16GB G.Skill brand, and it was used before with both R.Pi and Odroid C2 with no problems. Just to be sure before writing the image I formatted it fresh, then did a thorough check with h2testw and no problems were found. For writing the image I used first w32diskimager in win7, then dd in Linux, but in either case the result is the same. Any ideas about what to do next?