pkfox 8 Posted April 15, 2019 Share Posted April 15, 2019 One of my boards gave up today - I was just connecting the SATA power cable to the hat and no leds came on - no sound or smoke just nothing - I tried several times to re power it and all I saw on a couple of occasions was a very faint flicker of the leds -so I guess it's dead. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Tido 186 Posted April 15, 2019 Share Posted April 15, 2019 What else have you tried, different cable, power supply ? 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
NicoD 271 Posted April 15, 2019 Share Posted April 15, 2019 Are you powering the board with the hat? Have you tried powering with usb-C? Or with the gpio's? Without the sata hat? 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Myy 88 Posted April 15, 2019 Share Posted April 15, 2019 If you connect your board (only) to a PC through an USB cable, do you see an USB connection ? (lsusb or Windows Device manager) 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
chwe 363 Posted April 15, 2019 Share Posted April 15, 2019 there's your first point to check if your board is still alive (there should be also an debug uart on the m4). 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
pkfox 8 Posted April 15, 2019 Author Share Posted April 15, 2019 9 hours ago, Tido said: What else have you tried, different cable, power supply ? Yes tried all the usual suspects 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
pkfox 8 Posted April 15, 2019 Author Share Posted April 15, 2019 6 hours ago, NicoD said: Are you powering the board with the hat? Have you tried powering with usb-C? Or with the gpio's? Without the sata hat? Hi Nico, yes I was powering via the hat, I've tried powering via USB but not the pins - I wouldn't know how 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
pkfox 8 Posted April 15, 2019 Author Share Posted April 15, 2019 4 hours ago, chwe said: there's your first point to check if your board is still alive (there should be also an debug uart on the m4). The M4 needs separate power using UART lead so I'm stuffed with that 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
pkfox 8 Posted April 15, 2019 Author Share Posted April 15, 2019 5 hours ago, Myy said: If you connect your board (only) to a PC through an USB cable, do you see an USB connection ? (lsusb or Windows Device manager) Not tried that 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
chwe 363 Posted April 15, 2019 Share Posted April 15, 2019 3 minutes ago, pkfox said: The M4 needs separate power using UART lead so I'm stuffed with that normally just power it the normal way and only connect GND, RX and TX works quite well for accessing the debug UART... 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
pkfox 8 Posted April 16, 2019 Author Share Posted April 16, 2019 11 hours ago, chwe said: normally just power it the normal way and only connect GND, RX and TX works quite well for accessing the debug UART... 11 hours ago, chwe said: normally just power it the normal way and only connect GND, RX and TX works quite well for accessing the debug UART... The problem is I can't power it the normal way it won't accept power 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
martinayotte 655 Posted April 16, 2019 Share Posted April 16, 2019 9 hours ago, pkfox said: The problem is I can't power it the normal way it won't accept power Why ? 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
pkfox 8 Posted April 16, 2019 Author Share Posted April 16, 2019 5 hours ago, martinayotte said: Why ? Because I get no led lights - nothing - the board is ( appears to be ) dead 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
martinayotte 655 Posted April 16, 2019 Share Posted April 16, 2019 55 minutes ago, pkfox said: the board is ( appears to be ) dead And what is the alternative way that make it works ? 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
pkfox 8 Posted April 17, 2019 Author Share Posted April 17, 2019 6 hours ago, martinayotte said: And what is the alternative way that make it works ? 6 hours ago, martinayotte said: And what is the alternative way that make it works ? That's my point - nothing makes it work - it's dead 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
chwe 363 Posted April 17, 2019 Share Posted April 17, 2019 11 hours ago, pkfox said: 18 hours ago, martinayotte said: And what is the alternative way that make it works ? That's my point - nothing makes it work - it's dead and what's the exact point of this discussion? so, reason behind using uart instead of HDMI etc. is that uart is 'a way more talky' in case things don't work properly anymore.. whereas initialization of HDMI needs more things properly working. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
NicoD 271 Posted April 17, 2019 Share Posted April 17, 2019 If there's no light while powered then I believe it's dead. If you did try another cable, psu, sd-card, os, measure voltage from psu, from usb ports? Then you're going to have to contact your seller or sales at friendlyarm dot com. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
pkfox 8 Posted April 18, 2019 Author Share Posted April 18, 2019 17 hours ago, chwe said: and what's the exact point of this discussion? so, reason behind using uart instead of HDMI etc. is that uart is 'a way more talky' in case things don't work properly anymore.. whereas initialization of HDMI needs more things properly working. The point of the discussion is to ascertain whether the board is truly dead - which I believe it is 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
pkfox 8 Posted April 18, 2019 Author Share Posted April 18, 2019 10 hours ago, NicoD said: If there's no light while powered then I believe it's dead. If you did try another cable, psu, sd-card, os, measure voltage from psu, from usb ports? Then you're going to have to contact your seller or sales at friendlyarm dot com. Yes I agree Nico - I bought two of these , one from friendly direct and one from Amazon and I don't know which one is which - I don't suppose it matters as it's all from them originally 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
chwe 363 Posted April 18, 2019 Share Posted April 18, 2019 44 minutes ago, pkfox said: 17 hours ago, chwe said: and what's the exact point of this discussion? so, reason behind using uart instead of HDMI etc. is that uart is 'a way more talky' in case things don't work properly anymore.. whereas initialization of HDMI needs more things properly working. The point of the discussion is to ascertain whether the board is truly dead - which I believe it is and that's the point.. using a volt-meter to see if power is still on the important powerlines lines with your normal powering setup.. in case yes.. connect the UART and look if you get an output.. in case the main powerrails are dead.. the board is for sure dead as well.. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
pkfox 8 Posted April 18, 2019 Author Share Posted April 18, 2019 1 hour ago, chwe said: and that's the point.. using a volt-meter to see if power is still on the important powerlines lines with your normal powering setup.. in case yes.. connect the UART and look if you get an output.. in case the main powerrails are dead.. the board is for sure dead as well.. Thanks for the info I'm pretty sure it's dead and I've just sent an email to FriendlyElec - will keep you all posted 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
pkfox 8 Posted May 5, 2019 Author Share Posted May 5, 2019 On 4/18/2019 at 12:44 PM, pkfox said: Thanks for the info I'm pretty sure it's dead and I've just sent an email to FriendlyElec - will keep you all posted Hats off to Amazon I told them the board had died ( via their online chat ) and they refunded me in full and presumably dealt with the seller 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Oleksii 5 Posted June 8 Share Posted June 8 My NanoPC T4 seems also died today with same symptoms Yesterday it stopped booting from MMC with only red power-on light and no other attempts to boot... Then I inserted sd-card and managed to boot from it in MASKROM mode. So I decided that main image is corrupted and planned to play with recovery today. This morning, it couldn't boot at all, neither MMC nor even SD - still the same red light only and that's it. Then I connected the board to PC via type-c port. It was detected as MASKROM device, but attempt to clear internal flash simply failed. I tried different proven to work PSU (works fine with M4), another SD card, detached SSD, HDMI etc. Now I see picture which is even worse: led slightly blinks one time and no power .... damn it 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
RussianNeuroMancer 10 Posted June 24 Share Posted June 24 On 6/8/2020 at 5:35 PM, Oleksii said: My NanoPC T4 seems also died One of my NanoPC T4 also died a four months ago for no apparent reason, some symptoms was similar to description from Oleksii post. Initially it always printed long stack trace to serial console during rockchip_drm initialization, and then reboot on emmc initialization attempt. Later it stopped booting from emmc as if it's empty, but attempts to boot from microsd always lead to same outcome - boot loop. And finally it stopped even trying to boot from microsd with only red light. FriendlyARM send replacement for this board, but making them doing so certainly wasn't easy - when all troubleshooting steps doesn't help, they decided to stop answering until I tried to place a new order via sales e-mail and asked them to put replacement board into this order. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Oleksii 5 Posted June 24 Share Posted June 24 14 hours ago, RussianNeuroMancer said: FriendlyARM send replacement for this board, but making them doing so certainly wasn't easy - when all troubleshooting steps doesn't help, they decided to stop answering until I tried to place a new order via sales e-mail and asked them to put replacement board into this order. I wrote the e-mail to their tech support. No answer, indeed. Then posted my question to them via "Contact Us" form on website. No feedback ... I saw some other people complaining about boards dying with the same symptoms (one can even find some posts in the FriendlyARMs dedicated forum). I worked on mainline fusb302 controller driver extension in order to gain some missing functionality crucially needed for Rockchip's DisplayPort and Type-C drivers. I managed to get DisplayPort working properly on T4 in mainline 5.6+ kernels. My SBC simply died right in the middle of kernel sources compilation I haven't finished all the planned work and essentially wasted two weeks of my own spare time. I also described this situation to the FARM, and it looks like, they simply do not give a shit about community contribution. Neither them, nor Rockchip as a company in general I tried to complete the work in progress making use of my another M4 (also has the same Fairchild FUSB302 controller for PD), however it is useless, because USB3.0 and DP related pins are not wired at all Btw., this M4 of mine is also kind of faulty: HDMI port stopped working in the very beginning of its life, now it is completely headless Seems, I have very bad luck with this company and I don't see any reasons to buy their products anymore or even invest my time into Rockchip's based stuff. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
guidol 260 Posted June 24 Share Posted June 24 2 hours ago, Oleksii said: FriendlyARM. Seems, I have very bad luck with this company and I don't see any reasons to buy their products anymore or even invest my time into Rockchip's based stuff. Just my perosonal cents: I got some NanoPis from FriendlyARM with Allwinner-Chips like H2+, H3 , H5 and A64 and they do work alll very well and since years 24/7 - but I got some Rockchip devices from other companys and they are the "black sheeps" of my SBCs - so Iam do not buy Rockchip-devices anymore. So when try to buy Allwinner devices from FriendlyARM - but isnt that easy anymore without new H5-devices and no real successor in the near future 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Oleksii 5 Posted June 25 Share Posted June 25 12 hours ago, guidol said: Just my perosonal cents: I got some NanoPis from FriendlyARM with Allwinner-Chips like H2+, H3 , H5 and A64 and they do work alll very well and since years 24/7 - but I got some Rockchip devices from other companys and they are the "black sheeps" of my SBCs - so Iam do not buy Rockchip-devices anymore. So when try to buy Allwinner devices from FriendlyARM - but isnt that easy anymore without new H5-devices and no real successor in the near future From what I read: "You own some RK based devices and they do work! But you stopped treating them seriously". In my situation all 100% of my RK-based SBCs are faulty "black sheeps" 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
RussianNeuroMancer 10 Posted June 26 Share Posted June 26 Try to contact sales from different e-mail, say you would like to place new order, ask them if something (for example if NEO2 Black is available for order directly from their store, or if K1 Plus fits into RPi3 cases, etc.; but don't copy this blindly, come up with your own questions) when sales answer, continue asking them about other items for your new order. Then say that before placing your new order you need to resolve issue with board from previous order (mention order number here) describe how board died, attach video of attempt to power on the board, describe troubleshooting steps (that you tested different PSU, etc.) and so on. If they stop answering at this point, start conversation with sales again from different e-mail, and after few e-mail mention order with faulty board again. When I did so, they gave up, and agreed to put replacement into new order. Yeah, it's hard to make them replace faulty board, but I assure you that it's possible - I did this. (But, yeah, maybe I was just lucky, but it didn't hurt to try, right?) 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Oleksii 5 Posted June 26 Share Posted June 26 5 hours ago, RussianNeuroMancer said: If they stop answering at this point, start conversation with sales again from different e-mail, and after few e-mail mention order with faulty board again. When I did so, they gave up, and agreed to put replacement into new order. Yeah, it's hard to make them replace faulty board, but I assure you that it's possible - I did this. (But, yeah, maybe I was just lucky, but it didn't hurt to try, right?) Thanks for advise! However, even this process will eat my time which I can more productively spend to make money for another SBC and preferably not FriendlyArm product this time I'm really disappointed and do not want to deal with a company like this anymore I gave them enough time and information to resolve the issue in a "Friendly" manner. I also spent my spare time trying to contribute to the mainline linux in order to make their boards more "Friendly". And now, it seems to me, I should look for another friends 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
RussianNeuroMancer 10 Posted July 2 Share Posted July 2 A bit of offtopic, but if anyone is interested Hardkernel is more open about RMA. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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