After having my old debian (wheezy? or jessy?) unbootable from systemd update I decided to clean install.
Having gotten a good Power supply, an A1 Speed 10 SD card, etcher image, and armbian debian 20.08 (also tried 20.07), The board boots (Welcome to armbian) up to "network interfaces up) - then the screen goes blank/black, and I get the green led heardbeat (slow blinking) for a while. Pushing power again the board shuts down (green LED blinking rapidly for a moment, then red power LED co