Helios64 - No boot, No serial line, No fan, some LEDs

[Nemavio]

Hello,

I received recently an Helios64 from a new friend,

However, when I get home, I plug it in, turn it on (already I have to press the power button for 4 seconds to get some life) and I get the following LEDs lit up:

- LED1

- LED2

- LED3

- LED5

- LED6

i got nothing on the serial line (tested on MacOS and Windows), and no reaction when I do quick and long press on Recovery nor Reset.

 

Is there some electronic schematic that could help me to debug hardware or procedure to get JTAG access to the RK3399 ?

 

Regards,

[allen--smithee]

Hello and Welcome,

in diagnostic Mode, 

0. remove all hard drives SD/PCI/Sata, check the position of all jumpers on the motherboard, and the connections inside the case.

1. remove the metal backplate and plug your USB C cable directly into the helios64 motherboard if you get a putty access in COM it is stupidly a known problem.

2. take a valid Armbian image, install it with the Win32DiskImager program on a SanDisk SD card, put it in helios64, plug Helios64 in ETH0 on your network, turn it on and wait for it to flashled System, run a network diagnostic, get the ip of the nas and run SSH on it. 

3. Call your friend and ask him what the hell happened with the Helios64. 

 

[Nemavio]

Hello,

Thank you for your answer.

For a reason I don't get, but I had to strap Jumper P10 and P11, and I got something on the serial line.

 

https://wiki.kobol.io/helios64/jumper/

 

The bootloader appears and linux starts after 2-3 minutes.

 

We can say that it is solved but I don't understand why.

[allen--smithee]

Hello, 

your helios64 has 3 options to run the bootloader (SPI, Emmc and SD) 

without a proper bootloader the motherboard will light up some tension LEDs... Your helios64 is at this moment only a 5w toaster, 
because no instructions for the support of modules and hardware nodes are executed at startup.

 

we can assume that if the jumpers were missing, that maybe your friend was using a homemade boot code on the SPI (not armbian) or failed to put the jumpers back after a manipulation and the SPI was empty, the board was powered up and that's all.

 

Nevertheless, you are now in control of your Helios64 with Bootloader on SD card slot.