Experiences with OPi5 +

[Thewonderer]

Hi,

 

I've had my 5+ for a week now and tinker with it when I can.

 

Some things I've noticed...

 

Using Amrbian legacy 5.10 legacy.... the system draws about 2.2w idle using a USB meter and no peripherals attached.

When using the trying the latest 24.2.0-trunk.79, the power draw increases to 3w idle.  I also noted the LED flickers between green and red rather than blue and red with legacy.   My guess is more peripherals are being enabled.

 

When using legacy, the first time i run an apt-get update there are 39 'gets'.  When I then added a launchpad ppa and run again I only get 6.  Not sure why that is.

 

I cannot get my EMMC to boot, i've tried numerous methods from here and orangepi website using the windows tools.  No errors, just a constant blue led light when SD card is removed.

 

I've pasted my current system output to the link below if anyone can have a look at it.

https://paste.armbian.com/cehirewota

 

I used this command to wipe my EMMC after trying to make it primary / bootable

 

blkdiscard /dev/mmcblk0 -f
 

However there are 2 disks that I don't know how to clear.

 

NAME         MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
mtdblock0     31:0    0    16M  0 disk
mmcblk0      179:0    0  28.9G  0 disk
mmcblk0boot0 179:32   0     4M  1 disk
mmcblk0boot1 179:64   0     4M  1 disk
mmcblk1      179:96   0 119.1G  0 disk
├─mmcblk1p1  179:97   0   256M  0 part /boot
└─mmcblk1p2  179:98   0 117.6G  0 part /var/log.hdd
                                       /
zram0        254:0    0   1.8G  0 disk [SWAP]
zram1        254:1    0    50M  0 disk /var/log
 

Edited December 7, 2023 by Thewonderer

[bolet75]

Using armbian-install I achieved to have my board boot with no sd card inserted. Try the options which use the "mtd flash" (mtdblock0 below)

 

lsblk output:

NAME          MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE  MOUNTPOINTS
mtdblock0      31:0    0    16M  0 disk  
mmcblk0       179:0    0   233G  0 disk  
├─mmcblk0p1   179:1    0   512M  0 part  /boot
│                                        /media/mmcboot
└─mmcblk0p2   179:2    0 232.4G  0 part  /media/mmcroot
mmcblk0boot0  179:32   0     4M  1 disk  
mmcblk0boot1  179:64   0     4M  1 disk  
zram0         254:0    0   7.7G  0 disk  [SWAP]
zram1         254:1    0    50M  0 disk  /var/log
nvme0n1       259:0    0 931.5G  0 disk  
├─nvme0n1p1   259:1    0    64G  0 part  
│ └─cryptswap 253:0    0    64G  0 crypt [SWAP]
├─nvme0n1p2   259:2    0    64G  0 part  /var/log.hdd
│                                        /
└─nvme0n1p3   259:3    0 803.5G  0 part  
  └─home      253:1    0 803.5G  0 crypt /home

 

mtdblock0 is a small and slow rom which is on the board itself (not on the emmc module), contains the bootloader and is not mounted.

Maybe this is what's missing to have your board boot without sd card.

[Tony3]

There are YouTube video explaining how to do that. 

[Thewonderer]

Thanks for the advice.  Tony3 can you advise which YouTube clip this is? 

[Tony3]

This one https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DcBqV4QWj0lE&ved=2ahUKEwiMv9zJ34uDAxVDVkEAHbxODTAQwqsBegQIFxAF&usg=AOvVaw3Krv-RVjaUZPHIavZ3_p9s

 

It install the orange pi5 boot loader on the spi. I used that method to flash armbian on pi5 and pi5plus and it works pretty well.

If you still want to boot on that SD card that  you copy from to ssd, you have to change the partition Ids on the sd after the move or reinstall in the sd card to get new partition ids

[Thewonderer]

Thanks Tony3.

 

When you say it works pretty well, is it reliable?  If I revert back to the SD card, will it boot from this first?

 

I'll take a look over the holidays

[Tony3]

Yes all perfect.....

[Thewonderer]

Fantastic!!!   That did it.

 

Wiping the SPI/MTD  and using Armbian-config (System/Install/) to install to SPI/MTD worked.

 

Anyone having issues with EMMC never booting , you need to install gdisk, identify the 16MB SPI and clear it.

Then use Armbian-config to write to the SPI  (called MTD if memory serves) , shutdown.  

Using A-C again to write your SD card image to the EMMC.  

Shutdown and remove SD card.

 

That's it.

 

Detailed instructions are below.

 

I'm getting 80MB/s write speed using WinSCP to the EMMC which is OK.  Just glad I got the EMMC working.

 

 

Orange Pi 5 – Simple Overview and Installation with M.2 SSD | Crosstalk Solutions

 

UPDATE.

 

I found a script that benchmarks Raspberry Pi etc, so ran that, the throughput is around 260MBs/s  .... nice.

Also, by removing the SD card, the power consumption dropped by nearly a Watt!  Never would have expected that.  I use a plug in USB C power meter to view the stats.  More out of curiosity than actually needing the data.

Edited December 20, 2023 by Thewonderer