Orange Pi 5 Plus cannot boot into Linux

[huuminhs]

I have some problem starting Linux image with my OPi 5+.

 

I just got an OPi 5+ 16Gb RAM no eMMC. I flashed official Android image into SD card with SDDiskTool following the instruction in wiki. It worked. Then I do the "Data Reset" in Android Settings. The board doesn't boot anymore. I re-flashed Android into the SD, and it worked again.

 

Then, I want to try Linux. I flashed Joshua Riek ubuntu-22.04.3-preinstalled-desktop-arm64-orangepi-5-plus.img.xz into the same SD with balenaEtcher. It doesn't boot. I tried again with Armbian_24.2.1_Orangepi5_jammy_legacy_5.10.160_gnome-amazingfated_desktop.img.xz and official Ubuntu image as well. None of them managed to boot up. The led just swap between red and blue (or red and green in Armbian case). After about 5 minutes or so, I think I got stuck in a loop because my screen just go from off to black to off to black continuously.

 

I flashed Android again on the SD card, and it magically worked again. I am not very good with hardware, but from what I read around, I think it could be the SPI memory. I find it a bit hard to believe because it is the new board and I did not tamper with it at all. The only thing I touched is the SD card. I am out of options now. I am thinking of clearing / flashing the SPI memory, but I also read a lot of stories about people bricking their OPi after touching that region. I don't want to do something that I might regret later.

 

Does anyone have an idea what could have caused this and should I just try to erase the SPI? I used stock 5V 4A power, and also tried a different HDMI port. Still the same thing.

[Efe Çetin]

You should download it from here https://redirect.armbian.com/orangepi5-plus/archive/

[huuminhs]

Hey Efe,

 

Thank you for your help. Cannot believe that I downloaded the wrong Armbian image. With the Armbian_24.2.1_Orangepi5-plus_jammy_legacy_5.10.160_gnome-amazingfated_desktop.img.xz, I managed to boot into the setup CLI, although it is very "flashy". The monitor turns off and on again every 2 seconds. After setting up, it says "Starting desktop environment..", and goes black from there.

 

The flashy CLI helped me figure out the reason. I am using ultra wide screen with 5120 x 1440 resolution. After changing to standard 2k resolution, I can boot into the desktop without any issue. Once I am in, I can change the resolution in settings to 5120 x 1440. I think the initial Linux configurations cannot understand weird aspect ratio. I tried 2k resolution with Joshua Riek image that I failed to boot before and it worked normally this time. Because Joshua Riek uses GUI first-boot screen, I went immediately to black screen instead of "flashy CLI".