Orange Pi 5 Bricked?

[diafebus]

Hey there! I've just bought a used Orange Pi 5, according to the owner he never managed too boot up the first time, because he said it was bricked, for the price he offered for the device and accessories I thought I'd give it a go.. and yeah, I tried to install on different microSD cards, Armbian, OrangePi Os, Android 12 for Orange Pi, many tries but none of them booted or did anything after waiting even 15min. If I set the device into maskrom mode it enters the mode but it gives error to anything I try. I read on a post that using this firmware fixed someones board: https://dl.radxa.com/rock5/sw/images/loader/rock-5b/release/ I tried and I get the following:

Download Boot Start, Download Boot Success, Wait for Maskrom Start and Success and then on Test Device Start, I get Test Device Fail , Note: Comunication issues, Certainly please check usb, Completed... 

 

If I go to the advanced function tab, Test Device fails, Get ChipInfo fails, ReadFlashInfo Fails too Flash ID... all of them,... IDK if I'm missing something or this one is really dead and there is nothing I can do.

 

If someone has any idea of what could I try to do to get it working it would be nice!

 

Thank you!

[Werner]

https://debug.armbian.de

[MaxT]

It seems there is smth on the flash preventing boot, so I would remove SD card, enter mask rom, release button or other contact used to enter maskrom (it is necessary only to "tell" to bootrom that no internal flash is available for boot) and format/erase flash.

After that disconnect the device from PC and power, and then reconnect/power on device, it should enter maskrom by itself since internal flash is empty. Then just boot from SD card with appropriate armbian image.

[diafebus]

Quote

@MaxT

It seems there is smth on the flash preventing boot, so I would remove SD card, enter mask rom, release button or other contact used to enter maskrom (it is necessary only to "tell" to bootrom that no internal flash is available for boot) and format/erase flash.

After that disconnect the device from PC and power, and then reconnect/power on device, it should enter maskrom by itself since internal flash is empty. Then just boot from SD card with appropriate armbian image.

 

I tried that but I ge the message "Get FlashInfo Fail" when I click on EraseAll in RKDevTool 3.19, I tried on all the other versions recommended as well and i get the same result. It looks like the device directly books in maskrom, I'm buying the TTL USB adaptor to see what else can i read from the boot. If the SPI is fried or its totally corrupted an unrecoverable I might try to replace it soldering by another one. I want to do that as a tinkering project either, I'm used to soldering so why not

 

I will update the post once I get the USB TTL stick to check the bootloader, if there is anything else i can try that I haven't I will too! I also tried inserting SD card and pressing the recovery button but it does nothing I guess because its stuck to maskrom mode, i can connect it through usb without pressing the maskrom button and it's in that state already when I turn on.

[MaxT]

You might want to try communicating with the board over USB (male to male USB is needed) under Linux rather than windows. In mask rom mode it allows loading blobs into memory, flashing device, etc.
I've used that a while ago and with a different board, but AFIAK this works across all RK based boards

[diafebus]

@MaxT Hey, do you mean USB-A? using the 2.0 port of the orange pi? I'll will give it a go! will create a linux on an external drive and see if I can make it work! over there while I wait for the TTL usb!

Edited 1 hour ago by diafebus