Orange Pi 5 Max SD card booting issue, system normally starts from NVME SSD

[alarik]

Hi.

I've got a strange issue. When Orange Pi 5 Max was unavailable I installed version for Orange Pi 5 Pro from SD card to NVME SSD. It worked fine Now I decided for fresh install of Armbian dedicated to Max board but I can't boot from SD card.

 

I used exactly the same card and the same power supply as when I installed armbian originally, but when I insert SD card, led goes blue and system is not booting. I don't have any signal on HDMI - monitor goes sleep. When I remove SD card - system boots from SSD and all is working. I removed SSD but system still can't boot from SD card.

 

Do you know any method to boot from SD card or install armbian image in other way? For now I'm considering buying nvme usb case and clonning img directly to ssd but I'd like to avoid that as I don't know if that will work.

Edited May 17 by alarik
making subject more specific

[Werner]

5 hours ago, alarik said:

I don't have any signal on HDMI - monitor goes sleep

This is not uncommon. Very few boards have hdmi support at boot level since developing this feature is expensive and simply not worth since the console output is also available via debug serial console where adapters for those are dirt cheap.

To get an idea what happens inside you have to grab these logs and provide them.

https://debug.armbian.de

[alarik]

Thank you for replying me back and the hint.

I ordered USB to TTL module Today. I'll debug and get back to you.

 

Best regards

alarik.

[nnq1612]

I also encountered the same situation. I wrote the Ubuntu Orange Pi 5 Max image from the Orange Pi homepage (http://www.orangepi.org/) and it ran normally, but when I wrote the Armbian Ubuntu version from https://www.armbian.com/orangepi-5-max/, the indicator light was only green and nothing appeared on the screen.

I also tried writing the Armbian version for the regular Orange Pi 5 or Orange Pi 5 Pro and it could run (although wifi and usb were lost, but I could boot to the desktop), but when I wrote the Armbian version for the Orange Pi 5 Max, it did not run.
Is it a bootloader problem?

Edited May 24 by nnq1612

[Werner]

2 hours ago, nnq1612 said:

Is it a bootloader problem?

Same answer as above. Without serial logs impossible to debug.

It leaves to mention that this board is not officially supported but configuration has been provided by a community effort. Board status is unknown to the core Armbian team.

[nnq1612]

I got uart data from GPIO pin, when I press start button it returns as follows:
 

Quote

.DDR 9fffbe1e78 cym 24/02/04-10:09:20,fwver: v1.16
LPDDR5, 2400MHz
channel[0] BW=16 Col=10 Bk=16 CS0 Row=16 CS1 Row=16 CS=2 Die BW=16 Size=4096MB
channel[1] BW=16 Col=10 Bk=16 CS0 Row=16 CS1 Row=16 CS=2 Die BW=16 Size=4096MB
channel[2] BW=16 Col=10 Bk=16 CS0 Row=16 CS1 Row=16 CS=2 Die BW=16 Size=4096MB
channel[3] BW=16 Col=10 Bk=16 CS0 Row=16 CS1 Row=16 CS=2 Die BW=16 Size=4096MB
Manufacturer ID:0xff
CH0 RX Vref:26.2%, TX Vref:20.0%,20.0%
CH1 RX Vref:26.7%, TX Vref:21.0%,21.0%

CH2 RX Vref:27.1%, TX Vref:20.0%,20.0%
CH3 RX Vref:27.5%, TX Vref:19.0%,20.0%
change to F1: 534MHz
change to F2: 1320MHz
change to F3: 1968MHz
change to F0: 2400MHz
out
U-Boot SPL board init
U-Boot SPL 2017.09-orangepi (Jul 05 2024 - 20:18:28)
Trying to boot from MMC1
Trying fit image at 0x4000 sector
## Verified-boot: 0
## Checking atf-1 0x00040000 ... sha256(7612223b82...) + OK
## Checking uboot 0x00200000 ... sha256(939bc88f65...) + OK
## Checking fdt 0x00354c30 ... sha256(e3b0c44298...) + OK
fdt_record_loadable: FDT_ERR_BADMAGIC
## Checking atf-2 0xff100000 ... sha256(70505bb764...) + OK
fdt_record_loadable: FDT_ERR_BADMAGIC
## Checking atf-3 0x000f0000 ... sha256(b2af21b504...) + OK
fdt_record_loadable: FDT_ERR_BADMAGIC
Jumping to U-Boot(0x00200000) via ARM Trusted Firmware(0x00040000)
Total: 762.337 ms

INFO:    Preloader serial: 2
NOTICE:  BL31: v2.3():v2.3-868-g040d2de11:derrick.huang, fwver: v1.48
NOTICE:  BL31: Built : 15:02:44, Dec 19 2024
INFO:    spec: 0x1
INFO:    code: 0x88
INFO:    ext 32k is valid
INFO:    ddr: stride-en 4CH
INFO:    GICv3 without legacy support detected.
INFO:    ARM GICv3 driver initialized in EL3
INFO:    valid_cpu_msk=0xff bcore0_rst = 0x0, bcore1_rst = 0x0
INFO:    l3 cache partition cfg-0
INFO:    system boots from cpu-hwid-0
INFO:    bypass memory repair
INFO:    idle_st=0x21fff, pd_st=0x11fff9, repair_st=0xfff70001
INFO:    dfs DDR fsp_params[0].freq_mhz= 2400MHz
INFO:    dfs DDR fsp_params[1].freq_mhz= 534MHz
INFO:    dfs DDR fsp_params[2].freq_mhz= 1320MHz
INFO:    dfs DDR fsp_params[3].freq_mhz= 1968MHz
INFO:    BL31: Initialising Exception Handling Framework
INFO:    BL31: Initializing runtime services
WARNING: No OPTEE provided by BL2 boot loader, Booting device without OPTEE initialization. SMC`s destined for OPTEE will return SMC_UNK
ERROR:   Error initializing runtime service opteed_fast
INFO:    BL31: Preparing for EL3 exit to normal world
INFO:    Entry point address = 0x200000
INFO:    SPSR = 0x3c9
No valid device tree binary found - please append one to U-Boot binary, use u-boot-dtb.bin or define CONFIG_OF_EMBED. For sandbox, use -d <file.dtb>
initcall sequence 00000000002d2af8 failed at call 00000000002c5028 (err=-1)
### ERROR ### Please RESET the board ###
 

It seems to be an error from the device tree file or the uboot version

[nnq1612]

Can anyone help to fix this bug....
How to install new u boot for Orange Pi 5 Max in a simple way?

 

[SteeMan]

On 5/26/2025 at 11:14 PM, nnq1612 said:

U-Boot SPL board init
U-Boot SPL 2017.09-orangepi (Jul 05 2024 - 20:18:28)
Trying to boot from MMC1

From your log, this is the uboot that is booting and it is trying and failing to boot from your mmc1.  I would expect your SD to be mmc0, so it doesn't look like it is even trying to boot from your SD card.  So you probably need to replace/update the onboard uboot or perhaps wipe the mmc1.  

But I don't have this board and really am just guessing.  But these are directions you could look into.

[Werner]

12 hours ago, nnq1612 said:

How to install new u boot for Orange Pi 5 Max in a simple way?

armbian-install should be able to do that. Though since there is no option to select WHICH version, if there are multiple installed, to write, I suggest to first check with dpkg -l which uboot package/s is/are installed and make sure there is only the one that you want to write.