Which Stable OS for a ROCK 5B?

[Nutkin]

Hiya,

I am currently trying to setup some ROCK 5B boards as runners and as I install the latest Ubuntu 24.04 (Noble) from here  https://www.armbian.com/rock-5b/ it seems to get to where I configure my user etc, then on the next boot it gets stuck at kernal. 

So I guess before I go through trial and error , is there a recognised most stable build that can be relaibly flashed people would recommend, I found the Rock provided Debian and KDE Plasma to be very buggy and just kept locking up on me so something with Gnome would be cool for now , but will probably move to headless much further down the line. 

Amazing community reading the messages so far so thank you for everyone who contributes!

 

[eselarm]

First tell us how your power supply looks like.

[Nutkin]

haha , I have read a lot on PSU, I am currently powering through a USB-C connected to a Anker Block 

www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0D59JNQ9F?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title

This should be overkill, but I am here to learn  

I was going to start another post as currently this board will run on an Automotive rig which is supplied 13.8V from a fairly good but dumb Bench PSU, which I know i cant feed into it, but I was tempted to ask what the arangement with the USB-C was as could i wire a basic step-down circuit for a stable 5V 5A to connect to the GPIO pins and solve this once and for all. 

I was tempted to get one of these ordered foor today to eliminate issues, but was looking for somewhere with a list of known good supplies. 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/iRasptek-Raspberry-Supply-Adapter-（White）-White/dp/B0D12H1N4L?crid=2DR00330ACZG4&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.yy8NlNRV8fvukOA7JVjC9ng_XPbmDtZarii93lgqL_-ToxBeH4T6raTFYwrTkmXGbv-_trvnbv0rCVrjDbhnz3JY-mW3NRzGmgg9gN_fiEasz3_8Qc6GkhIQJG3FacIhxJIy3WGUyuvKu_5iDOxOj5hveO_RctLLAn33KRTnWT1EwvHQUVfvUzfXO8fi3Y8X0CAK1pjSJNdDU86EaeE1maJK2KtMkd32uxYpUs0TDLE.wLLZXeiEdInd_jsKhSdZfBR7IoK18dfWVdL6iph7Wvs&dib_tag=se&keywords=5v+5a&qid=1763810843&sprefix=5v+5a%2Caps%2C92&sr=8-5

 

[eselarm]

I feed my ROCK5B-16GB with SATA brakeout on E-key and Samsung NVMe on M-key with 12V own soldered USB-C pigtail (from an old car battery in addition if mains power 12V brick is not there). It does not work with USB-C PD (the RPi5 27W nor an HP 45W ), then boot loop. I use the 5V and GND from 40-pin header for feeding the 5V of an 3.5 inch HDD (and it gets its 12V from the mentioned setup).

 

Look at the ROCK5 schematics. It is not a RaspberryPi5 or OrangePi5. It has an own DC/DC stepdown convertor which can take 20V-9V on its USB-C power input connector and so creates an own stable 5V that is used for USB or in my case for some DIY 5V i need. You might dig deep into U-Boot and kernel and see if PD handling does work nowadays with latest, I didn't, I just soldered fixed 12V, much easier for me.

 

Automotive can mean very high spikes and negative dips when engine start, so be aware to protect else your board might die sooner or later.

[Nutkin]

Great reply , I'll knock up a connection! much easier than anything else. 

I work in modern/future vehicles so the spikes and dips are not an issue for me as none of them have engines. 

[Nutkin]

Got it connected now to a simple 13.8V PSU and it’s working a treat, just working my way around Linux and Runners but all good !

 

Thank you for the help @eselarm!

[Marco Schirrmeister]

Rock 5-whatever are really picky with power supplies. They are skipping like a school girl if the power supply is not right.

I have for example one relative dumb little power supply with 2 outputs and using both outputs with Orange Pis works just fine. When I used one output with the Rock 5b+ I saw many crashes. It just hard reset at various stages.

After connecting it to a usb output from a powerstrip it worked just fine. 

 

Radxas devices are really really picky is what everybody needs to keep in mind.

[eselarm]

12 hours ago, Marco Schirrmeister said:

I have for example one relative dumb little power supply with 2 outputs and using both outputs with Orange Pis works just fine. When I used one output with the Rock 5b+ I saw many crashes.

This suggests it is 5V only and also no USB-C PD. You should power a ROCK5 with higher voltage, then no issues, at least that is my experience and is also what you can see if you look at schematics. You can also read the end-user docs/wiki. ROCK3A, ROCK5B, NanoPi-R6C all have own step-down DC/DC converter on the board itself. The latter one for example has an 8A component for it. So it can make enough power from 20 or 15 Volt input at a perfect 5V internally for USB devices on its type-A ports, and also easily maintain its 3.3V and lower voltages for CPU etc.

 

OrangePi is cheap, same as RaspberryPi. Those shift the powering (issues) to the end-user, meaning you need a stable enough 5V on the USB power input connector. A slight voltagedrop can lead to problems. But board itself is cheap. RPi5 requires a quite rare 5A capable 5V USB-C PD (RPI5), where the ROCK3A/5B can just be fed from any voltage between 9 and 20 Volt (see docs/wiki). If you use 5V, the on-board DC/DC step-down cannot do its work of course, so essentially bypassed. Why did you buy a ROCK5 then. Same as buying a car with combustion engine with empty fuel tank, instead put a horse in front to pull you forward from A to B. (Or get a bicycle). The (extra) horse is the 27W Pi5 PSU here, costed me 18 Euros, half the price of the ROCK3A.

 

I put a fixed 12V on a USB-C connector, from an old card battery, that by itself is kept at about 12V by a 12V/10A generic powerbrick. Is also UPS then is no 230VAC mains.

The Nanpi-R6C with latest U-Boot and latest mainline kernel does also do USB-C PD, so with a generic 45W USB-C PD PSU, is flips automatically to 15V on its USB-C input. With another 60W USB-C PD PSU it was 20V. ROCK5B should be able to do the same, but haven't tried as run 24/7 for months as home/house server.