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Beelink X2 with armbian possible?

tpc010

By tpc010
in Allwinner sunxi

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mdel

mdel

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sorry i just realized i didn't follow the topic.

 

i want to confirm that with the lastest Armbian_5.20_Beelinkx2_Debian_jessie_3.4.112.img, it seems to have fixed my boot issues as well.

 

I only have used it for a day but did many shutdown / upgrades / reboots and haven't seen the "purple no boot" behavior that i had previously.

 

I do have some reboot / shutdown "problems" :

got a faulty reboot (shutdown -r now) with it stuck on purple but power cycling solved it.

got a weird halt (shutdown -h now) with no red light on (no led), and others with red light but that i couldn't start from the power button or remote, but i don't know if it's possible or not.

 

Also it's probably not relevant, as i stepped on the wires during first boot, but the sd card resize did not work, i will try again.

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Yefet

Yefet

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sorry i just realized i didn't follow the topic.

 

i want to confirm that with the lastest Armbian_5.20_Beelinkx2_Debian_jessie_3.4.112.img, it seems to have fixed my boot issues as well.

 

I only have used it for a day but did many shutdown / upgrades / reboots and haven't seen the "purple no boot" behavior that i had previously.

 

I do have some reboot / shutdown "problems" :

got a faulty reboot (shutdown -r now) with it stuck on purple but power cycling solved it.

got a weird halt (shutdown -h now) with no red light on (no led), and others with red light but that i couldn't start from the power button or remote, but i don't know if it's possible or not.

 

Also it's probably not relevant, as i stepped on the wires during first boot, but the sd card resize did not work, i will try again.

I have Beelink x2 and there no video on the screen (no signal) does

Armbian_5.20_Beelinkx2_Debian_jessie_3.4.112 will make my x2 work? where can i download it?

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slinde

slinde

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I have Beelink x2 and there no video on the screen (no signal) does

Armbian_5.20_Beelinkx2_Debian_jessie_3.4.112 will make my x2 work? where can i download it?

What is the serial number of your Beelink X2? (Can be seen on sticker underneath.)

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Yefet

Yefet

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What is the serial number of your Beelink X2? (Can be seen on sticker underneath.)

X2H3CABH20545

 

Nobody here can answer this question without logs from serial console from your device because it's impossible to know why your device does not work.

How do I make logs from my console?

 

So far we find out that three different versions / revisions of Beelink X2 exists. All three are confirmed to work, the one I have, work.

 

http://www.armbian.com/beelinkx2

 

Just give some moments, the screen does not come up strait since boot loader that we use, does not have video driver.

What should I do to flash this image? I have usb male to usb male cable.
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Igor

Igor

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How do I make logs from my console?

 

You will need to open a box and solder a serial console. Check this thread or here for details.

 

What should I do to flash this image? I have usb male to usb male cable. 

 

We only support booting from SD card and than flashing to eMMC with our nand-sata-install tool.

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mdel

mdel

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X2H3CABH20545

this is the same serial as my x2 which had troubles booting with previous armbian images, but now with 5.20 it works much better.
 
to get console boot messages you need to solder cables on the board.
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Yefet

Yefet

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this is the same serial as my x2 which had troubles booting with previous armbian images, but now with 5.20 it works much better.

 

to get console boot messages you need to solder cables on the board.

If I use 5.20 it will work? I cant solder. Where can I download 5.20?How do I flash this image?
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Yefet

Yefet

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this is the same serial as my x2 which had troubles booting with previous armbian images, but now with 5.20 it works much better.

 

to get console boot messages you need to solder cables on the board.

If I use 5.20 it will work?

Did you had the same problem I have?

I cant solder.

Where can I download 5.20?

How do I flash this image? I have usb male male cable.

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mdel

mdel

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quick followup  with my reboot problems (still using a 5.20 image with failed fs resize).

 

here's the serial log output :

U-Boot SPL 2016.09-armbian (Sep 15 2016 - 01:16:52)
DRAM: 1024 MiB
Failed to set core voltage! Can't set CPU frequency
Trying to boot from MMC1

it seems i still have some boot problems, here's a log of a failed reboot (from within uboot), then a successful power cycle.

 

http://paste.ubuntu.com/23232833/

 

is it the same thing as the previous uboot problems ?

 

i also got another failed boot error that does not appear in this log, it was something about the init mmc clock ("fatal error"), i then got dropped to a prompt. i will try to reproduce it.

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Igor

Igor

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I flashed a micro sd card and inserted it to tje x2 still no signal. what am I doing wrong? the light is purple. 

Double check if you flash it properly, use other SD card, plug unplug PSU, wait few minutes ...

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Yefet

Yefet

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Double check if you flash it properly, use other SD card, plug unplug PSU, wait few minutes ...

How will I know if I flashed wrong?. I cant access the sd card after I flash it. The windows write it needed to be formated. I dont have another sd card.I am using class 4 card.
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tkaiser

tkaiser

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How will I know if I flashed wrong?. I cant access the sd card after I flash it. The windows write it needed to be formated. I dont have another sd card.I am using class 4 card.

 

Simply follow the documentation: http://docs.armbian.com/User-Guide_Getting-Started/#how-to-prepare-a-sd-card

 

That means: Buy a new SD card, 'class 4' is equivalent to 'way too slow', maybe the initial bootloader called u-boot is already timing out. It's a waste of time to continue this way since without a serial console (opening the case and soldering the cables) no one knows what happens. By following the documentation (good SD card, checking download integrity, let Etcher verify the burn process) it should just work now that we were able to fix the DRAM initialization hassles some X2 show.

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mdel

mdel

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Please re download the image. The date of u-boot compilation must be Sep 21 or Sep 22

 

 

done, unfortunately it doesn't seem to have solved my boot problems.

 

here's a log with various attempts, the first failure was from 5.14 which i flashed by error.

 

http://paste.ubuntu.com/23233336/

 

i will try to flash to another sd card with etcher to make sure there's no foul play.

 

a couple of other comments :

- when the first boot finally started it actually resized the sd card this time.

- plugging the ethernet cable after boot doesn't seem to trigger a dhcp request so the network stays "down".

simply calling "dhcclient eth0" works fine.

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Igor

Igor

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Hi - Any information or links on how to install directly to emmc flash - Many thanks

Armbian, not possible, only via SD card boot first method.

 

@mdel

 

I don't see any problems. Network works as expected ... desktop version uses Network Manager, where this could be possible.

 

Shutdown looks like it manifest to reboot? It works properly on some boards but I guess not on all ... need to be investigated.

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mdel

mdel

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@mdel

 

I don't see any problems. Network works as expected ... desktop version uses Network Manager, where this could be possible.

 

Shutdown looks like it manifest to reboot? It works properly on some boards but I guess not on all ... need to be investigated.

 

yeah not sure what went on either, the network seems to work fine.

 

here's a last log of a complete armbian 5.20 firstrun boot with auto reboot (which failed but finished with a power cycle ) :

http://paste.debian.net/841990/

 

Everything looks fine if not for the failed reboot.

 

 

Also, it seems that the usb serial adapter has a influence on the board state when power cycling, i noticed it when trying to boot android and it wouldn't. 

So i have to unplug the usb adapter before i can do a proper power cycle. 

Also, there's no hdmi connected to the box during mys tests, if it makes any difference.

 

Anyways as a final test, i disconnected the serial adapter (left only the ground pin) and it still failed to boot a few times before it finally decided to boot.

And a reboot almost always fails, i don't think it rebooted fine once with 5.20.

 

So overall it seems to cold boot better than before (i had to try dozens of times before getting it to boot with my previous image), but there's still a reboot problem.

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spock

spock

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I'm busy configuring an X2 - using the latest image. Board version: X2_V3.0_20150623 Serial: X2H3CAJF20150

 

There is something quite wrong with how booting is working. In summary:

 

* Getting the X2 to boot from sd card is hit and miss - until the card is removed and re-inserted - see the logs below

* When the thing does actually boot, it works but ...

* I installed armbian onto the internal emmc device using the (excellent) script ...

* Once halted, using shutdown -h, the system shuts down normally leaving no LED lit.

* To restart the system, powering off and on again results in a brief flash of the red LED, then nothing (including the serial port)

* Repeated power off and on sometimes results in booting from the emmc but it is completely hit and miss.

 

So, this is not about the sd card - I see the problem when booting from the internal emmc.

 

My question is, does anyone with a V3.0 board have the X2 working in a normal way? I.e. shutdown, turn power off, power on again and normal boot. 

 

Any ideas greatly appreciated!

 

 

----

More details below ...

 

When booting from the sd card, the X2 will hang with the red and blue LEDs lit, so having spent 2 minutes with my soldering iron, results in the following on the serial port:

 

 

U-Boot SPL 2016.09-armbian (Sep 21 2016 - 19:23:46)

DRAM: 1024 MiB
Failed to set core voltage! Can't set CPU frequency
Trying to boot from MMC1
 

 

Then nothing, just repeats of the same message sequence if I turn the power off and on again.

 

Now, I have tried all kinds of tricks to get the thing to boot, but removing and inserting the SD card seems to allow the thing to boot. Then we see a normal set of messages ...

 

 

U-Boot SPL 2016.09-armbian (Sep 21 2016 - 19:23:46)

DRAM: 1024 MiB
Failed to set core voltage! Can't set CPU frequency
Trying to boot from MMC1
 
 
U-Boot 2016.09-armbian (Sep 21 2016 - 19:23:46 +0200) Allwinner Technology
 
CPU:   Allwinner H3 (SUN8I 1680)
Model: Xunlong Orange Pi PC Plus
I2C:   ready
DRAM:  1 GiB
MMC:   SUNXI SD/MMC: 0, SUNXI SD/MMC: 1
*** Warning - bad CRC, using default environment
 
In:    serial
[ETC]

 

After this first boot, I can then reboot without problems ...

 

 

root@beelinkx2:/home/pi/tmp# sudo shutdown -r now

[ 5074.100794] Restarting system.
[ 5074.107607] Restarting Linux version 3.4.112-sun8i (root@xenial) (gcc version 5.4.0 20160609 (Ubuntu/Linaro 5.4.0-6ubuntu1~16.04.1) ) #20 SMP PREEMPT Wed Sep 21 19:24:43 CEST 2016
[ 5074.107617] 
 
U-Boot SPL 2016.09-armbian (Sep 21 2016 - 19:23:46)
DRAM: 1024 MiB
Failed to set core voltage! Can't set CPU frequency
Trying to boot from MMC1
 
 
U-Boot 2016.09-armbian (Sep 21 2016 - 19:23:46 +0200) Allwinner Technology
 
CPU:   Allwinner H3 (SUN8I 1680)
Model: Xunlong Orange Pi PC Plus
I2C:   ready
DRAM:  1 GiB
MMC:   SUNXI SD/MMC: 0, SUNXI SD/MMC: 1
*** Warning - bad CRC, using default environment
 
In:    serial

 

But ... when I do a "halt" ...  (shutdown -h), the system halts with the red LED lit, and the thing will not start up again - even if the power is removed. The box sits with its red light on, and will not boot ... Only when I remove every connection, and the SD and disconnect the USB-serial and then reconnect will the thing boot. Then we have the same problems again.

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spock

spock

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@mdel - I think what you are seeing is power leakage from the USB-serial adapter. I have a few Nanopi NEOs - and you can see the LED still glowing when the serial is connected. I'm not good enough with electronics (I am a Computer Science guy) to remember why/how this is the case, but I do know it is a problem with the low cost adapters we all tend to use. 

 

The key question is how we get these things to reliably boot, shutdown and boot again - then these boxes are excellent for all kinds of purposes.

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tkaiser

tkaiser

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Only when I remove every connection, and the SD and disconnect the USB-serial and then reconnect will the thing boot.

 

Two unrelated problems which might be responsible for all sorts of 'shutdown and then boot again fun':

  • USB serial adaptera leave the device in a weird state. If you power it down always remove all power sources (the UART being one). Some explanations for another board but the same problem affects many H3 devices too. I tested last week through 4.2V to 5.0V in 0.1V steps to check for DRAM problems. Always had to unplug the serial console from my MacBook to get the X2 booting again
  • When doing a shutdown sometimes a broken driver causes kernel panics and then the board does not properly power off. Check output of 'lsmod' and the appropriate line in /etc/init.d/armhwinfo

Beelink X2 unlike most of the other H3 boards loads a lot of modules by default (and we have different hardware revisions around). In case it's one of the more recent models I would check whether forced unloading the 8189es module already helps

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