[230526] System Release Notice for ROCK 5B

#1

Greetings. Today we are happy to announce the new system release for ROCK 5B.

Download

The following systems have been validated by Radxa for various use cases:

ROCK 5B: Build 33

More build variants can be found at radxa-build.

Kernel version: 5.10.110-8

Known issues

  • When using with certain USB-PD power supply, ROCK 5B will enter a reboot loop.
    Workaround: Use non-PD power supply, or, use Radxa PD 30, or, use a compatible PD power supply.
  • AV-1 decoding is not working.
    Reason: the currently used Rockchip SDK does not support AV-1 decoding.
    This will be fixed in a future update (the latest Rockchip SDK contains such support).
  • When multiple displays are connected, there is a chance that the display manager will fail to show desktop.
    Workaround: remove plymouth.ignore-serial-consoles from /etc/kernel/cmdline, then run sudo u-boot-update and reboot.
  • HDMI-IN is not working correctly.
  • CPU Freq support is missing.
    Workaround: see this comment.
4 Likes
Is the official downloads page broken?
#2

I usually write a short status report to go along with our system release notice. But ROCK 5B is quite challenging, so most of our time are spending on bug fixes. It is necessary but nothing to write home about.

There also are issues that we are unable to solve in this release. For example, I spent quite a lot of time in the PD reboot issue, and only then did I know how hard a proper fix requires. Kinda makes other changes pale in comparison because we know how important it is. My final attempt got PD power negotiated in a stable working voltage with few reboots (still happen but very infrequently, havenā€™t figured out why else was causing it), at the loss of data capability on the TYPE-C port (so no DisplayPort). This ultimately failed to pass the review.

There are also progress on other area, notably the RK356Xā€™s mainline U-Boot support is now very solid based on our impression on ROCK 3A, but they are unrelated to ROCK 5B, so I donā€™t feel it is appropriate to put them in the post.

Our next target is to get ROCK 3C and CM3S on Rockchip 5.10 kernel. This should allow us to have unified kernel for most of our Rockchip offerings, so we could plan some big changes. Stay tuned.

6 Likes
#3
#4

Good to see progress is beeing made! Thank you for making this SBC even better :slight_smile:

Too bad AV-1 and HDMI-In is not working.

Working USB-PD would be nice but also Iā€™m really happy with the current state - Iā€™m using a decoy board with a 65 W PD adapter to power three Rock 5B with 12V. They are currently running almost 70 days without issues. (They never crashed, always intended reboots, two of them are packed with peripheals) But with this setup I cannot really use the data part of the port. When this is fixed I would need a power adapter and usb-pd-hub each to take advantage of it working.

(I had to remove some cables for the picture, not too easy to photograph ;))

Although I have cases and other options to cover the boards, I feel like beeing able looking at the board(s) directly is the best option for me :star_struck:

IMG_20230526_164006_1
IMG_20230526_164006_1.jpg1672Ɨ1254 252 KB

Edit: Good thing I wrote this post, on next reboot Iā€™ll change to 20V on the decoy board. Good to know that 12 V also works but I woudnā€™t recommend it when using more than one board :wink:

2 Likes
#5

I have been using an AmeriDroid PD with a usb-c to usb-c cable and havenā€™t had a single reboot yet, plenty of maxed out CPU usage and heavy NPU usage.

#6

Iā€™m waiting for the official release of Ubuntu 22.04.

I got two issues below in my use case using the image of ā€œrock-5b_ubuntu_jammy_cli_b33.img.xzā€.

  1. Unable to use AX200 Wi-Fi module.
    I canā€™t set a Wi-Fi access point using the sudo nmtui command.
    An AX200 Wi-Fi module is connected to the M.2 E-Key of ROCK 5B.
  2. Unable to access CPU frequency in sys-fs.
    I canā€™t find the path of /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq.
    The previous image (ā€œrock-5b_ubuntu_jammy_cli_b32.img.xzā€) has it.

Are these issues will solve the official release?

#7

In the short term we will not produce an official Ubuntu release, mainly because Rockchip hardware enablement packages are Debian only. There is also the cost to test and support 2 distros, which our manpower is already stretched thin. We are constantly looking for new talents but they are not coming soon enough.

Iā€™ll check the rest of your issues on our Debian systems. @ken @hachi

#8

Hi Yuntian,

Thank you for your reply.
I tried to use Debian CLI images to confirm issues in my case.

  1. Unable to use AX200 Wi-Fi module.
    Passed.
    I can connect to access point using AX200 Wi-Fi module.
  2. Unable to access CPU frequency in sys-fs.
    Same behavior.
    ā€˜rock-5b_debian_bullseye_cli_b33.img.xzā€™: It has no path of /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/.
    ā€˜rock-5b_debian_bullseye_cli_b32.img.xzā€™: It has the path of /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/. I can access there.

Thanks.

#9

I have installed rock-5b_debian_bullseye_cli_b33.img.xz:

  • If a UHD monitor was connected with the reboot, the system did not start or it was in a loop. Without a monitor connected the reboot always goes. After the reboot I can connect the monitor. Got the official power supply from ALLNET China.
  • The Rock Pi 5B runs slowly. See Geekbench 5 - slow Another Rock Pi 5B (rock-5b 5.10.110-36-rockchip-gba392dc725fa) in my possession runs almost twice as fast, see Geekbench 5 - normal.

What is wrong here? Thanks for your help.

#10

Can you post the link? The only official power supply for ROCK 5B is Radxa PD30.

From the look of it I see the base frequency is missing. So probably related to the same issue mentioned by @s-ikeda.

#11

Hello Yuntian,
ALLNET.CHINA is not likely to offer the official power supply for Europe (EU), but for the EU PD 65W POWER SUPPLY WITH USB-C CONNECTOR. This is shown under the ā€œCustomers frequently buy with this productā€ section for the Rock Pi 5B. Apparently the EU version of RADXA Power PD 30W does not exist or is sold out.

1 Like
#12

Is this one ok? Iā€™m a newbie and I have many problems to start it. Iā€™m italian, sorry for my bad english. Thanks and regards

#13

Hey, no need to apologize for language. It was unnecessary and you sounded totally OK. Iā€™m personally pretty bad at past tenses and 3rd person pronouns, because Chinese is an analytic language that doesnā€™t have those concepts. They are instead inferred from contexts and other particles. However, if you know the evolvement of English, you know it is also becoming more analytic as it progresses. So I take no shame at accelerating this trend :smile:

Iā€™d suggest our PD 30 which is guaranteed to work (I have one on my desk).

EU plug is now out of stock, but with a locally sourced adapter it should still be cheaper than the one you posted.

#14

Regarding missing cpufreq, a temporary workaround is to run following commands:

echo rockchip-cpufreq | sudo tee -a /etc/modules && sudo update-initramfs -u && sudo reboot

We will fix this in the next release.

1 Like
Kernel Can't Show Correct CPU Frequency
#15

Also updated the workaround for When multiple displays are connected, there is a chance that the display manager will fail to show desktop. in OP.

1 Like
#16

Thank you very much but the power supply would be ok

#17

OKdo listed 5B under Questo prodotto ĆØ compatibile con altri computer a scheda singola?, so I think it should be alright.

#18

Hello everyone,

I recently acquired a ROCK5B SBC and Iā€™m currently working on establishing communication on the CAN bus using an MCP2515 module. However, I encountered some difficulties in enabling the SPI interface on the SBC. I attempted to follow the WiringX tutorial, but unfortunately, it didnā€™t yield the desired results. Additionally, I also tried using rsetup to activate SPI, but encountered further issues.

I would greatly appreciate any assistance or guidance you can provide me with.

Thank you in advance!

1 Like
#19

Try enabling this overlay in rsetup.

#20

The wiringX tutorial is described in the ReadMe file here : GitHub -https://github.com/radxa/wiringX. When trying to build and generate the deb package (make command) I got errors.
The error message is described here : ROCK5B + wiringX.