Dead on arrival - any way to fix? (Green LED only, but maskrom not working)

#1

Hello everyone,

I have received a Rockpi 5B and I’ve found it completely fails to boot or do anything useful apart from a solid green light. It looks like my board is dead on arrival, but before I can RMA it Allnetchina asked me to seek help on the forum incase it was a software issue.

After using either eMMC or SDCard (I read back the program to verify there was no issue with these two devices), I can only see a solid green light on the board. I’m using the power supply that came with my kit (it’s the official one from Radxa) (and also tried others) and I get the same result.

I thought this means a problem with the bootloader, so I tried to put it into Maskrom mode using the button, but it won’t register on my computer as a USB device (lsusb does not show anything), also rkdevelop also doesn’t show up any device at all.

I’ve tried to plug the board into two different computers (Mac Mini and Macbook Pro) with a USB-C -> USB-A and it doesn’t work with the maskrom button. By this I mean, I press the button and plug in the cable, I can see the green LED, but no usb device shows up. I’ve tried all USB ports same result.

Plugging in the TTL->USB cable also gives me no output.

I don’t know what else I can do as the board seems completely dead.

Any other ideas?

#2

Please flash this image to your microSD card with balena Etcher. Then connect your USB serial cable according to this guide. Please check if there is any output in your serial console.

1 Like
#3

I’ve flashed your provided image to MicroSD and tested with the provided USB->Serial cable according to the guide.

There is no serial debug output on the screen, but the green LED is shown on the board.

I’ve tried in both normal mode and maskrom mode, neither shows any debug output.

I’ve also tried with two different SD Cards.

I tested the debug cable on another raspberry pi and it works so I know it’s not a problem with the cable.

#4

Sounds like a hardware failure at this point. Please contact Allnet about your RMA.

#5

can you measure if there is 5v and 3.3v on the gpio pins ?

having a similiar situation only noticed that there is no 3.3v on the gpio pin

#6

I don’t have a multimeter here sorry… it seems definitely a bit fickle.

I’m just awaiting an RMA address I can send the board back to.

#7

it is oke would just be a fast check if experience only green led and no activity anymore , if a 3.3v line is too low ,shorted or triped no sd ,big cpu and no debug etc aka power issue is a thought i have about the failure and would also solve why emmc is working better as sd at boot time , only not why it happens

good luck i trying the same