[Guide] Rock 5 series boards - troubleshooting FAQ for newcomers

[incognito]

Rock 5 troubleshooting guide

Here I will try to gather the most common issues with Rock 5 boards and offer answers, so that people who get the board don’t need to create more of the same threads. This guide was written with Rock 5A/5B in mind, but might work for other versions. Although the power bootlooping issue that Rock 5B had seems to be resolved in other Rock 5 series boards.

Problem 1:
My Rock 5 does not boot!
Solution
Try another power supply. If not, try another one still. Even if you have the “official” one. Disconnect all the USB devices, then try booting again. Make sure you are using the image prepared for your board - if you can’t mix them up and use a 5C image on 5B, for example, it won’t work.
Rock 5B-specific: Get a cheap barrel power supply and a converter to USB-C. 12 volts is better than 5 volts (lower Vdrop under load).

Problem 2
My Rock 5 still does not boot!
Solution
Check whether your flashing method unpacks the operating system image. If you see the partitions on an SD card after inserting it, it probably does. If so, read on.

Problem 3
It still does not boot!
Solution
Check another display. Some weird/old/cheap displays are known not to work. Take a look at the diodes. If the blue diode blinks, the board booted. Connect the Ethernet cable and log in to your router to see its IP. Depending on the distro, you might be able to log in remotely via ssh.

Problem 4
How to boot from the NVME SSD?
Solution
There are 3 methods. One - you flash the bootloader image to the SPI NOR chip. This overrides the default boot order (SD then eMMC). Second method - you keep the /boot partition on the SD or eMMC and move the main (root) partition to the NVME drive. This is a bit more involved, but you avoid any risks of soft bricking the device (by flashing an incomplete or wrong SPI image). Remember to change the UUID of the old root partition if you plan to keep the drive in.
The third method is to flash EDK2 (a UEFI port) to the SPI NOR and then you can install any generic Linux (or even Windows) to any supported drive.

Problem 5
My NVME doesn’t work!
Solution
Try another power supply. Or another Linux distribution. Or both. If it still doesn’t work, tough luck. Some SSDs are too power hungry for the poor Rock 5B to cope. Maybe 5B+ would (not sure).

Problem 6
There are 2 WiFi interfaces! Cannot connect to ssh on Radxa A8!
Solution
This is explained and solved here: Radxa A8 WiFi Device Names

Problem 7
”GPU” acceleration doesn’t work!
Solution
At first, determine if you really mean the GPU. GPU on ARM is not used to decode video. If you need video decoding, you are looking for the VPU, which is a separate piece of silicon.
Easy mode (but the kernel is not maintained and it uses an old GPU driver): install Armbian with mesa-vpu patches. This makes sure that video acceleration is enabled. If you prefer to do it manually, you can enable it as explained on the Jellyfin website: Rockchip VPU | Jellyfin
Or install a recent Radxa Debian release Summary of resource downloads | Radxa Docs
Or Armbian with current/edge kernel, not “vendor” kernel. If using vendor, you need an image with “mesa-vpu” patches.
If you Armbian with current/edge kernel, not “vendor” kernel. Keep in mind that video playback/encoding acceleration is likely to not work as well on the mainline kernel (6.19 as of today) as on the “vendor” kernel (6.1). To keep track of what is mainlined, this is a helpful link: Making sure you're not a bot! - if you can understand the jargon at least…

Problem 8
Some USB devices don’t work!
Solution
Use a powered USB hub, especially for power hungry USB 3 devices like SSD enclosures. Or use the USB 2.0 port if you don’t mind the limited throughput. Some devices don’t have ARM drivers though and won’t work anyway…

Problem 9
Fan doesn’t work like I’d like it to!
Solution
Currently, the fan is usually controlled by a kernel driver. Here are some ways to customize its behavior (vendor kernel):

Guide on how to customize you pwm fan curve

Now the new kernel has used pwm-fan kernel driver to deal with the fan control, so the old pwm fan scripts won’t work. Here is a guide on how to customize your onw pwm fan curve since different cases/environment/fans need different fan curve. I will take armbian’s kernel as example because I use armbian as my daily use os. But it will be similar if you’re using official radxa’s kernel, radxa’s kernel uses different cooling levels. If you take a look at the devicetree of rock5b, there is a node…

[Guide] How to make the Rock 5b fan work properly - Armbian & Joshua Riek's Ubuntu 24.04

Let’s be frank, the default fan curve in the rockchip kernel is abysmal. To make the official Radxa fan spin in the right situations and not make much noise, do this: Go to a folder (Documents, let’s say), create a file called fanctrl-my.dts with this content: /dts-v1/; /plugin/; / { fragment@0 { target = <&fan0>; __overlay__ { cooling-levels = <141 141 141 141 141 141 146 146 151>; }; }; }; save the fi…

Problem 10
The eMMC doesn’t work/has issues.
Solution
Check if it’s seated properly. It should be firmly in place. Don’t insert and remove it many times, the connector is rated for about 30 insertions. You can flash it on the board directly.
Some chips are known to fail on Rock 5A even though there is a mitigation that reduces the frequency (and speed). There seems to be no fix for this right now.
On Rock 5B, the trouble might be with command queuing support. This is an ongoing issue. More details here: Bug Report: EMMC CQE Recovery resulting in read-only filesystem · Issue #1060 · Joshua-Riek/ubuntu-rockchip · GitHub . I am not sure but eMMC has probably been fixed since then, but some modules can still fail anyway.

Problem 11：

Official Debian system goes to sleep after running for a while, how to disable sleep/hibernation

官方debian系统运行一段时间后休眠了，如果禁止休眠**。**

Solution：

You can refer to this document to enable or disable automatic sleep/hibernation mode using the rsetup tool.

可以参考这个文档，通过rsetup 工具来开启和关闭自动休眠模式

Rsetup | Radxa Docs

This list will be added to when something comes up.

CHANGES:
2025/06/03 updated software versions & other small stuff

2026/03/26 Problem 11 added by @Peter.Wang

2026/03/28 updated GPU acceleration

[DarkevilPT]

Please @RadxaYuntian have this post pinned to the top of the chain once and for all.

[el_sattchmo]

How about a guide to get android actually working on the NVME, or the EMMC. I have flashed and erased using the “guides” on Windows and the Rock 5B itself; no dice. I brought 2 of these things and managed to sell 1 a while back, low key about done with the other one, it never really worked as far as I am concerned and going by the sentiment in the discord server its obvious I am not the only one.

[incognito]

I have no experience with android on NVME this so I can’t really help here, but maybe you will have some luck with the android from @mo123? [ROM] Rock5A/B AndroidTV 12 by mo123
This is just android TV. I have an older version on Rock 5A eMMC and it works well.

[DarkevilPT]

Where to find images?
In an effort to bring everyone’s contributions together, I made this post: Radxa Download Options. It aims to keep things updated, organized, and connected in one place.

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Guide to Linux options:
I’ve written a few guides, but this one is the main one. It gives a short explanation of what you can do with these boards. While it might be obvious for most experienced Linux users, as a “first-timer,” it helped me a lot. It also helped me make sense of how certain tasks that have been done for ages in Linux relate to what I personally enjoy and miss about it.

There are still some areas that could use more development especially on the Steam/Android side but overall, it’s a good starting point.

Here’s the link: Best options for Radxa SBCs

[DarkevilPT]

Random one just because someone sent me an PM asking about this:

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Flashing processes

Using RKDevTool → eMMC on the board itself

1. Download the Armbian image for the Rock 5B+.

2. Extract the downloaded file with WinRAR until you get the .img file.

3. Put the board into MaskROM mode and connect it to your PC.

4. Open RKDevTool, select Write, and flash the .img file.

That’s how you flash eMMC, and yes—you always need to extract the archive to the .img file first.

Flashing to SD card or NVMe

For SD cards or NVMe drives, you don’t necessarily need to extract the file, although it’s fine if you do.

Just use a tool like Raspberry Pi Imager, Balena Etcher, or any other program that can flash images to SD cards or NVMe drives directly from your laptop (using an enclosure if needed).

After flashing, plug the SD card or NVMe into the board, boot it, and you’re good to go.

About SPI

The SPI loader file defines the boot order. Usually, the latest SPI loader sets the default boot order as:

SD → NVMe → eMMC

So:

• If an SD card is inserted, it boots from SD.

• If not, it tries NVMe.

• If that’s not available, it boots from eMMC.

All the required files should be available on the Radxa website, and Armbian images often include SPI instructions as well, especially when flashing SD cards or NVMe.

In most cases, you only really need to worry about the SPI files when using RKDevTool to flash the eMMC.

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If you want the board to boot only from the NVMe, there are two methods I remember.

Method 1 – Move the system using Armbian

1. First, wipe the NVMe drive. The filesystem type (ext4, btrfs, etc.) doesn’t really matter—just make sure the disk is empty.

2. Boot the board from the SD card.

3. Open armbian-config, go to Storage, and choose the option to move the system to NVMe.

This process will wipe the NVMe and install the system cleanly. If it fails, try running it again or choose a different option.

Method 2 – Flash NVMe directly and reset SPI

If you flash the NVMe directly and the board still doesn’t boot from it, the only alternative I can think of is:

1. Connect the board to your PC in MaskROM mode.

2. Open RKDevTool.

3. In the Advanced options, wipe everything.

4. Then flash the SPI loader file (either the standard one or a specific loader designed for NVMe boot, if such a version exists).

This should clear the SPI and allow the board to boot properly from the flashed NVMe.