New Rock 5B+ will (still) not boot

#1

I’ve followed the instructions and the troubleshooting FAQ and my new Rock 5B+ (24GB) will not boot. The green light turns on and then stays on. There is no image on the screen.

I have tried:
With Heatsink 6240B (with and without the fan plugged in the header)
With different power sources (Europlug 230V), plugged in the USB-C PD port:

  • Samsung EP-TA200 15W Travel Adapter
  • Samsung EP-T4511 45W Power Adapter
  • Radxa PD 30W
  • LG 27UP850K-W.AEU Display built-in charging,
    With and without (new 1TB) SSDs in m.2 sockets,
    With and without Keyboard and mouse plugged in USB,
    With and without microSD containing two different OS images (Radxa 5B+ and Armbian 5B+).

Commands used to flash the (new) microSD:
sudo dd bs=4M if=rock-5b-plus_bookworm_kde_b2.output.img of=/dev/sda1 status=progress oflag=sync
sudo dd bs=4M if=Armbian_24.11.2_Rock-5b-plus_noble_vendor_6.1.75_gnome-kisak_desktop.img of=/dev/sda1 status=progress oflag=sync

Output of fdisk -l after trying to boot the 5B+, same as before:

Disk /dev/sda: 119.21 GiB, 127999672320 bytes, 249999360 sectors
Disk model: STORAGE DEVICE  
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Device     Boot Start       End   Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sda1       32768 249999359 249966592 119.2G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

I received it new in it’s packaging from arcade.tech.

Is there anything else I should try?

#2

You could try https://www.armbian.com/rock-5b-plus/ this is confirmed working

#3

Hi meco,
Thank you for your suggestion. That was the second image I tried to run, but the only thing that happened was the green led turning on and staying on. I think my board may be defective.

#4

There is a tool called USBimager (also works for SD) it’s like an open source Balena Etcher (balena is broken with images over a few GB). Give it a try for flashing sometimes it just needs the right combination of tools

#5

if your device has emmc storage you might also try rkdeveloptool via usb and the maskrom button. The docs have a good guide

#6

Hi meco,

Using USBimager worked! Thank you for your help!

1 Like
#7

Glad it worked out!