No-boot situation after happily working for months

#1

just as the title says.

BIOS is at 9.0, installed latest Debian server image, with XFCE4 as the desktop. Even had a Radeon RX 560 4G working properly. I have it housed in a Silverstone Sugo 16 case with a generic 450W PS. I kept it up-to-date and generally left it on 24/7. Worked well, a nice machine that was my daily driver. Some Arduino activity, as well as video editor, internet, email.

All attachable items have been inspected and confirmed working on other machines. NVME, power supply, Radeon, etc.

When powered on, the blue light next to the ATX connector comes on, as well as the green light next to the reset sw. After a few seconds, the blue light next to reset also comes on. The monitor stares back at me with a blank screen. nothing. Fan comes on, so that’s something.

I am a network admin since the late 80’s with arc-net and programming MAC addresses with jumpers. I’ve experience with misbehaving machines.

Does anyone have any ideas on what might bring this board back to life?

Failing any fix that I could do, who at RADXA can I contact for repairs or replacement?

regards,

#2

Have you looked at the UART output, if any at all ? The console is on UART2. There’s also a debug output, I think it’s UART5 but not certain. It will definitely help Radxa’s team figure what’s happening. You may be facing a BIOS bug that enters an endless loop for example.

#3

Willy, thanks.

I’ll need to get a cable I guess, unless someone has a recommendation?

(Looking into uart/serial/usb communications with regards to this board.)

Again, thanks.

#4

Just pick any random CH340E-based UART-TTL adapter that are sold by 5 on Ali and it will be fine. Pick one with the wires preferably, so that you don’t have to search for some cables. You’ll need male-to-female connectors (often called “dupond wires”) whose male will connect to the adapter’s female connector and the female will connect to the board.

#5

Thanks for the tip on the cables, but I’ve already got a bunch from messing around with breadboards & arduino. Have the uart-tty adapter on its way.

I’ll report back with anything found, and to keep this thread alive… Someone may find it valuable.

#6

alright, have some news to share…

Output from UART5 (debug) looks absolutely fine. No errors, will post if wanted.

Output from the console, UART2, fails towards the end of it’s POST:

------Begin firmware version dump------

  • SE:beta2.0-958a7bfced44*
  • PM:00.10.002-ab61f5573749*
  • PBL:v2.7-39211b3b31af*
  • ATF:v2.7-598b7176a6e2*
  • TEE:Beta_2.0.7_release-3.17-4cfe2cd3de07*
  • UEFI:9.0.0*
  • EC:V1.07-f4c3ada6e90d*
  • Board Id:9C(PHECDA-Rev A)*
  • PD:0.0 1.0*
  • PMIC: 0x00 0x00 0x00*
    ------End firmware version dump------
    E/TA: _plat__NvInitFromStorage:159 fTPM: block 1 not found, creating
    E/TC:?? 00 read_fat:1052 tee_mm_alloc Fail
    E/TA: _plat__NvInitFromStorage:173 Failed to create fTPM storage object
    E/TA: _plat__GetEPS:78 fTPM was unable to derive an EPS, falling back to random generation.
    E/TC:?? 00
    E/TC:?? 00 TA panicked with code 0xffff0006
    E/LD: Status of TA bc50d971-d4c9-42c4-82cb-343fb7f37896
    E/LD: arch: aarch64
    E/LD: region 0: va 0xc0004000 pa 0x80e9c000 size 0x002000 flags rw-s (ldelf)
    E/LD: region 1: va 0xc0006000 pa 0x80e9e000 size 0x008000 flags r-xs (ldelf)
    E/LD: region 2: va 0xc000e000 pa 0x80ea6000 size 0x001000 flags rw-s (ldelf)
    E/LD: region 3: va 0xc000f000 pa 0x80ea7000 size 0x004000 flags rw-s (ldelf)
    E/LD: region 4: va 0xc0013000 pa 0x80eab000 size 0x001000 flags r–s
    E/LD: region 5: va 0xc001c000 pa 0x00001000 size 0x14c000 flags r-xs [0]
    E/LD: region 6: va 0xc0168000 pa 0x0014d000 size 0x04b000 flags rw-s [0]
    E/LD: region 7: va 0xc01b3000 pa 0x81043000 size 0x011000 flags rw-s (stack)
    E/LD: [0] bc50d971-d4c9-42c4-82cb-343fb7f37896 @ 0xc001c000
    E/LD: Call stack:
    E/LD: 0xc00458d0
    E/LD: 0xc001ceb4
    E/LD: 0xc001d6d0
    E/LD: 0xc003c420
    E/LD: 0xc0040524
    E/LD: 0xc001c1f0
    E/LD: 0xc0049b0c
    E/LD: 0xc0042e4c
    E/TC:?? 00 tee_ta_open_session:769 Failed. Return error 0xffff3024

I’m at a bit of a loss here, but TA panicked.

Look familiar to anyone?

1 Like
#7

I’m thinking I may need to flash the bios… borrowed a friend’s ch341 programmer. Will post results later this evening. Wish me luck, as it’s been many years since I’ve pulled the bios chip out of a machine to flash it. Eproms back in the 80’s.

#8

I had to do this at one point too. Some notes that might help in this thread:

Things to be cautious about:

  1. Make sure you use a 1.8V SPI flasher!!! (most are 3.3V or something)
  2. If you have a 64GB memory board, some BIOS versions will not work (I lost several hours on this - I’ve listed one that worked in the post above)
#9

Yes, ive got the 1.8vdc version.

I have a 32GB board, no problem there… ive been able to get 0.3.1-1 running. about to try the 9.0version mentioned above - this is wjhat was there when the machine was working fine for 2-3 months. will reply if that works or not.

Ive got a tube of new chips coming tomorrow afternoon, JIC ive burned out the original. My business card states “Tinkerer & Gadgeteer”

#10

Flashed to 9.0, and it’s seemingly working fine.

installed the daily build with XFCE, I’ll get it to where i want it tomorrow.

Externally updating BIOS is awful fiddly took ~15 tries.

Thanks to everyone who stepped in with their sage advice.