Radxa Rock 5B: wrote image to emmc, no boot, no hdmi

#1

Hi,
I just bought a radxa rock and I’m trying to install an operating system on it, I bought also the usb emmc adaptor and I used balena etcher to flash Armbian_24.5.1_Rock-5b_noble_vendor_6.1.43_xfce_desktop.img, this is the Image I downloaded, I tried also with a cli version with bullseye, in both occasions, I’m able to write image using balena, then I connect the emmc to radxa and after that I connect the power supply (official one) , using a usb cable usb-a to usb-c, and a monitor via hdmi cable. The green led turns on but nothing else happens, the monitor remain completely black.

What I miss to make it boot ?
Previously I don’t had the usb emmc adaptor so I tried to use rkdeveltool to flash in maskroom : , following this guide : https://wiki.radxa.com/Rock5/install/usb-install-emmc using spl-loader image.

I’m trying also two types of hdmi output displays: a monitor and a tv, both of them remain black when connected to raxda.

What I did wrong ?

#2

You probably flashed the wrong spi loader (you don’t even need it for eMMC).

#3

OK thank you very much for clarifying this, how can I solve this? Do I need to flash another spi loader? How can I realize which is the right one? Do I need to check something?

#4

Just get rid of it

#5

Hi incognito,

Thank you for your contribution. I appreciate the time you take to answer my questions. However, I’ve noticed that your responses are often quite brief, and I’m not able to find all the information I need to solve my problem.

I am a beginner with the Radxa Rock 5 device, which I just bought and have never used similar devices before. To get rid of spi loader I tried following this procedure without success: https://wiki.radxa.com/Rock5/install/spi#Option_3:_Erase_with_Windows_PC. Could you please provide more details or explanations in your future responses? For example, I’m trying to better understand how images work, and what I can do or check what is going wrong? Even providing links to right procedures would be really helpful.

Thank you again for your help and understanding.

1 Like
#6

You really need a UART cable for that. You can then provide more info for useful answers.

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#7

Times when my Rock 5B did not boot came down to;

  1. When I flashed the eMMC (using rkdevtool) I forgot to first unpack the .xz file to the raw image.

  2. The eMMC is not seated correctly on the PCB (needs to be pushed on well and even on both sides). If this is the case the power light turns on and shows green only. If its seated correctly then it turns on green and soon flashes between blue and green as it boots.

As mentioned to find the problem you need a UART connection to see whats going on.

#8

Hi guys,
thank you very much for pointing me to UART cable and sharing with me instructions about it, unfortunately I don’t have it right now, but at least now I know I need it to diagnose my radxa.

About 2 cases prospected by @3djelly: I tried to remove and seat better my emmc (I heard 2 snaps while pressing on both sides, so I think is good), it didn’t work, so I thought also that I may have flash the image in compressed way, so I used balena etcher with a usb-to-emmc adapter on my pc to reflash and try again, no luck either this time. I also checked that my radxa wasn’t in maskrom mode, by connecting to rkdevtool.

Do you think that trying to flash using maskrom mode and radxa directly connected to my pc could produce a different result than flashing using balena etcher with usb adapter? Worth trying in meanwhile I get a UART cable?

UPDATE: now using rkdevtool to flash emmc, even in maskrom mode, it fails, also running other commands like TestDevice, fails, If I try to flash only emmc (disabling loader checkbox) I get an error (probably is the test failing). This beavior began after removing SPI in that way: spi, erase with windows pc. Is that may compromised something?

Another thing I never said and maybe could be helpful for you: I’m not inserting any microsd card, only emmc. And for my try I only connect power cable using official adapter and an hdmi cable to see something appears on my screen. Is there something wrong in this? Do I need to press PWR button after connecting power supply in order to start boot?

#9

I was able to make it work, searching further information by myself I realized which is the role of spi-loader and uboot images, so I flashed Uboot image to memory area named SPINOR and after this, on next boot I was able to see also blue led alternating with green, I attached an hdmi monitor and I saw login screen of debian. TADA!
So what I did was right, also connecting emmc to sbc, I was only missing this step.

Frankly the words about get rid of spi-loader bringed me to wrong path, what I understood (correct me when I’m wrong, obviously) and I write here so if someone else faces the same problem can see:

  • spi-loader is NECESSARY always to flash any kind of image to Radxa using rkdevtool, probably will never be flashed but is needed to flash something
  • in emmc configuration you can flash using usb adapter or maskrom mode, inside there will go the image of operating system
  • in spinor area (I don’t know where it is, probably is an internal memory) you need to flash Uboot image which could be a bootloader image or sort of

I’m speaking about emmc configuration, I don’t know if using microsd to install os makes it different.

Thanks again for your support, I’m a bit relieved I was able to login into my radxa :slight_smile:

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#10

Yes, the SPI loader seems to be necessary, but you can flash a zero image to the SPI NOR memory (because you don’t need anything on it to boot an image on the device, when booting from eMMC or SD).

Congrats and sorry for being too brief

#11

No problem at all, I appreciate your willingness to help, as do all the others on this forum. I apologize I didn’t mention at the beginning my experience level with radxa products so you couldn’t know if it is mine nth or first rock xy board, that’s why I specified later, to allow you and others to calibrate answer basing on current experience, I know that when you answer to a new forum member you may be afraid to say also too much and make him feel dumb :smile: , even if he is experienced, this time happened the opposite, there is always time to clarify.

Thank you again for further information about zero image, now I know another thing I didn’t know.