Just received my 5b+ and it will not boot and no image from HDMI. The green light is just on, not other colors not blinking happening.
What I have done:
used one sandisk 64gb pro card , also tested with second sd card. Tried with 3 different armbian images. I made the images with mac dd.
I’ve tested 3 different chargers, one is macbooks charges, one is raspberry pi 5 official charger
i connected usb-c to usb-c cable to 5b+. First is took sd card away, took all other usb and power cables off and tried multiple times to press the maskrom button when connecting to my mac. Didn’t get usb devices listed
tried all hmdi and dp ports with 2 different monitors
The only thing that the 5b+ does is that there is just the green light on, no blinking nor any other colors.
Is there something else I should try or is the 5b+ dead? I just have one memory card, the card has been used earlier in other sbc’s and there was no problems in the dd-operation.
You need to hold that button before powering up device:
In docs it’s said to use usb-c to a cable, but it works on my computer with usb-c to usb-c, this is not general rule (some computers have weird usb-c ports). You may have charge only usb-c cable too. To enter maskroom mode You need data cable for sure.
Maskroom is first thing to try. for windows rockchip drivers are needed to use right tool in this mode, but without them unknown device should appear.
If You confirm maskroom working then UART is next step to debug boot process.
I have tried with 2 different cables and one is 100% sure data cable. I have been holding the maskrom button and there is green light on the device after connection but no usb-devices are listed. I think this confirms that the device is somehow dead, because I understood that the maskrom is good initial test to check that the device is somewhat functioning.
I had a similar problem with the rock 5B. I read the message about power being the issue. I fed it a 12 volt connection and all worked well, except for running a bit hot. I could also boot and use the device at 9 volts. Traditionally usb type c output from a computer runs at 5 volts. This is too low to power the board.
I have just tested a rock 5B+ with 9 volts. All is well.
What is happening is sellers of this stuff that sell on the online market places are forced to take returns. Then they resell it as open box / and even as new condition. More than likely you are the proud recipient of blown up board that was returned to them. Also, so many buy returns from the big online market places and use label remover to remove the labels and resell it as new.
It works perfectly on 5V/2.4A with no accessories (mainly with no nvme) and really simple cellphone charger but at same time it can bootloop on modern GaN charger with bunch of power and some weird logic and protections. 5V is not a problem, bare 5B needs 1.5W-8W and default USB params can easily deliver that. @geerlingguy just posted on his second channel about his bench charger that has few interesting features (8 port, clear LCD status display) and most important one is that it will not disconnect any other device when something new is connected (most my chargers will do that). If maskroom is not working on that particular computer I would just try on different one or via usb hub. If there is still a problem something is wrong, I would try with another 5B to be 100% sure, I know that require another SBC…
This is not the product like TV or cellphone, it requires some skills to get it up and running,
check out ameridroid return policies, they tried the best to have that fair and for sure they always try to help their customers also taking responsibility for faulty products (for sure they don’t resell those, but others of course may do that). Just note that law on many countries allows to return products (sometimes including shipping cost) and probably it’s hard to test everything on such boards and of course some small amount of boards may be damaged or broken on delivery.
For sure its worth to validate sbc as soon as possible and maskroom mode is easiest path for that.
