Rock 5b+ dead or not?

#1

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.

#2

A UART output would probably tell us something

#3

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.

#4

Thank you.

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.

#5

did you try the other usb c port (the one that stands alone and not the one next to other I/O)

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#6

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.

#7

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.

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