Rock Pi 4 B v1.4 - can't boot it up

ROCK 4 Series Troubleshooting
1

Hello!

Got my Rock Pi 4 couple of days ago. Was very excited. And I just can’t boot it up.

I tried:

  • 3 different microSD cards.
  • 6 different images (Armbian, Manjaro ARM minimal / KDE, Ubuntu Bionic, Debian Stretch, Android) found on the Radxa download page and in the wild Internet and burnt with Etcher.

When I plug the power, there is a bright green LED. But then nothing happens, I waited about 2-4 minutes on each image. HDMI output is black, no other LEDs blinking. Network LEDs are blinking but my router doesn’t see any new device.

I also tried to flash SPI using the guide from wiki. I can see the device in maskrom mode (with rkdeveloptool and lsusb), but when I trying to do anything with rkdeveloptool, it just stucks, even with “rid” or “rd” commands. No error, no result, nothing.

I don’t know my wall charger supports QC3 properly, I don’t have any QC-enabled devices. But the box stated QC3 support and there is 9V/2A mode, if letters on the charger don’t lie.

Please, can you help me boot it up or detect a hardware / software problem? Thank you.

2

Does the light next to the green light blink?

3

No, there is only one non-blinking green LED, I didn’t see any other LED to be turned on.

4

Behind the USB, there is a switch, high level is in device mode. Please switch to H, execute lsusb and tell me the result.

5

Like this?

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lsusb entry:

Bus 002 Device 006: ID 2207:330c Fuzhou Rockchip Electronics Company RK3399 in Mask ROM mode

rkdevelop:

$ ./rkdeveloptool ld
DevNo=1	Vid=0x2207,Pid=0x330c,LocationID=202	Maskrom

# ./rkdeveloptool rid
^C because nothing happens
6

Maybe the sd card socket is broken. Do you have an emmc ?

7

No, I don’t have an emmc card. But I also ordered an nvme disk with board, not delivered yet tho.

Is it OK I can’t do anything with rkdeveloptool?

8

Might help: Install on M.2 NVME SSD

9

Thank you. But according to this article I should have either a running OS or flashed SPI to boot from nvme. I can’t do neither:

  • I don’t have a running OS because of potentially broken SD slot or another issue.
  • I can’t write SPI flash because of rkdeveloptool freezes when trying to process any command.
10

Hi,

One thing to note:
The SD card should be inserted facing up towards the board.

11

To be sure, which option is correct, 1st or 2nd?

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12

1st option…

13

Well, I’m doing it right.

I found something. I ran rkdeveloptool on another Linux (Fedora) machine and it fails on each command. I tried rid, rd, rci. Every time I get <command> failed!, like, Reset Device failed!. rkdeveloptool ld and lsusb are showing the device with correct VID & PID. Switch is in H (device) mode.

Is my Rock Pi dead?

14

Hello,
I have similar problems and I checked the several hints made before:

Hint: Does the light next to the green light blink?
Answer: No
H: Behind the USB, there is a switch, high level is in device mode.
H: Please switch to H, execute lsusb and tell me the result.
A: Switched to H - nothing, can’t execute lsusb because system doesn’t boot
H: The SD card should be inserted facing up towards the board.
A: Correct side up, as shown

In addition: checked HDMI-Cable and connection: Ok, works good with another Linux-machine …

I had inserted an EMMC-Card. In this case appears a message after connecting to power:
“please download + write os image to the eMMC module from rock.sh/pi4 …”

I use a Rock Pi 4 zbh Power Adapter QC 3.0 EU

My conclusion is:
power connction works
eMMC Port ok,
SD-Port damaged.

Am I right??

Regards

Wolfgang

15

Hello,

I have to correct:
Hint: Does the light next to the green light blink?
Now my answer is: yes
I flashed an armbian-image to my sd-card

Any other advice how to boot and install on my Rock PI 4 B??

Thanks in advance.

Regards Wolfgang

16

Hi,
good news. Just switched back to my linux-monitor. Everything running, I could login to the armbian start-login.
I think I was too impatient …
Regards
Wolfgang

17

What I found is impossible
Writing the SD card using dd failed to make a bootable card
Writing the SD card with etcher DID make a bootable card.
This is so bizare that I checked 3 times using different block size
dd if=rockpi4-debian-stretch-desktop-arm64-20190730_2022-gpt.img of-/dev/disk2 (whatever you device is) bs=1M (tried 4M and no bs entry)

1 Like
18

Use dd with conv=fsync ???

19

I was having similar issues with android i used etcher to make the image on sd card didnt work then i used 7zip to unzip the android 9 image and used that “the unzipped iso” and it booted perfectly the board even corrected the kernel im guessing from when i ran debian on it which didnt work out because the desktop was too wide and i couldnt see the panels or edges “can anyone help with that?”

anyways hope this helps.

20

I have the same problem as the TO:
New Rock Pi 4 A 1.4, plus big heatsink, plus 500GB NVME :slight_smile:
New 16GB SD-Chip
Downloaded today Ubuntu Server 20.04 from Radxa Downloads
Downloaded today Balena Etcher

Etcher brought twice “Data suddenly interrupted”.
Downloaded the image again. This time flashing went through.
Flashed it on Linux Mint. And then:
Green Led on, nothing on the monitor.

Not yet asking for help, want to try other images first.

I am rather good “with computers”, but with Linux i am still VERY noob.