Troubleshooting Rock5b Boot Issue - Blue LED Not Blinking

#1

Hello all,

I’m experiencing an issue following the getting_started guide for the Rock5b. I’m currently stuck on step 3: Booting the board, as the blue LED isn’t blinking.

Initially, I wrote the image onto the eMMC and connected the board to my 4K screen, but didn’t see any output. I thought that the 4K resolution might be too high for the default video output, or as some YouTubers have suggested, my power adapter may not have been supplying adequate power.

To troubleshoot, I tested the board with a 1080p screen. I also tried two different power adapters, one with 5V⎓3A/9V⎓3A/12V⎓2.25V output and another with 5V⎓4A, but still couldn’t boot the board. Given the power seems sufficient and there are no issues with the video output, I’m concerned the board isn’t booting at all.

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I considered the possibility of an issue with the eMMC, so I tried using a new TF card and rewrote the rock-5b-debian-bullseye-xfce4-arm64-20221031-1558-gpt.img , but the blue light remained off.

I also tested the rock-5b-ubuntu-focal-server-arm64-20221031-1328-gpt.img using both eMMC and the TF card. None of these attempts managed to trigger the blue LED.

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Lastly, I went through the boot troubleshooting instructions in the FAQs, but no new USB device was detected in the PC Device Manager. I made sure to connect it to the USB ports on my PC’s back panel.

It seems my Rock5b may be unresponsive. Are there any additional steps I can take to debug this issue? Any advice would be appreciated.

1 Like
#2

Looks like a broken 5b to me. Is the blue light not even shining at all? Without blinking. Also, have you tried an android image?

#3

Seems to be dead. You might try the rkdevtool to verify if you can do at least something.

#4

If you have a serial cable you can attach it and see if there is any output: https://docs.radxa.com/en/general-tutorial/serial

#5

I never saw it shined during these attempts, but I never tried an android image, maybe I will try it this weekend.

#6

Thanks, rkdevtool looks like an advanced tool to verify it

#7

Thanks, I don’t have a serial cable like this, but I will try to buy one

#8

sorry for the delayed update on this .

I have followed the instructions from the provided tutorial (https://docs.radxa.com/en/general-tutorial/serial) and purchased a USB to TTL serial cable that matches the one shown in the tutorial image. However, I experienced some difficulty, as the cable did not produce the expected results.

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Soon I learned from this additional tutorial (https://wiki.radxa.com/Rock5/dev/serial-console) that certain models of the CP210X and PL2303x may have limitations on their baud rates, which could potentially be the cause of my issue.

So I decided to purchase a new cable, this time with a CH340.

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Despite this, I’m still can’t see any serial output following the same tutorials (https://docs.radxa.com/en/general-tutorial/serial or https://wiki.radxa.com/Rock5/dev/serial-console),

what can I do next in resolving this issue

#9

In which case your board is likely broken. You can contact the original seller for RMA process.