Olimex A64-OlinuxIno-1G not starting

[Mattis Fjallstrom]

I wonder what I might be missing.

My A64 board isn't booting - the power LED turns on when I connect power, but nothing shows up at the serial port, and the HDMI connection is also dead (according to my monitor, at least).

I've followed the quick start tutorial - first for UART, then for HDMI. No luck. I programmed the SD card using 'dd' on Linux, but even if that went wrong, shouldn't I see something on the serial port?

Can you recommend any points on the board that I can check with a multimeter to make sure it's running properly?

Any advice much appreciated.

[LubOlimex]

Try preparing the card with Balena Etcher.

Make sure you are using the image from this archive: "A64-OLinuXino-bullseye-base-20231106-081613.img.7z"

Make sure to power the board from the power jack. It requires 5V DC only.

Try changing the RX and TX wires of the serial connection, sometimes people swap those. Make sure GND is also connected.

[Mattis Fjallstrom]

Thanks for the reply.

That is the image I'm using, and I'm using the 5V power-supply that was recommended for this board on Olimex website. The red LED (indicating power) comes on when I connect it.

I've tried switching RX/TX and yes, GND is connected. Still nothing at all, not even garbage. I've also tried switching out the UART/USB cable for another one (that I know works with a different board computer). Still nothing.

I'll try Etcher - I use dd on Linux out of habit. Still though, even without an SD card, shouldn't there be _something_ on the UART? Some boot information?

For the UART, I'm using 115200, 8/1, and I've tried both None and Xon/Xoff for flow control.

Thanks again, let's see if we can get this fixed!

[LubOlimex]

Most of the problems with first time boot are related to the SD card and the preparation. If the SD card was faulty or if there was something left over on the card when you ran dd there would be nothing. If re-writing with Balena Etcher doesn't make it work, maybe the card is faulty, try with another one.

Refer to page 7 of chapter "2.3. Download the image to an SD card" on common problems with the cards and preparing the image:

https://github.com/OLIMEX/OLINUXINO/blob/master/DOCUMENTS/OLIMAGE/Olimage-guide.pdf

[Mattis Fjallstrom]

Good news!

I couldn't get Balena Etcher to work right on my Linux machine, but in the end it didn't matter. I re-flashed the SD card (using dd), tried it again, and it worked this time. All good. Thanks!