CM5 Troubleshooting

uConsole
1

Im out of ideas so I figured Id see if anyone else had a thought.

This is my second Uconsole build. The first one had the full HG loadout. I opted to not use the SDR board on this one. The CM5 was pulled from my first build where I tested every OS that is currently available. EEPROM is current.

When I power it on via battery or usb C, the CPU fan starts up but nothing happens.

So far I have tried:

-Every image that is out for the cm5 and I have also re burned most of them two or three times.

-Triple checked and reseated every ribbon cable including the display to make sure that it wasn’t working and I just wasn’t seeing it.

-Double checked the cm5 was seated in the carrier board and then inside the chassis properly multiple times.

I have a micro HDMI cable ordered to see what happens on an external display.

Any other thoughts for troubleshooting?

20260622_193105
20260622_1931051920×2560 1.37 MB

2

start with all the stock parts to verify it’s working and add one thing at a time till something breaks

3

I can do that with the battery board but I will have to buy a CM4 to go any further than that.

4

try with just the hackergadgets adapter board and stock battery board installed with batteries. remove the expansion board and try booting.

5

I know this is a far fetch but when you power the unit on, do you have battery in the slots?
I had the same issue when trying to boot to the NVME that the power usage at startup caused some modules not to be “reached” even if I had a laptop USB-c charger connected.

While you arent using any NVME you have a FAN and the AC1200 dongle which maybe can cause the same issue?

6

an old school usb power supply is a better choice than a modern PD one, the uconsole doesn’t do PD it just tries to draw as much current as needed on 5v

7

I’ll give this a try when I get home from work. Thanks Rex

1 Like
8

I did about 80% of my troubleshooting with two freshly charged Samsung cells. Then the last 20% of troubleshooting I had the cells in and a charger connected.

9

Same thing, fan running, everything looks good but nothing on screen. I should have the micro HDMI soon to rule out a bad panel.

20260623_103400
20260623_1034001920×2560 1.7 MB

10

Do you not have the stock adapter card to test?

11

The CM4 card?

It was a brand new u console so I have all the stock parts. I just so happened to sell the CM4 that I had like a month ago :frowning:

12

That adapter card will work with the cm5 also.

13

I dont know why I was thinking it wouldn’t…

Let me see what she does

14

Your screen ribbon cable in that picture looks skewed. Make sure the screen ribbon cable is fully seated.

15

:frowning:

Boots right up with stock CM board.

I dont know if thats good news or bad news. Thanks for the help Rex. You are the best. Time to contact HG.

16

Contact them and also double check you have the CM fully seated in the adapter board and the adapter board clipped in all the way.

17

This was one of the first things I checked. Went over it about 5 times making sure the CM5 was properly seated and the clips on either side are snapped in once the adapter board is seated to the main board. Wish there was another way for me to fully test the HG adapter board.

Thanks again brother

18

No problem at least you have a working device now. Just need to get the upgrades sorted.

1 Like
19

you are at least 3rd in the past few weeks whose uconsole works with stock adapter, but not with HG one.

20

I wonder what the deal is? My first uconsole had the full HG upgrade and everything worked flawlessly the first go. I wanted to build a second one without all the SDR functionality so I went with the base package. Crazy that the one with the least amount of bolt ons is having issues.