DevTerm A06 not booting?

DevTerm
1

Hoping someone can help me debug this! I assembled my A06 DevTerm and everything went together smoothly. However, when connecting USB-C power and hitting the power button, nothing ever shows up on the display. A few notes:

  • I do not have 18650 batteries on hand, so I’ve been trying to run solely from USB power. Let me know if this is not supported! The charger is for a Macbook and should provide plenty of amps.
  • The green power LED does come on, but the monitor never comes up.
  • There is a fairly loud buzzing/whine noise which comes from the unit when powered on. I’m not sure precisely where this is originating, but it sounds like it’s coming from the mainboard or the A06. Could this indicate something is defective?
  • I wasn’t sure whether the SD card had been pre-imaged, so I re-imaged it with the A06 image found here. Still no dice.

Thanks!

1 Like
2

I remember initial booting my DT took some minutes, so, how long did you wait until you considered your device “dead”? I’d say, the noise/beeping is a good indicator, the device is starting

3

Hmm I was aware of the potential long first boot - I let it sit for an extended period while I went and did other things. Maybe 30 minutes? The noise is not coming from the speakers - it sounds more like a coil whine. Not sure if that is normal, based on others experience?

4

okay, well I assume, 30 min would be long enough, at least I didn’t had to wait that long… (btw: coil whining sound is normal when running without batteries, so IMHO, your DT is working basically)

maybe checking the monitoring cable once again?

5

Inital boot normally takes up to 15 min, because it expands your system partition and sd cards are slow medium (in compare w. emmc and ssd). 30min boot is not normal, so trouble may be in:

  1. Your charger. Borrow an another one somewhere, branded one, and test with it
  2. SD card may be partially bricked. Try another one or test your card with this: HOME PAGE OF MISHA CHERKES
  3. Your devterm is broken :frowning: If you have some skill, you can check your devterm’s power circut with multimeter for 5v or something…
6

It also seems that the A06 DT in some occasion does not like to boot with empty battery. Make sure your battery is a bit charged before booting it.

2 Likes
7

Make sure you are pressing the power button AND WAITING a second or two before letting go. Sorry if this is obvious.

8

Im having this exact same issue, was the OP able to resolve it? Fully charged batteries and plugged in, have even used a second micro sd card to re-image.

9

So I got it to boot, but my screen is very jittery. Hopefully its just a bad connection and not a bad screen

10

I am also having a similar problem of not being able to boot the A06 devterm. May I ask how did you solve your problem?

11

i had no problem with initial booting.
i am trying to run it from a type 3 power of 5v output charger without battery, it works well and no noise from anywhere. :point_right:usb charging

check your charger, sometimes it goes problem with diferent voltage.

WechatIMG96
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12

+1 to this. Which is a strange phenomena.
Stranger still is that after the initial installation, you can run the Devterm WITHOUT Batteries and a USB C power supply.

I wrote some similar findings in this thread:

Note, I’ve only had the dev term for one day so I may find some alternative findings later down the track!

13

It is possible that the boot loader check the battery charge and refuse to boot until it get high enough, lots of device do that as booting can create some current spike that would consume too much on the charger and the battery will not be able to compensate making the device to either crash or suddenly stop.

As I don’t have the debug serial working I can’t fact check if true or not, but it is a possibility. I had to do that a couple of years ago for some devices because booting with a battery too low was systematically stopping the device mid-boot.

2 Likes
14

I think this may be the case, I’ve also seen my DevTerm simply die in the middle of the process. For certain cells it appears that they need to be charged more than 50% to support the power draw of the DevTerm through the boot sequence.

1 Like
15

I had the same issue when I added batteries to my DevTerm. The Switch brick does not seem to provide enough power to charge & power on. I used an iPad power brick and it turned on without any problems.

16

Got my new screen all is well!

17

Hi, I have the same issues but with A04, how do you solved this trouble?

18

Ditto - have emailed clockwork and waiting to hear back, but reflashed the SD card, powered it off USB, tried 2 different types of 18650 batteries (all fully charged). All I get out of it is a high pitched whine located to the lower back of the machine.

No visible damage I can see internally, and the screen doesn’t seem to be showing anyting even with a flashlight held up to see if just the backlight hasn’t worked.

19

this was my problem. i was using a nintendo switch power supply. pressing power for 2 seconds would get a bright green light for a short time and then just turn off. no yellow charging light. i switched to a 5v raspberry pi 400 power supply and the thing booted up in a hurry.

20

smells like too much power and the DT complains