So I just got my uConsole and I’m struggling to get it to boot properly. I’m using a CM4 with EMMC which I flashed using a different carrier board via USB. This worked great for a few hours and a few reboots until I tried to power up this morning. Right after boot, the speakers let out a short low beep and the screen froze with a lot tearing and glitching. When this fault occurred, it was on battery and usb c power. I shut it down again and tried to reboot but the screen only flashed for a second and then nothing. I’ve tried reimaging the pi, reseating every connector and booting without battery. Every time I try, I just get a brief screen flash. Any ideas? Right now I’m thinking it may be a hardware failure, but I’m going to try to redownload the image in case it was corrupted somehow. Thanks!
Just to add, I tried redownloading the image as well as the lite/xfce version and still just getting a screen flash and no boot. I’m starting to think either my pi or the uconsole main board is dead.
You do know that this forum warns you if your topic is related to one posted earlier? You’re not helping this forum by making your question stand out. This isn’t Reddit.
Anyway, based on the details you provided, I’m starting to think your main board is at fault. Why will the CM4 allow you to flash an image to its eMMC if it is compromised?
There should be a green LED next to the power button. If it doesn’t stay on, it’s gotta be a problem with the main board. Check for loose or missing parts. E-mail help@clockworkpi.com right away.
Sorry about the topic, my intention wasn’t to click bait. When posting, I didn’t see any topic that related to others. Lots of “unable to boot” but no “booted fine a few times then stopped working”. I’ll be sure to be mindful of this in the future.
I won’t pretend to understand the USB EMMC flashing mechanism on the CM4. However I anticipate it could be possible that the firmware responsible for this may be functional while something else is compromised that prevents the pi from completely booting.
I have attempted to boot on a carrier board with standard pi images with no luck. I did only try this briefly so I’ll have to look further into it.
The power led stays on without issue. I’ve reached out to the help email and am awaiting response.
Any idea what the process is if the main board is at fault?
This is a game changer. Perhaps there’s something wrong with the eMMC. You’ve also mentioned your uConsole was fine for a couple runs before the incident. How old is your CM4? Has it been used for disk I/O intensive workloads? You may need to plug in your uConsole to an external monitor to see what’s wrong. It would also be great if you have a spare CM4 to test if the mainboard really is at fault.
OK, now that sounds like a problem with the CM4.
The CM4 I was using was used for a few other projects and had a good amount of read and write cycles on the emmc. I ordered a CM4 lite and sd card to test with.
After some discussion with support, they suspect it’s the main board. They’re sending me a replacement so later this week I should have a better idea of what went wrong.
Turns out the CM4 died. Got a replacement CM4 lite today and it booted no problem with an SD card. Thanks for the help!
And now I know why a CM4 with built-in storage can become a disaster. Thanks for the tip.