Beagleboard RevC4 Validation Problems

GoogleGroups
1

Hi All,

I am new to Beagleboard. I recently got new Beagle board Version C4.

I am trying to test the board as per BEAGLE VALIDATION PROCEDURE given in the reference manual (http://beagleboard.org/static/BBSRM_latest.pdf).

I am facing some problems while following the reference manual:

  1. In Section “12.2 Out of the Box” under step 6 mention as below:

    “6. The BeagleBoard.org logo will be sent out of the DVI port and the color bars will appear on the S-Video Port.”

    Result:

    But actually DVID monitor displays orange screen instead of Beagleboard logo.

  2. I have succesfully done Section “12.3 SD card configuration” but in section “12.4 Setup” I didn’t try the few below mentioned steps as I didn’t have the required hardware.

    1. Connect an externally powered speaker to audio out jack on Beagle Board.

  3. Connect a Line-in cable from PC or any player to Audio In jack on Beagle Board.

  4. Connect a TV (NTSC-M) to S-video port.

In section “12.5 Factory Boot Verification” ( verifies that the board will boot properly from NAND). But When I give the power supply to the Beagleboard it boots from mmc instead of NAND. Please verify below output:

Texas Instruments X-Loader 1.4.2 (Feb 19 2009 - 12:01:24)
Reading boot sector
Loading u-boot.bin from mmc

U-Boot 2009.11 (Feb 23 2010 - 15:33:48)

OMAP3530-GP ES3.1, CPU-OPP2 L3-165MHz
OMAP3 Beagle board + LPDDR/NAND
I2C: ready
DRAM: 256 MB
NAND: 256 MiB
*** Warning - bad CRC or NAND, using default environment

In: serial
Out: serial
Err: serial
Board revision C4
Die ID #601e000400000000040373050e01f00f
Hit any key to stop autoboot: 0
OMAP3 beagleboard.org #

Here DVID monitor displays orange screen as mention as step 6**.** For all the cases my DVI-D monitor shows orange screen only. Why?

  1. In section “12.6 Board SD Boot” ( Press and hold the USER button while pressing and releasing the RESET button).
    In this case I am not getting 40V at start, rest of the whole displayed things are seen correctly.

  2. In section “12.9.1. EDID test”, ibus and imd commands are not working.

OMAP3 beagleboard.org # ibus 2
Unknown command ‘ibus’ - try ‘help’

OMAP3 beagleboard.org # imd
Unknown command ‘imd’ - try 'help

  1. Sections “12.9.3 & 12.10.1 DVI-D Test” not working.

Pl. help so that I can confirm that my board is perfect & I can concentrate on further development.

Thanks&Regards,
Kishore Kumar Boddu (yuvakishore@gmail.com)

2
  1. Orange screen is now correct based on a change in the new UBoot SW.
  2. 40V only comes out if there is no data in the nAND or if no MMC card i sinstalled.
  3. The I2C command has also changed in the latest UBoot.

The board is OK if these are all the issues you have. I think you are safe in getting on with your development.

I will make changes to the document as soon as I can get to it.

Gerald

3

Hi,

Thanks for the valuable information.

Based on your answers, I could understand that the latest u-boot version does not support the display of Beagleboard logo and I2C commands.

So, Can you tell me Which u-boot version displays the Beagleboard logo and I2C commands?

Please provide the answer for my question 2. i.e., When I give the power supply to Beagleboard it boots from mmc instead of NAND. Why is it happening ?

Thanks&Regards,
Kishore Kumar Boddu
91-9963111083

4

The BB SRM doc for C4 has at least some of these changes already
documented. I definitely remember the orange screen being described.

5

The old versions for the Rev C3 did the logo display. Having the logo display has no value. If the screen is Orange, then the screen is working. Moving forward with kernel installation will give you more colors to look at. The I2C commands do work, they are just in a different format.

As to booting from NAND instead of MMC, I am not sure. You might put a voltmeter on the User button and see if it is hi or low when it is pushed and then released. The other issue may be that you have damaged the SD card connector by improper insertion of the card. We see that from time to time where people jam the card into the connector and they damage it.

Gerald

6

One correction, if it always boots from MMC, it may be also be because the NAND has an issue or has been erased. This and the button issue would be the two reasons. The card cage damage I don’t think applies here in this case.

Gerald

7

Richard,

You are correct. The Rev C4 manual does say orange screen.

Kishore,

Make sure you are using the correct version of the System Reference Manual.

http://beagleboard.org/static/BBSRM_latest.pdf

Gerald

8

Richard, Gerald,

the latest manual still has an outdated 12.9.3 section (u-boot tests, DVI-D).
Could one of you remind me which u-boot repo is the good one to rebuild the same factory binary ?
thanks.

Kishore,

to see more colors in u-boot, type in the following:

mw.l 4805044c ff0000; mw.l 48050440 1832b
mw.l 4805044c 00ff00; mw.l 48050440 1832b
mw.l 4805044c 0000ff; mw.l 48050440 1832b

which respectively change the background to red, green and blue.

9

Good question. It looks like the one loaded on the verification page all say Rev C3. Let me see if I can get someones attention on this.

Gerald

10

Gerald,

I have followed the document from the same link: http://beagleboard.org/static/BBSRM_latest.pdf

Kishore Kumar

11

I understand. One place it says orange the other is says a LOGO. The LOGO is incorrect. The orange is correct.

The I2C commands are incorrect.

And the files on the validation page are suspect as well. We are working to get that figured out.

Until then, you can either wait until it is completed, or move on with your development. That is your decision. If you are indeed always booting from the MMC, while this may not be what is totally expected, booting from MMC is not an issue at all and you can move forward. If the NAND was erased, then you will have nothing to boot from and it will move to the MMC as the boot source.

If you want to restore the NAND, then the procedure on the validation site can be followed, however, as I have already stated above, the state of those files fand the validation procedure for Rev C4 is still under investigation. We are working the issue.

Gerald

12

The validation files that worked for me (rev C4) are here:

http://code.google.com/p/beagleboard/wiki/BeagleboardRevCValidationv3

Note v3 on the end of the URL. It appears to be a page version number.

13

Richard, Gerald,

I have tested validation files mention here: http://code.google.com/p/beagleboard/wiki/BeagleboardRevCValidationv3 (Rev C4)

Now i2c commands are working fine.

I need u-boot source code (Rev C4) location for the u-boot exec file mentioned at the link: http://beagleboard.googlecode.com/files/u-boot-revc4.bin.

DVI test case is failed. see below output. It doesn’t send the video to DVI port. Can you tell me Why did this happened?

root@beagleboard:~# mplayer /sample_video.avi
MPlayer 1.0rc2-4.2.1 © 2000-2007 MPlayer Team
CPU: ARM

Playing /sample_video.avi.
AVI file format detected.
[aviheader] Video stream found, -vid 0
[aviheader] Audio stream found, -aid 1
VIDEO: [FMP4] 320x240 24bpp 14.985 fps 285.0 kbps (34.8 kbyte/s)
Clip info:
Software: Lavf52.7.0

14

Richard, Gerald,

I have tested validation files mention here: http://code.google.com/p/beagleboard/wiki/BeagleboardRevCValidationv3 (Rev C4)

Now i2c commands are working fine.

I need u-boot source code (Rev C4) location for the u-boot exec file mentioned at the link: http://beagleboard.googlecode.com/files/u-boot-revc4.bin.

DVI test case is failed. see below output. It doesn’t send the video to DVI port. Can you tell me Why did this happened?

root@beagleboard:~# mplayer /sample_video.avi
MPlayer 1.0rc2-4.2.1 © 2000-2007 MPlayer Team
CPU: ARM

Playing /sample_video.avi.
AVI file format detected.
[aviheader] Video stream found, -vid 0
[aviheader] Audio stream found, -aid 1
VIDEO: [FMP4] 320x240 24bpp 14.985 fps 285.0 kbps (34.8 kbyte/s)
Clip info:
Software: Lavf52.7.0

15

This is video, which does use the DVI-D output pins, but the issue is not caused by HW, but the SW you are using. As you are the one that put the SW on the card, I cannot really guess as to what the issue might be. DVI-D is an output stream of data and does not look for anything like syncing as it is driving the signals to the display.

Gerald.

16

Thank you Gerald for your replies.

Finally I was able to successfully run the video at LCD. For this I
had to change the environment variables mentioned below:

setenv bootargs console=ttyS2,115200n8 ramdisk_size=32768 root=/dev/
ram0 rw rootfstype=ext2 initrd=0x81600000,32M
omapfb.video_mode=1280x720MR-48@60
setenv bootcmd 'mmcinit;fatload mmc 0 0x80300000 uImage.bin;fatload
mmc 0 0x81600000 ramdisk.gz;bootm 0x80300000'

The above environment variables are not mentioned in Beagleboard
software reference manual (http://beagleboard.org/static/
BBSRM_latest.pdf).
These are mentioned here: http://code.google.com/p/beagleboard/wiki/BeagleboardRevCValidationv3.

Till yesterday my beagleboard was working fine for LCD, UART and user
LED's.

Today I was surprised to see the my serial port doesn't show anything
the remaining peripherals are working fine (User LEDs ON and LCD
screen shows orange screen few seconds after it shows login prompt).

I use same UART cable, same SD card, same beagleboard. I didn't change
anything but not sure why it happened. Could it be hardware problem?

Did you see this type of problems previously?

Could you please suggest me what should I do. I am stuck up here.

Thanks&Regards,
  Kishore kumar

17

Thanks Gerald for your replies.

Finally, I was able to successfully run the video at DVI-D port. For these I had to change the below environment variables.

setenv bootargs console=ttyS2,115200n8 ramdisk_size=32768 root=/dev/ram0 rw rootfstype=ext2 initrd=0x81600000,32M omapfb.video_mode=1280x720MR-48@60

setenv 'mmcinit;fatload mmc 0 0x80300000 uImage.bin;fatload mmc 0 0x81600000 ramdisk.gz;bootm 0x80300000'

These environment variables were not mentioned in the Beagleboard software reference manual.
Mentioned here: [http://code.google.com/p/beagleboard/wiki/BeagleboardRevCValidationv3](http://code.google.com/p/beagleboard/wiki/BeagleboardRevCValidationv3)

Till yesterday, My beagleboard was working fine for all peripherals.

But, today I was surprised to see that my serial port is not working. It doesn’t show any messages but other peripherals are working (User LEDS, LCD).

I use same board, same UART cable, same SD card but I am not sure why it happened. could these problem with the hardware?

What is the possible reason?

Did you see this type of problem earlier?

Could you please suggest me any solution. I am stuck up here.

Thanks&Regards,
Kishore Kumar Boddu

18

Well, that is not a Software Manual. It is a System Reference Manual that covers the Hardware.

Gerald

19

OK. Could you please give me reply to my second question.

Thanks&Regards,
Kishore Kumar Boddu

20

I have no idea what has happend. I can’t see a serial port failing because the power was removed from the board. . Obviously something has changed. It is not likely a Hardware issue unless you damaged the hardware in some way by connecting the cables on wrong, for example having the ribbon cable on backwards or off one pin. We have had only a couple of serial port failures on the C4 in all the ones we have shipped and that was due to improper cables being used. If you say it worked and now it fails, then the board must have been damaged in some manner.

You can request an RMA and send it in and we will test your board to see what the issue might be. But, I suggest you double check everything and make sure it is all hooked up correctly and the terminal SW you use still has the same settings as required…

Gerald