Hi all,
Just wanted to share my experience with my dead BBB. It’s my first experience with the Beagle line so it’s possible I did something wrong somewhere so I thought it would be a good idea to share my experiences in case other newb’s read this. Feel free to skip to the bottom for the symptoms.
– Begin Background Info –
I was lucky enough to get my BBB almost right away from Digikey. I immediately installed the drivers on my Mac and started playing around with it the first night. Unfortunately, the second night I couldn’t get my Mac to allocate an IP address through the USB to talk to it so I thought maybe I shouldn’t have skipped that “update software” step. So next I downloaded the latest “flash eMMC” image, wrote it to an SD card and then went through the upgrade process.
Here’s where things went a little South. After the first attempt the USR lights eventually went solid (presumably indicating the flashing process was finished) but when I rebooted it without the SD card, the power light would come on but it wouldn’t boot. After a couple repower attempts I decided to flash it again. This time, at some point during the flash process, the board seemed to just lose power (all the LEDs were off). Attempts to power the board resulted in the same as before, power light comes on but no booting.
So, my assumption was I messed up the SD card image. I downloaded/reimaged the SD card again, went through the flash process and this time it seemed to finish. Now when I powered on the board it appeared to boot up. However, I still couldn’t get it to pick up an IP address from the Mac (after reinstalling both drivers and a couple reboots). I read somewhere that someone had a similar issue and an update to Angstrom solved it.
This time I plugged the board into my linux box and I was able to access the running linux image (yay!). I immediately SSH’d in, and went through the Angstrom upgrade (opkg update; opkg upgrade). The upgrade took awhile and seemed to have a few issues with the new kernel modules (/lib/modules/blah didn’t exist). I figured it was just a warning and after the upgrade finished I unplugged the board and plugged it back into my Mac…
– End Background Info –
The power light came on… the USR lights all went solid for a couple seconds… and then the board died. I can no longer seem to power the board up at all. I’ve tried multiple USB cables, multiple USB ports on multiple machines, and even tried the DC jack with a 5v/2.2A supply. 
I submitted an RMA (although my board doesn’t seem to have a serial number) because I don’t think I did anything wrong, but I’m a very sad panda regardless.
Any ideas? Anything I should check?
~ Jason
An update for the curious. After some prodding from the all-power-Gerald, I was able to bring the board back to life again by… are you ready… holding down the POWER button. Which means I’m probably the biggest idiot ever!? I guess I expected the PWR led to be lit any time 5V was feeding the board, regardless of it’s On/Off state.
Certainly, in the dozen or so previous times I plugged the board in, just giving it power caused it to power on, so the idea of the POWER button actually being used to turn it on never occurred to me. If I could save face just a little here, I did actually press it a couple times before throwing in the towel, I just didn’t consider holding it down for a few seconds.
In embarrassed shame,
~ Jason
You are a pioneer! Columbus was not looking for America. But you are now the Columbus of the power button!
I am trying convince the SW folks to add support for the power button but it is down the list somewhere.
Gerald
Help!
My BBB was working fine, great in fact, but not so much at the moment. When I plug it into a power source, be it a known good 5v supply that I have been using with it for weeks, or into either of two computers via USB, I get one dim little flash from the power LED and then NOTHING else. No other lights flash. If I hold down the power switch I will get another brief and dim flash after a couple of seconds. Again, no other LEDs light and nothing else happens.
This started to happen when I plugged the BBB into a computer using a USB cable while it was still plugged into the 5V power source. Could this have fried something? Are there any poly fuses that might come back to life after a rest?
Frustrating as I was making such good progress on my project!
Will
You have blown the processor. Request an RMA.
beagleboard.org/support/rma
No fuses on the board. Plugging in the USB and DC supply is totally acceptable and supported.
Gerald
Gerald:
Is there any chance that future hardware will include a poly fuse or two to protect the processor or other key circuitry (similar to the Raspberry Pi)? I know that I may have been careless but a board that could get used like an Arduino (which is very very robust) seems like it needs more protection than the BBB has at the moment.
In any case, further on the story of a BBB with a blown processor. I am in the UK and have bought my boards from Element 14. You mentioned that you thought they would be able to send a BBB in for repair but when I talked to them they did not think they had this capability.
I now have two boards that I have managed to fry. The most recent one as a result of a lead dragging across the battery on a Real Time Clock module with all other power being off. If they can be repaired for less than the cost of a new board I would be glad to pay. I can get the boards to the US as I suspect that will be easier. Can you let me know if they can be repaired at reasonable cost? If so I will request RMAs.
Thanks,
Will
I have no plans to do this. We had tried this on earlier boards and it caused us some issues. If the fuse blows, it means the current got too high, a result of the chips on the board getting fried. So it actually does not do much to prevent damaging the board.
There is only so much that can be done to prevent the boards from being blown by the wrong voltage. Adding cost to every board and still not being able to make it 100% fool proof makes no sense.
To date we have had 1 occurrence in over 60,000 shipped, so adding cost to prevent this doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Gerald
Gotcha. Are they repairable for a reasonable cost or is it the scrap heap for them? I suspect it may be the latter.
Thanks, Will
Depends. We have have always been able to repair the boards. Generally, it is just the PMIC that needs repalcing
Gerald
Greetings, i have one issue with my BBB. When i plug power in mini USB or with 2 Ampers 5 Volts power adapter BBB lights up and it works. But, when i turn it off, i can not turn it back on immediately, no matter what i do (hold power button, or reinserting power cable). I can power it up about two or three hours latter, when i left it without power. I assume because i think that processor gives power to the board it somehow wont do it. But i do not understand how it is working after i left it without power for a while ?
Thank you.
Neither do I. This is a new one. I suggest you request an RMA.
Gerald
Erm… Thanks! I had the same problem! How stupid are we?
I think it comes from using the Raspberry Pi which has no power button.
I have sat here for 2+ hours trying differing cables, power supplies and even took apart some cables thinking I could make a perfect one… Then I found your message and all things are solved.
Thanks!
уторак, 03. септембар 2013. 10.39.24 UTC+2, NIkola Stojkov је написао/ла:
Greetings, i have one issue with my BBB. When i plug power in mini USB or with 2 Ampers 5 Volts power adapter BBB lights up and it works. But, when i turn it off, i can not turn it back on immediately, no matter what i do (hold power button, or reinserting power cable). I can power it up about two or three hours latter, when i left it without power. I assume because i think that processor gives power to the board it somehow wont do it. But i do not understand how it is working after i left it without power for a while ?
Thank you.
I found the answer. The thing is, i had to shutdownt BBB with command halt, then when i pluged usb power back it worked 
Just ina case somebody else has this kinde of issue.
Cheers!
You could have also pressed the power button.
Gerald
Hi,
I just recieved my BBB I plugged it to my PC’s USB and once I connected it to my HDMI monitor, I heard the computer as is the USB device was disconnected and the BBB turned off… I unplugged the HDMI and connected only the USB. It starts because the power LED turns on then the top USR LED turns on then the rest for a second and then they start blinking and everything goes off again.
The mini hdmi cable is the one I use for my camera and it works just fine. The monitor is the one that I’m using right now so there is no problem there neither.
Is there any way to know what the problem is? It seems that suddenly it draws too much current or something and turns off. Could it be that?
It was the first time I powered it and this is a real bummer. I have used the original BB with no problems yet.
Thank you
Sounds like you are drawing too much power from the USB port on your PC and it does not like it. Try a DC power source.
Make sure the monitor and your PC are plugged into the same ground along with the DC supply…
Gerald
Thanks a lot guys , I just discovered one of my supposedly fried Beaglebone Black works after pressing power button and reset button in cycles for few minutes after reading this post. Although it had stopped while i was doing something on it and never booted up after.
Now going to try the same on another Beaglebone Black that is also fried up. Hope it works.
Did you try pushing the power button or unplugging the power/USB cable and plugging it back in?
Gerald