Cannot type anything at the terminal after boot (Beagle Board Rev C4)

GoogleGroups
1

Dear all,

I have just bought a Beagle Board Rev C4, and I cannot type anything
at the terminal after booting from NAND.

The booting text appears correctly, but during the countdown period I
cannot stop the boot (e.g. to boot from SD card) and I cannot type
anything when the prompt finally appears.

I am using an IDC 10 to DB9 serial female connector, which then goes
directly into a male Serial to USB converter, which then goes into my
PC (USB port).

I know that the FAQ mentions having an IDC 10 to DB9 MALE connector,
and then having a female to female connector, but I think since the
booting text appeared at the console, isn't my set up correct (using
an IDC 10 to DB9 FEMALE connector)? At the moment I can't get my hands
on a IDC 10 to DB9 MALE connector anywhere.. :S

Thanks,

Gianluca

2

gianluca wrote:

Dear all,

I have just bought a Beagle Board Rev C4, and I cannot type anything
at the terminal after booting from NAND.

The booting text appears correctly, but during the countdown period I
cannot stop the boot (e.g. to boot from SD card) and I cannot type
anything when the prompt finally appears.

I am using an IDC 10 to DB9 serial female connector, which then goes
directly into a male Serial to USB converter, which then goes into my
PC (USB port).

I know that the FAQ mentions having an IDC 10 to DB9 MALE connector,
and then having a female to female connector, but I think since the
booting text appeared at the console, isn't my set up correct (using
an IDC 10 to DB9 FEMALE connector)? At the moment I can't get my hands
on a IDC 10 to DB9 MALE connector anywhere.. :S

your serial setup is wrong, this has happened to others before.
check the cabling and make sure that TX and RX are connected correctly
between PC and Beagleboard, regardless of what cables you think you have ...

3

You can also refer to Chapter 13 of the System Reference Manual to help debug the cable pin out. You still need to make sure that you have a null modem cable between the PC and the ribbon cable.

Gerald

4

I faced similar problem when using minicom. Later I figured out that I forgot to change “hardware flow control” to ‘NO’. This might be the problem. Whatever terminal program you are using make sure that hardware flow control is disabled.

-Ankit

5

Ankit Pashiney escreveu:

I faced similar problem when using minicom. Later I figured out that I
forgot to change "hardware flow control" to 'NO'. This might be the
problem. Whatever terminal program you are using make sure that hardware
  flow control is disabled.

One easy way to test if minicom or whatever terminal program is
interfering is just cat the interface like cat /dev/ttyUSB0 for
instance. You may not see the text correctly (but in my case I aways do)
but you will see something if the other bits and pieces are in place and
working.

s

Adilson.

6

I faced similar problem when using minicom. Later I figured out that I
forgot to change "hardware flow control" to 'NO'. This might be the
problem. Whatever terminal program you are using make sure that hardware
  flow control is disabled.

-Ankit

That's why I recommend using gtkterm as you only have to select the port
(e.g /dev/ttyS0, /dev/ttyUSB0) in the GUI. On Ubuntu "apt-get install
gtkterm", openSUSE has dropped it recently. I haven't checked if it's
available for Fedora, but building is as simple as untar'ing the source,
"./configure && make && make install" and firing up gtkterm from the
command line.
Regards
Sid.

7

I managed to solve the problem.. I had my IDC10 to Serial DB9
connector wired wrongly. Pin 2 was connected correctly to Pin 3, but
Pin 3 was connected to pin 9. I checked this out using a multimeter
(checking the connectivity). I solved the problem by using a Null
modem cable and switching over pin 9 at the Beagle board end to
connect to pin 2 at the Serial to USB converter end.

Thanks for the help :slight_smile:

Gianluca