How come the boot messages of the BeagleBoard-xM do not appear?? (Newbie)

Hi guys,

Two days ago I got my BeagleBoard-xM RevB,
At first I plugged my mini usb cable to my computer for the voltage
and connected the serial-to-USB converter.
The leds blinked and turn on.
but couldn't see any boot load, so after a day I bought a 5v power
source as suggested on the manual.
I connected again the serial-to-USB to the serial port on the
BeagleBoard and powered on using 5v (Leds turned on including the red
one indicating the power source).

I have configured the minicom on my host computer with Ubuntu desktop
10.10, and got the minicom welcome screen but there was no boot
process and no Boot-loader messages, and no output on the screen.

I checked the files which came the MMC, it contains the following
files:
md5sum.txt , MLO, ramdisk.gz, ramfs.img , u-boot.bin , ulmage ,
user.scr

According to: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-beagleboard-xm/
I should get boot countdown and then Boot-loader messages, but
unfortunately I don't get neither of them.How come??
Any suggestions?

Thank you all,
Gil

You have to get some characters on minicom if it start to boot you see some text like these ;

  1. Texas Instruments X-Loader 1.4.4ss (Sep 30 2010 - 14:44:32)

  2. Beagle xM Rev A

  3. Reading boot sector

  4. Loading u-boot.bin from mmc

If you see anything on minicom I think BB did not start to boot or your serial connection, serial port settings wrong. Check them. Also it it boots, on Ubuntu desktop you can not see the boot logs, to see you have to edit bootargs line of boot.scr

Thanks I found out the BeagleBoard haven't booted since the the
voltage source wasn't exactly 5v. Thanks!!!! :slight_smile:

Hi,

I also have the same issue. I have worked with Beagleboard Rev.C2 and
everything was just fine. But when i switched to Beagleboard XM, i
faced the same problem as you discussed. When running minicom command,
i got a welcome screen, but then nothing happened.

Since i have been able to connect my laptop with Beagleboard C2, i
think the USB-serial cable, power voltage supply, u-boot.bin, uImage
are ok. Do you have any suggestion about this problem.

Thank you all,

NgocSon

how do you do the serial connection with BB-xM and PC ? Which pins are you using beacause in BB-xM the serial port crossed that is you can connect with directly a normal serial cable but in C2 connection pins was 2 to 3, 3 to 2 , 5to 5 . Maybe you confused. Check it

Hi ahmet,

Thanks for your reply.

I connect BB-xM with PC through DB9 connector, is it correct ?
I have changed different BB-xM and cables but the result were same, so
i really don't know what the problem is.

NgocSon

Can you see boot messages when it restart or anything ?

Hi, ahmet

Finally, i am able to connect Beagleboard xM. It's just a problem with
the power supply. It seems weird that my old power supply could work
with BB C2, but not with the new BB-xM. Anyway, thanks for your help.

NgocSon

Ok good work