I think my beaglebone is a lemon

Ok I have a serious issue with my beaglebone, I can’t seem to use it at all. It has an issue with booting of MicroSD cards and a problem with USB.

The first issue is the main one, although technically two. A while back I managed to forget my password and flashed my beaglebone with debian. However Debian couldn’t load lxde, nor could I get the command line to do anything. (Specifically it loads openbox and just does nothing. In all cases it does not supply the 150~ to ~300mA current needed to support both a keyboard and mouse, (I use a kit that needs 150mA, and used a mac keyboard that needs 200mA that has 2 usb ports,)

Anyway I reflash my 2GB MicroSD and attempt to boot the thing about 12 times and no success. It will display the power on LED, but no “Four boot lights” are seen even after several minutes. I’ve tried both the Debian and Angstrom images, both don’t work but Angstrom seems to annoy dd as it wont display any output when "watch -n5 ‘sudo kill -USR1 (whatever dd’s current number is)’. After each failed boot attempt debian happily continues to partially boot up.

Now I’ve tried ssh’ing and using the link to connect to the beagle bone and nothing works, the connection isn’t there so my computer will just hang. I have no clue how to find it, I tried NMAP to find it but no luck. (Albeit I am a noob.)

I swear to god this thing never worked the way I wanted it to since day one… Is it a lemon or is there a way to save it? (I would like to save it as I have little money and there is a project I would like to make with it.)

Thanks in advance

  • Sudoertor

If you’re new, spend some time reading the documentation. Everything and more is in there, but it’s a lot to go through.

For one thing, the USB port only supplies 100ma, you will need a powered hub for your keyboard and mouse. The doc’s mention that.

My HDMI display has a USB hub built in. Makes connecting to the BBB a breeze.

Booting off SD cards is well documented.

Spend some time reading. Recover your BBB back to original as documented. Then don’t make drastic changes until understand what you’re changing or else you’ll break it again and most likely again and again! :wink:

Get several more MicroSD cards. I picked up a bunch of 8Gig cards at Micro Center for 4 bucks each. You can put a recovery flash image on one and leave it. You’ll need it as you experiment and work with the BBB. You can load other images on the other cards and use them as needed without having to constantly re-write a new image to the card.

-david

It doesn’t sound to me like you have a hardware issue. In addition to adding a powered usb hub, I suggest starting with one of the Debian images found here:

http://elinux.org/Beagleboard:BeagleBoneBlack_Debian

I’d try the newest testing image. You probably want one of the flasher images, and if you have a rev C beaglebone you want the 4GB rev C flasher. You can also choose a stripped down UI free version (console). Double check the file name after you download, make sure it’s got the features you want: 2GB vs 4GB, flasher or not, console or not.

As far as knowing where to ssh to, if you have access to your home router you can find it there (usually). I’d set up a DHCP reservation, so you always know where it is. Otherwise I’d use the USB network to connect, then set up a static IP.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the replies although they haven’t been much help, upon doing my own research i think it is possible that dd might be putting the partitions around the wrong way so making booting of the MicroSD imposible. For an FYI the revision is A5C, and I have been using the 2GB images as a result, on a 2GB card.

I meant to say it has 3 issues and I guess I should clarify what I am asking…

1.) Flashing the Beaglebone
“I suggest starting with one of the Debian images”
I have both angstrom and debian images and tried both, and dd flashes the SDCARD as follows:

BEAGLE_BONE then eMMC_Flasher, then EMPTY SPACE.

Is this correct? If not is there a particular switch to make dd flash it correctly? (Using a custom spin of Ubuntu with Mate and no canonical spyware.)
The code I used was (I was already running as sudo fyi):
dd bs=1M if=BBB-eMMC-flasher-2013.09.04.img of=/dev/sdb

2.) Connection:
“As far as knowing where to ssh to, if you have access to your home router you can find it there (usually). I’d set up a DHCP reservation, so you always know where it is. Otherwise I’d use the USB network to connect, then set up a static IP.”
I don’t have access to the home router, and I’d have to say that networking is my weak point with IT. I cannot find the beaglebone over the USB. OS is Debian 7 I think, apart from that one file I was able to make on the blank desktop it is 100% stock.

I cannot use the USB cable or SSH into as I cannot connect in the first place. Nor can I change any settings on the beaglebone itself. I quote myself " However Debian couldn’t load lxde, nor could I get the command line to do anything. (Specifically it loads openbox and just does nothing.)"
“… I’ve tried ssh’ing and using the link to connect to the beagle bone and nothing works, the connection isn’t there so my computer will just hang. I have no clue how to find it, I tried NMAP to find it but no luck. (Albeit I am a noob.)”

Is there a program in linux that I could use to find it? (A tutorial would be the most helpful it doesn’t need to be long. just potent with useful information.)

3.) The minor issue, about the USB hub.
“For one thing, the USB port only supplies 100ma, you will need a powered hub for your keyboard and mouse.”
Tried that, it didn’t work for me. Although I did hear about some hack that allows for the full 500ma and another hack allowing for two 100ma ports.

Random semi-related question, will someone ever add the functionality for a 500ma USB port on the beaglebone officially

Exactly what image are you using right now, full file name please? How are you flashing?

I’d suggest getting an SD card, flashing the image to the SD (right click the image in Linux Mint), then following the procedures here to flash the OS:

https://learn.adafruit.com/beaglebone-black-installing-operating-systems/flashing-the-beaglebone-black

You should see the “Knight Rider” animation while it’s flashing then four solid lights indicating it’s done. After that plug it via USB (5v) and then SSH into 192.168.7.2.