I have an xM board, that won't boot; it won't even boot from memory
without the SD card inserted. I see no Video display whatsoever from
the video port.
I hooked up a terminal to the RS-232 port, and all I see when I
power up is maybe 30 characters or so of gibberish. The terminal is
set to 115200-8-N-1 as instructed. I've verified proper operation
of the terminal by connecting it to another terminal with matching
settings, and I can type in either window and see the characters in
the other.
When I connect the terminal to the xM, I am NOT USING A NULL MODEM
adapter. This seems "wrong", but it's the only way I appear to
be getting any characters at all (which are gibberish). When I
connect to the board WITH a null modem adapter, the terminal receives
no characters whatsoever.
When I boot without the SD card inserted, shouldn't the xM boot to
a default O/S? I'm baffled by the fact that I not only get
gibberish characters at the terminal, but even more so by the fact
that I only see a HANDFUL of the bad characters. If I had
communication difficulty, I would think that I should at the very
least see LOTS of garbled characters as the O/S boots. Instead,
I only see handful of characters right away, and then nothing.
Recent versions of xm don't have flash memory on board. Even the early
boards that shipped with flash can not boot from it. The junk you see
on the terminal indicates that your board and console work properly
and the board tries to boot from the serial port.
The only reasonable way to boot your board is from the SD card. If the
board doesn't boot with the card that shipped with it, maybe it
doesn't make contact with the socket. Try bend the contacts *very
gently* and see if it helps. If the board still doesn't boot, it could
be that the card is defective. Download the validation image and write
it to another card.
The SD-card is the only media from which the BeagleBoard xM boots on its own: unlike the Beagleboard, it does not have any non-volatile RAM chips installed (BeagleBoard has NAND flash memory).
The xM boot sequence is quite elaborate. There is a little bootstrap loader located in the CPU internal ROM. This loader boots MLO. In turn, MLO starts u-Boot. Finally,u-boot sets the table up for Linux (or any other operating systems) and start it.
So, if the bootstrap loader does not detect a bootable FAT32 partition on the micro-SD and MLO written on it then it boots from the serial port,
Tthe ‘gibberish’ characters sent to the console are actually an attempt from the bootstrap loader to get MLO.
BTW, MLO is actually X-Loader in disguise. X-Loader is open-source software provided by Texas Instruments, the xM CPU maker.
If you xM stopped booting, roll back to the demo image on SDcard which came with the xM and start troubleshooting from there.
This isn’t necessarily so. My BeagleBoard xM booted fine off the stock card and off the Narcissus image I tried, but gave streams of garbage through the serial port. I saw something a bit different with a bad card: a short burst of garbage every time the BBxM was power cycled or reset, likely the serial port boot you mentioned. So if you get a large dump of garbage, try looking for it on the network…you might be able to get in via SSH.
I’ve seen reports that USB-serial converters give better results. I didn’t have success with one, but loading a newer image seemed to fix the issue. Which is handy, because I’m now having D-Bus/systemd issues that require intervention via the serial port to get networking up…
Either way, it sounds like when you lost power it took out the boot
partition of the sd card... This can happen if the os is in the middle
of writing to the partition... The simple solution is still, don't
randomly cut power, as random things can happen.. Specially with an
os that writes heavily to the sd card..
It’s hard to say… It depends on what you plan to do with it ;-).
If these are your first steps in the wonderful world of embedded Linux, I would suggest you to try TI Linux board support package for the BeagleBoard. The package includes all that’s needed to get started : bootloaders, Linux kernel and file system images and very good User support. Latest package even includes the toolchain to build the kernel and to cross-compile your own applications. That’s what I’m currently using at work for another OMAP-based system and I’m happy with it.
But… TI Linux didn’t suit me for BeagleBoard development Why? Because its kernel version (2.6.32) did not support the Leopard Imaging 5 MP camera: I’m currently doodling with hand-held, embedded imaging systems so I need the best and latest in kernel development.
Instead, I focused on the Angstrom distro, which seems to be a popular option. That means a lots of available knowledge out there ;-). It needed a bit of work for me to build a development environment but I’m getting there: I have a working 5MP camera on my BB xM now.
A thing I like about the Angstrom distro is the Narcissus file system factory ( http://narcissus.angstrom-distribution.org). This website lets you build a file system that suits your need from a simple online questionnaire. It also builds a set of libraries for your development workstation if you want it. Really nice.
Angstrom distro drawback? Limited number of available binary packages for it but that’s a matter of perception.
I did not tried Ubuntu distro for the BB, although Ubuntu is my distro of choice for software development. Other BB users are welcome to give their opinions about its usage on the BeagleBoard.
So i tried the Link http://elinux.org/BeagleBoardUbuntu#Demo_Image .
followed the process for Precise 12.04 armhf and it still didnt
boot UART shows 2 or three garbage charters and thats it. no leds only
power led. starting to think this board died or something.
i tried booting while holding down the user button and got nothing..
this board was new and had angstrom working it before.
to be exact , my board is a beagleboard xm rev c
i am using a 5v 1.2 amp supply , could it be lacking current?
...just a shot in the dark...:
Take an Ampere meter and check the current while starting your board.
If the power supply is of lower quality (no punt intended ) and
the current is only a moment near the maximum the lack of current
or a stron ripple on the voltage may be the reason.
Keep in mind that digital volt-/ampere meters have a measure cycle so
not every peak is catched. Best change is a volt-/ampere metere which
has a peak/max hold feature.
Fingers crossed, hoping the best...good luck!
Best regards,
mcc
PS: Or...SD-crad corrupted? Do you have check the checksum against the
checksum generated by reading the image directly from the SD-card?
Another shot in the dark...
hey so i tried that and power looks correct, i tried an experiment
also with the card in and with out it
seems like it behaves the same with and with out , beagle board is
behaving like it has no sd card what so ever.
When connecting to 5V or mini usb power: LED D13 flashes in RED, LEDS
D5 turns and stays GREEN and D14 turns on and then turns off.
Hi eveybody,
Recently I have received a beagleboard-XM.
I experienced exactly the same problem.
it was running without problem. once I wanted to insert audio jack, I touched SD card, then I tried to restart the board
then it never boot again!!
Same signs, D5 remains green, D13 blinkd red when I plug the power supply. D14 just turn on (Green) and then off.
Have any of you found a solution?
Thanks in advance
) and