PhoenixSuit Does Not Detect the Board

[dumtux]

Today the board arrived from the factory and I started testing.

I powered the board on and tried to follow the Firmware flashing method in the README. But the PhoenixSuit doesn't detect the board. I tried several times with FEL and BOOT buttons.

I connected the board to my Linux computer and I could see it is correctly recognized as an Allwinner Device in FEL mode. It seems like the board is working fine, but PhoenixSuit was not able to detect it. On my Windows computer, it is recognized as just an anonymous "USB Device".

I am using Windows 10 installed on an iMac. And I installed the Allwinner USB driver by running install.exe in it. Just a few black console windows popped up and soon dissapeared. I'm not sure if the driver is installed correctly.

• Is it a Windows driver installation issue? As I can see no "Allwineer" text on the USB device listed in the device manager, I am suspecting so.
• Can the hardware fault (design or assembly) can cause this case? While the board is recognized from Linux, I guess the hardware might be good.
• Is there a Linux tool to flash the firmware? As a Linux user, it's a pain to use Windows just for flashing, while we need Linux to build the Tina or Android image.
• Is it possible to boot from an SD card? If so, I can write firmware image using Balena Etcher.

[YuzukiTsuru]

• You need to install the driver manually, select usbdrv.inf and install.
• It is generally not a problem to be able to identify the USB
• If you want to use Linux to flash, you can use LiveSuit
• The test firmware supports SD card boot, just use PhoenixCard to flash into SD You can download PhoenixCard from here: https://www.aw-ol.com/downloads?cat=5

[dumtux]

Windows Driver on my Windows 10 machine

I tried to install the driver manually. By right-clicking the USB device, and "update driver" in property dialog. It says the driver I manually selected is already installed. I will try to install Windows 7 and try driver installing there again.

LiveSuit under Ubuntu 22.04

I tried LiveShuit on my Ubuntu 22.04. I got the following error while building AWUSB. I also put this problem backside as I couldn't wait to see the Linux is running on this board. So I moved to PhoenixCard.

Trying with SD card using PhoenixCard

I downloaded tina_h616-yc_uart0.7z. I burnt this image into a Sandisk 32GB Ultra TF flash card using PhoenixCard. After inserting it into SD slot on board, powered it on. But the board power LED went off after 14~15 seconds. It repeated the same way on all other boards.

When the SD card is plugged in, I could not see any USB device listed by lsusb command from Linux desktop. If I unplug the SD card, the "Allwinner Technology sunxi SoC OTG connector in FEL/flashing mode" is again appeared.

[YuzukiTsuru]

When the SD card is plugged in, I could not see any USB device listed by lsusb command from Linux desktop. If I unplug the SD card, the "Allwinner Technology sunxi SoC OTG connector in FEL/flashing mode" is again appeared.

That means that it is starting the system on the TF card, so it has not entered the download mode (FEL), and the USB cannot be searched

This GPIO is default UART TX for debug, Try to connect to a USB to UART adapter (RX Pin of adapter), and see the log

[148]BOOT0 commit : b2b1d75
[151]set pll start
[154]periph0 has been enabled
[157]set pll end
[159]unknow PMU
[160]unknow PMU
[162]PMU: AXP1530
[169]vaild para:1  select dram para0
[173]board init ok
[175]DRAM BOOT DRIVE INFO: V0.52
[178]the chip id is 0x5000
[181]chip id check OK
[186]DRAM_VCC set to 1500 mv
[188]DRAM CLK =720 MHZ
[191]DRAM Type =3 (3:DDR3,4:DDR4,7:LPDDR3,8:LPDDR4)
[197]Actual DRAM SIZE =2048 M
[200]DRAM SIZE =2048 MBytes, para1 = 310a, para2 = 8001001, dram_tpr13 = 6041
[213]DRAM simple test OK.
[215]rtc standby flag is 0x0, super standby flag is 0x0
[221]dram size =2048
[224]card no is 2
[225]sdcard 2 line count 8
[228][mmc]: mmc driver ver 2019-12-19 10:41
[232][mmc]: set f_max to 50M, set f_max_ddr to 50M
[237][mmc]: mmc 2 bias 4
[245][mmc]: ***Try MMC card 2***
[259][mmc]: MMC 5.1
[261][mmc]: HSDDR52/DDR50 8 bit
[265][mmc]: 50000000 Hz
[267][mmc]: 7456 MB
[269][mmc]: ***SD/MMC 2 init OK!!!***
[329]Loading boot-pkg Succeed(index=0).
[332]Entry_name        = u-boot
[341]Entry_name        = monitor
[345]Entry_name        = dtbo

[348]Entry_name        = dtb
[351]tunning data addr:0x4a0003e8
[355]Jump to second Boot.

BTW, if you need to use the card for debuging, you need to use this option to burn

[dumtux]

I connected a USB UART adapter and I could see the log messages. It was a way longer error message. Here are a few last lines of the message.

As the messages were too long, I archived all 10 screenshots tho the following attached archive. I will try enabling debug mode in PhoenixCard, but I suspect it might give the same result.

Screenshots of error messages.zip

What is making this long error message?

[dumtux]

I compared my log messages with your successful ones. And found that my board is starting emit errors just after DRAM_VCC set to 1500 mv It seems like read/write test is failing.

[dumtux]

I used Hynyx H5TQ4G63EFR-RDC DRAM.

But after the read/write error messages, the log says DRAM simple test was ok, and recognizing the DRAM clock and type correctly.

[YuzukiTsuru]

This error indicates that the attempted dram timing parameters failed to start, and he will try the remaining dram timing parameters. Seeing dram simple test ok means that there is no problem with the dram.

It seems that you are using the 量产卡 mode, try re-burning to use the 启动卡 mode

[dumtux]

Yes, it works!!!

I used 启动卡 mode and it simply solved the issue. My Phoenix UI was in English mode by default. It is displayed as Start Up mode in my Windows. In the Phoenix Card application, It would be better to recognize if it was labeled as Boot mode, but not a big deal.

The following is the log after boot, it seems like I can access the shell via UART. I'll play around with it a little more and post more results here before closing this issue ticket.

Is there a default RX pin on the GPIO pin to interact with the system via the UART terminal? I am now only seeing the logs, and no way to input commands to play.

By the way, I am seeing the Penguine with the letter T in his mouth on an HDMI display connected. Beautiful!

[YuzukiTsuru]

The blue one is RX

[dumtux]

Thanks, I am now accessing the Tina Linux terminal via UART.

[ndmgrphc]

@hotteshen can I ask what factory you used? Edit: Or, if anyone can recommend a factory.

[dumtux]

I do PCBAs in my partner factories. For more information, check our website https://pcbcrew.com You can contact me through the contact form of PCBCrew website for getting PCBA quote for this board.