Issues Booting Custom Board

Forums Devices OSD335x-SM Issues Booting Custom Board

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    • #4524
      Eric TannerEricT
      Participant

        Hello Forum,

        We have a board that we designed, pretty much following the OSD3358-SM-RED reference design.

        The system appears to be running (everything from the Octavo bring up guide looks good).

        I am able to get to the UART boot mode, and am receiving a repeating ASCII ‘C’ over the terminal. I am assuming this indicates power rails and clocks are working as they are supposed too.

        However, I can not seem to get this design to run u-boot off an SD card or UART. I have tried some beaglebone SD card images, the OSD3358-sm-red image, and have built a few custom images.

        A logic analyzer on the SD lines show pulses on clock, cmd, and data for about 250 msec, then stops.

        I am missing some custom config/build setting? do I need to program the on chip EEPROM?

        Thanks!

        Eric

         

         

         

      • #4527
        Neeraj Dantu
        Moderator

          Hi Eric,

          Yes, you need to program the EEPROM with corresponding board ID for the RED board. U-boot checks for this ID before proceeding to boot. Writing the Beaglebone Black ID to the EEPROM should be sufficient for it to boot the RED board image.

          Best regards,

          Neeraj.

           

          • #4583
            bpiquette
            Participant

              Neeraj, What is the recommended process for getting the eeprom programmed?

            • #4608
              Neeraj Dantu
              Moderator

                Thank you Eric for your response.

                There are a couple of ways to get around the EEPROM ID check.

                1. Bypass the checks in u-boot:

                Here is a link to the section of code that you will need to modify:
                I’m not sure if this is exactly the same code as what you are running, but we have seen in the past that the puts() for the “Bad EEPROM …” statement would not actually print anything to the UART console and it would look like everything would just hang when the EEPROM was not programmed. If you look at the board/ti/am335x/mux.c file of your u-boot build, then you can see the actual code you are running and can modify it so that you use the “board_is_bone()” configuration for the pinmux (or define your own)

                2. Use Robert Nelson’s patch to create u-boot that will boot and allow you to program the EEPROM: In u-boot apply the patch:

                Using the “blank” image, create a file in the first partition:
                /boot/.eeprom.txt
                Use the variable:  board_eeprom_header
                For a built-in device:

                 

                For a non built-in, use “eeprom_program”

                 

                You can also just run the “run eeprom*” commands from U-Boot console.  (This works in “blank” and “normal” images.)

                One other thing that I wanted to mention:  I know you are aware of the Linux device tree, but u-boot also uses a device tree that you might need to modify.  You should find the u-boot device tress in ./arch/arm/dts  It is useful to look through the 0001-am335x_evm-uEnv.txt-bootz-n-fixes.patch patch from Robert Nelson (see https://eewiki.net/display/linuxonarm/BeagleBone+Black) since this patch modifies device trees and can point you to important directories in u-boot.

                • This reply was modified 6 years, 9 months ago by Neeraj Dantu. Reason: Formatting
                • This reply was modified 6 years, 9 months ago by Neeraj Dantu.
            • #4555
              Eric TannerEricT
              Participant

                Ok, we programmed the internal EEPROM with the proper values and our system is running. We were wrongly assuming this was pre-programmed.

                Thanks,

                Eric

              • #4581
                bpiquette
                Participant

                  Any suggestions on the best method to program the EEPROM? We are seeing a very similar issue.

                  When we compare the SDcard commands on our board to those of the RED Dev board, we see a a pretty different looking trace.

                  The SD CLK is running at ~120kHz on our board, compared to 400kHz on RED is a clear example of the differences.

                  Can a non-programmed EEPROM cause these differences?

                • #4582
                  Eric TannerEricT
                  Participant

                    Yes, a non-programmed  EEPROM will do to that to the SD clock.

                    What I learned, is u-boot needs the EEPROM data to set things like clock speed, MMC, and other stuff.  If you have access to the I2C_0 pins, you can use a i2c tool to program the EEPROM.

                    I was being lazy, so tried to boot over the UART following this guys blog:

                    http://linuxkernel51.blogspot.com/2015/08/booting-beagle-bone-black-over-uart.html

                     

                    however I went in and hacked the uboot source to force it to use the BeagleBone Black configuration. if you want to do the same, edit:

                    u-boot/board/ti/am335x/board.h

                     

                    Once in the Uboot bootloader, I use the uboot i2c application to program the EEPROM.

                     

                    Eric

                  • #4584
                    bpiquette
                    Participant

                      We’ve had success with the same approach!

                      Thanks so much for blazing the trail EricT!

                       

                    • #4760
                      Gary Bronsongarybronson
                      Participant

                        This thread basically describes the problem i am having also. My board is headless so i need to figure out how to program the EEPROM without a display port. I took a guess and ordered a USB to UART adapter –

                        Maybe that will get me into the EEPROM.

                        My board also has built in RS232 that maps to UART0 so maybe i can get to it using a USB to RS232 cable and Putty. I’m not completely sure so i thought i would post here to see if anyone had some other suggestions.

                         

                         

                         

                         

                         

                      • #4827
                        Gary Bronsongarybronson
                        Participant

                          I have a serial connection to UART0. My device has RS232 that connects to UART0 so i used that to connect. I connected at 9600 – 8-N-1 and software flow control. I wasn’t sure what the default Baud rate was going to be in this case. I launched Putty and prints an “@” first and then the letter “B” every few seconds. Does that mean anything to anyone? I tried to type in the terminal but it doesn’t respond to anything.

                          • This reply was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by Gary Bronsongarybronson.
                          • This reply was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by Gary Bronsongarybronson.
                          • This reply was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by Gary Bronsongarybronson.
                        • #4831
                          Eric TannerEricT
                          Participant

                            baud rate is 115200 if you made it to the UART bootloader you should be getting a ‘C’ every few seconds.

                          • #4832
                            Gary Bronsongarybronson
                            Participant

                              That was very helpful. I am getting “C” now. Now that i have that, what’s next? Since i’m using Putty, are there any special settings i need to make in the Putty configuration to allow me to run commands?

                              • #4835
                                Neeraj Dantu
                                Moderator

                                  Gary,

                                  The ‘C’ on UART0 terminal means that the processor is working! If you want to boot a Beagle image (https://beagleboard.org/latest-images), you have to modify/patch the boot-loader the Beagle images use (u-boot) to either write a beagle board ID to EEPROM or bypass the EEPROM check during boot using the procedure described in #4608. Here is another thread that goes through the procedure of patching u-boot to bypass EEPROM check: https://octavosystems.com/forums/topic/osd3358-boot/#post-4733 .(The procedure described in this thread does not require any UART interfacing)

                                  Neeraj

                              • #4836
                                Gary Bronsongarybronson
                                Participant

                                  Oh. I misundertood i guess. I assumed i needed to connect to UART0 so i can write an ID to the EEPROM. I thought that was an option rather than patching images or boot loaders. Doing that seemed like a harder task to accomplish. So the only thing i accomplished here is to verify that the processor is working. I’ll look at the other options you provided.

                                • #4837
                                  Gary Bronsongarybronson
                                  Participant

                                    I just had a quick look at the provided links. It looks like i have to get down into the weeds to make this thing boot.

                                    So, there is no easier way to do this?

                                    • #4838
                                      Neeraj Dantu
                                      Moderator

                                        Gary,

                                        The Beagle images definitely need EEPROM ID to boot. https://octavosystems.com/forums/topic/osd3358-boot/#post-4733 describes the easier way to get around this issue by running commands on an Ubuntu machine in order to bypass the EEPROM check completely. You just have to apply some patches to u-boot rather than modifying u-boot yourself.

                                        Neeraj.

                                    • #4839
                                      Gary Bronsongarybronson
                                      Participant

                                        What happens when i want to try a new BB Image later on? Do i or my customers need to go through this process every time or does the U-boot remain loaded locally?

                                        • #4851
                                          Neeraj Dantu
                                          Moderator

                                            Gary,

                                            Once the EEPROM is programmed, you can use different Beagle images to boot from the board. u-boot is the 2nd stage bootloader that resides in the SD card or eMMC along with the Linux image. The boot process at u-boot level involves configuration of some hardware interfaces for Linux boot and board identification check on EEPROM. u-boot identifies the board based on the board ID it reads (such as Beaglebone Black, Beaglebone Wireless and Beaglebone Blue) and loads the appropriate device tree for Linux boot.

                                            So, in summary there are 2 ways you can get around the EEPROM ID:

                                            1. You can bypass the EEPROM check by creating patching u-boot on a beagle image and use that image to write to the EEPROM
                                            2. Write to the EEPROM with u-boot

                                            If you do one of these two things, the board will boot other Beagleboard images without modifications.

                                        • #4843
                                          Gary Bronsongarybronson
                                          Participant

                                            I went through the procedure to bypass the EEPROM. The procedure assumed a lot but i got through most of it. I installed an Ubunto VM and then figured out i needed to search for Terminal to run those commands that were listed. Then found out i had to install wget and git. I got up to step 5 and ran into a problem. I attached what was displayed in the terminal. Maybe i was supposed to change to a different directory or something. I’m a Windows guy so the direction needs to be fairly clear. Using ubuntu in a VM was painful to navigate but i have to do this.

                                            • This reply was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by Gary Bronsongarybronson.
                                            Attachments:
                                            • #4857
                                              Neeraj Dantu
                                              Moderator

                                                Gary,

                                                I fixed the post I linked to to display the correct special character. We are currently working on an Application note that goes through working with EEPROM IDs. Please let us know if you have any more issues and look out for the application note.

                                                Neeraj

                                            • #4853
                                              Gary Bronsongarybronson
                                              Participant

                                                I am having a problem with these steps

                                                5. Configure and Build

                                                – make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=${CC} distclean

                                                – make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=${CC} am335x_evm_defconfig

                                                – make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=${CC}

                                                Do you have any tips?

                                                 

                                                • #4856
                                                  Neeraj Dantu
                                                  Moderator

                                                    Gary,

                                                    I just reviewed the post and found the editor on the forum does not handle the special character “`” well. In step 1, code line 3, please add the special character on both sides of the word pwd and let us know if that fixes the error.

                                                    Neeraj

                                                • #4865
                                                  Gary Bronsongarybronson
                                                  Participant

                                                    I’m afraid it made no difference. I also created a new VM using Virtualbox because my first VM was in VMWARE VSphere and i could not gain access to the SD card. The VM that I created in Virtualbox gave me SD Card access but i had the same “no such file or directory” error when running the command. I can use pwd by itself and it will print the current working directory.

                                                    When i run this –

                                                    export CC=?pwd?/gcc-linaro-6.4.1-2017.11-x86_64_arm-linux-gnueabihf/bin/arm-linux-gnueabihf-

                                                    and then run this to check it –
                                                    ${CC}gcc –version

                                                    I get the error

                                                    I even typed in the full path instead of using ‘pwd’

                                                    I looked in the bin directory and there is no directory with the name “arm-linux-gnueabihf-” 

                                                    I’m not sure what the purpose of the export is but it looks like its creating a variable called  “CC” that is used in the calls to compile

                                                     

                                                     

                                                     

                                                     

                                                     

                                                     

                                                    • This reply was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by Gary Bronsongarybronson.
                                                  • #9295
                                                    rogerlucas
                                                    Participant

                                                      Hello guys, even with this approach or Robert Nelson patch is it still necessary to configure eeprom?

                                                      static inline int board_is_bone_lt(void)
                                                      {
                                                              return 1;
                                                      }

                                                      Is there any alternative for those who will need to do a large scale production?

                                                      Regards.

                                                      • #9317
                                                        Neeraj Dantu
                                                        Moderator

                                                          Roger,

                                                          In addition to Eric’s inputs, if you are not planning to update the bootloader, or if you plan to make this modification for future revisions of the bootloader, there is no need to program the EEPROM.

                                                          The advantage of having the EEPROM programmed is that the board will be able to run Beagle distros out of the box, while this modification will be required if the EEPROM is not programmed.

                                                          Best,

                                                          Neeraj

                                                        • #9319
                                                          rogerlucas
                                                          Participant

                                                            Thank you very much. I will opt for the modified u-boot because the device will only run its own OS.

                                                        • #9305
                                                          Eric TannerEricT
                                                          Participant

                                                            Hi RogerLucas, It would depend on what your “large scale production” is. If it’s your own product and no one will be trying to run different distos or whatevers on it, the methods discussed in this thread should be fine.

                                                            Otherwise you will have to program the EEPROM either externally or create some code to do it (as long as the EEPROM write protect line is not enabled)

                                                            • #9318
                                                              rogerlucas
                                                              Participant

                                                                Thank you very much for your attention in replying.

                                                            • #10759
                                                              Lyon SanksLoriNagle
                                                              Participant

                                                                Hello. Is there anything extraordinary that we ought to design in u-boot “bootcmd” or different contents that will let uncovered OSD module (exposed am3358 withouth cpsw, usb center point and with void EEPROM) to appropriately stack Linux/DTB into RAM and begin booting ? We saw that in U-boot there is no local help for pocket beagle or remote beagle bone buth in Linux part there are extraordinary setups for portion assemble.

                                                                • #10843
                                                                  Neeraj Dantu
                                                                  Moderator

                                                                    Lori,

                                                                    The pocketBeagle bootcmd supports generic functions loading the kernel and device tree. You can halt the boot process during U-Boot countdown and explore the bootcmd by using printenv.

                                                                    Best,

                                                                    Neeraj

                                                                • #10786
                                                                  Eshtaartha Basu
                                                                  Moderator

                                                                    Hello LoriNagle,

                                                                    Can you please elaborate on what you’re trying to do or what issue you’re facing?

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