OSD335x low level initalisation/application does not start

[Mike]

Hi,

we’re currently trying to modify an existing application for AM3358 out of an BeagleBone-like device to work with the Octavo OSD3358. For testing purposes we’re using a PocketBeagle at the moment. The software is a StarterWare-based bare metal application.

At the moment we’re trying to modify the (custom) MLO of this bare metal application in order to boot the application on the PocketBeagle. This MLO is known to work perfectly with the AM3358 and it loads a firmware file from the FatFS partition of an inserted microSD card.

According to the (incredibly small) manual of the Octavo SoC we changed the initialisation of the DDR and EMIF registers – but this does not seem to be everything which is necessary.

Now with these register settings the MLO successfully loads the main application into the DDR RAM but when the SoC jumps to the start address of it, it stalls. So it seems there is still a problem with the RAM initialisation. Either writing the application to the RAM does not work or execution of the loaded application is not possible for some reason.

What we can see at the moment: the BeagleBone initialisation of the RAM contains a lot more than shown in the Octavo manual, there several idle and shut-down states are set which are not mentioned in Octavo manual.

So…any idea what else is different in initialisation of BeagleBone and PocketBeagle? Are these additional idle/shut-down register settings needed too? Or is there a patch available for TI’s AM335x StarterWare in order to make it usable with the OSD3358?

Kind regards

Mike

[Greg Sheridan]

Hi Mike,

We are happy to help you with this.  However it is probably going to be a little more involved than what we can do on the forums.  I will reach out to you directly to discuss further.

Thanks,

Greg

[Mike]

Hello Greg,

finally I could solve this: the guys from the project at https://sourceforge.net/projects/starterwarefree/ have sources for a working MLO – not sure what the difference is to the one I tried, but the problem is fixed.

Mike

 

• This reply was modified 6 years, 11 months ago by Mike.

[Greg Sheridan]

Hi Mike,

Glad to hear it and thanks for sharing.  Let us know if there is anything else.

-Greg

[Waseem]

Hello Mike,

We are currently having the same problem you described exactly, however building the MLO from that project made things worse, currently it is stuck at the first message from their bootloader, our changed bootloader from starterware makes it up until jumping to app and hangs.

Is it possible to attach the MLO you were able to produce and got things working for you?

Thanks

Waseem

[Mike]

@Waseem: have you set the “pocketbeagle” compile switch as described?

[Waseem]

I was able to make it running myself with the ti Starterware + BBB support patch ( which i had no idea that it existed until yesterday) + new values for the DDR3 registers as specified  in the OCTAVO manual.

The problem with the Starterware-free seems to be the changes to the new fat system as it was trying to init. the SD card then it got stuck. However the changes that were made in the Starterware-free are pretty decent so i have not given up on it not yet (bunch of bug fixings + BBB 4GB internal flash access support + 2 PRUs which are now according to what they write are initiated and accessible). It just needs some cleaning + fixing the initialisation in the new Fatfs at least for the PocketBeagle. By the way the Bootloader from  Starterware-free did not work also for the BBB.

Regards

• This reply was modified 6 years, 5 months ago by Waseem.
• This reply was modified 6 years, 5 months ago by Waseem.

[Waseem]

By the way those are MLOs one for BBB and one for PB for those who want just to use it. i compiled them myself with standard Starterware settings booting form SD card and application name is (app)

MLO BBB : for beaglebone black.

MLO PB : for pocketbeagle.

app gpio-flash : small application for testing.

( MLO BBB or MLO PB must be renamed to MLO, and app gpio-flash must be renamed to app (or your own application) )

 

Regards

Edit: so i was not able to upload the files without extension so this should go without saying but remove the extension the file should be named only MLO or APP with no extensions

• This reply was modified 6 years, 5 months ago by Waseem.
• This reply was modified 6 years, 5 months ago by Waseem.

Attachments:

1. mlo-PB.pdf
2. app-gpio-flash.pdf
3. MLO-bbb.pdf

[Mike]

H, StarterWareFree worked for me but may be I used a somewhat older version of it. I’m quite sure the guys from StarterWareFree  would happily accept a patch which fixes the problems you described 😉

 

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