Hello,
I recently received my mnt pocket reform with the rockchip module, but I cant get it to boot.
The keyboard seems functional, the backlight comes on and I get the little screen to open. I select Power On and click Return, but then nothing happens.
If I checkout the battery status it says 70%.
Any idea which cables I should double check ? Everything looks fine to me, but maybe I missed something. I’ll try to upload pictures soon.
I just noticed that the motherboard has an on switch so I tried switching it to ON but that did not change anything.
Probably not related to your immediate issue but the Wifi antenna is supposed to be taped to the backplate (the black PCB piece with the big MNT logo on it), away from the big copper area. The spot where you antenna is sticking now will probably be under that copper piece, which will block your wifi signal and make the connection unstable.
The CPU module looks misaligned in the motherboard connector. I would suggest removing and re-inserting making sure the contacts are aligned with the connector along the whole length. I also think you need a couple of screws that will push and hold down the CPU module to make proper contact.
Yeah, I remember it being a little finicky when I installed my RK3588 upgrade.
Make sure to get it in the slot not slanted and so that the metal clamps on the side both click into place, but don’t use excessive force, it shouldn’t need much pressure.
Oh yes, I forgot the metal clamps. That is what holds down the module (not screws).
Based on what I see in the picture the module appears to be in a slight angle and may not be making contact in the top. You can push it in slightly before pushing down to get the metal clamps to hold it.
Thank you for the head’s up ! I’ve attached it to the back plate.
@pff @selfawaresoup You where right about it being misaligned, I was able to push it in a bit more. Unfortunately that still does not fix the problem. I’ll go recheck the other pieces with similar clamps.
I’ve checked the connectors again and everything seems fine, but I still cant get it to boot..
Thats too bad. (The flat cables can be tricky)
I would make sure the side on/off button is on (towards the headphone jack), and try again. (sorry if you did this already!)
As soon as I power my pocket on with the keyboard I see a blue light come on. Then it takes 5-10 seconds for the screen to light up.
The power switch is on, or else the keyboard display would not be working.
Do you see a blue (or green) LED light up from the side when you try to turn on the computer via the keyboard?
It would be good to figure out if the motherboard is turning on even thought nothing comes up on the display.
Oh I’m realizing now that the switch I touched on the motherboard was already in the ON position, so I put it back, now I get that light. A green light in the center, a blue light on the side and the keyboard backlight.
But the display still isnt showing anything.
It sounds like the main board is turning on now. Maybe it’s just the display not coming up, besides triple checking the display cable and adapter (including the connector in the display) you can could use a uart adaptor to see if the pocket is booting without display by checking the serial output on another computer.
I’ve just checked again and I’m fairly certain everything is connected okay, but no dice.
Thanks for the help anyways. I’ll dig into this again tomorrow.
I’m not sure what you are trying to boot from but I’d try flashing a micro sd card (or flashing a new one) with the pocket-rk3588 image and try booting from that.
I was under the impression that the emmc came with the os preinstalled ? In any case I’d of expected there to be some kind of boot sequence even if no os was present.
The “boot sequence” lives on the same medium as the OS (emmc or sd-card). On an x86 computer, you can disconnect the hard drive and you still get something on the screen telling you that the hard drive is disconnected. This works because the thing that does this (the BIOS) is on a chip on your motherboard. On embedded ARM systems, what is on the “motherboard” is only a very simplistic piece of code which loads the first stage bootloader from emmc or ssd. It has no idea what a screen even is. In case of rk3588 there are then two more stages until you get to u-boot but all of that is on emmc or the sd-card. Without the emmc or the sd-card being flashed with something meaningful, you don’t get a “boot sequence”. And as of today, u-boot for rk3588 has no display support so that “boot sequence” you do get is only visible via serial and not on your screen. Did you attach a USB UART serial adapter?
Oh I see. No I havent managed to find one yet.
