I received my Pocket few days ago and started using it for about 5 minutes (I went as far as finishing the initial configuration and setting up the WIFI) when it suddenly shut itself. All this time it was plugged and the OLED display wasn’t that clear to me, so I’m not sure that the batteries (which were at 12% upon receiving it) were charging the whole 5 minutes I was using it.
Since that time I wasn’t able to start it again no matter how long I let it plugged (I’m using a Pinecil USB-C cable along with either a USB-PD Anker charger a 65W or a 100W one). No led is lighting up on the mainboard and the OLED stays blank.
I’ve opened the battery compartment and looked at the batteries and controller board and the main IC (U1) is running incredibly hot (126°C which is the maximum junction temperature). The batteries are both at 3.8V for information.
Do anyone have the same issue? Is it possible to run the Pocket mainboard standalone without the charging board and the batteries? I didn’t find anything related to that in the troubleshoot section of the manual.
I’d like to see if the mainboard is ok and maybe using the pocket in a wired fashion while this problem gets treated through the support.
I’ve discussed this problem on IRC and opened a support ticket but in the meantime I’d like to discuss and hopefully troubleshoot this issue if it may help others in the same situation. While it’s frustrating to not be able to use such a good device, as it has been months I was waiting for it I can wait another few days : )
Hi, that sounds way too hot, so it’s a warranty repair case (as you already opened a ticket and plom just came back to work it should be handled swiftly).
You can run Pocket Reform without the charger module by bridging the power input and output pins on the charger board connector on the motherboard (using a 2mm shunt/jumper), I can post some pics about this tomorrow.
Thanks for your reply. While waiting for the support ticket to be handled I’ll be happy to know about how running the Pocket without any batteries since it would allow me to troubleshoot further and inform the support that it’s not a mainboard related problem for example. Cheers
It’s better, now when the Pocket is powered I can access the OLED menu which displays fine and react normally by neither selecting “Power on” or keeping Hyper+Enter pressed allows the Pocket to power on. The thermals are flat if not for the RP2040 which is some degrees above the ambient temp (logical as it’s busy displaying things on the OLED).
I’ve yet to hook up a serial monitor to the internal UART and see what’s going on and also try to flash a new image in case of a glitched emmc content. I’ll keep you all posted into these adventures.
I’ tried to bot from a prepared SD card following the flashing instructions (section 6.3 of the manual) with the ix8mp image to no avail sadly.
I have to correct something, the OLED menu isn’t behaving normally as I said yesterday, but is displaying only for a while and when I want to browse the menu for more than a few seconds (around 3 to 4s) it shut itself abruptly like it isn’t powered anymore. Then I’m not able to make it appear again with Hyper+Enter, I have to wait ~2 seconds to be able to do so. My conjecture could very well be wrong but it’s behaving as it was powered from a capacitor which would discharge fast and would make ~2s to be charged up again.
Also the red LED (D10) on the motherboard isn’t lit up constantly but is blinking like this : ON for 2s, OFF for 26s, ON for 2s, OFF for 26s, etc… (28s cycle running endlessly). I didn’t find any table with blinking patterns in the manual so I’m not sure if it’s an (undocumented) error code (if it is then some documentation added to the advanced topics section in the manual would be a good idea) or a very regular electronic glitch.
FWIW I’m using a brand new USB-C 100W-rated Anker cable and 100W GaN charger.
I’m not sure what I should see on the UART (UART2 as it’s a IMX8MP) but I’ll try in a few hours and report here if there something in the logs. Maybe the bootloader is corrupted? If so I’ve yet to read the instructions to flash another copy of it.
No output on UART S2 (RX2, TX2) when maintaining Hyper+Enter (the USB-UART adapter I’m using is working). I’m now wondering wther the emmc is corrupted and how to check for that and if yes how to flash a new bootloader (maybe through the USB-C SYSUSB port?).
After exchanging on IRC the next troubleshoot step would be to flash a patched version of the system controller to remove the voltage check since it may be what is causing this 28s endless bootloop. Section 7.2.4 of the Pocket Manual describes the procedure but sadly even with the prog switch to ON, jumpers on the two bottom pins, the farthest from the SYSUSB internal USB-C port (each parallel on the left and right of the bottom pins as pictured here ⠷) and a push on the reset button the board isn’t enumerating on my other computer (the cable is ok since it can recharge and share data with other USB-C devices). I’ve tested with and without the jumper in the charger port to no avail. I’ve also try to rotate 180° the USB-C connector as I know for a fact some cables are wired only on one side (this is a free troubleshooting tip to anyone working with USB-C cable, you’re welcome). A status LED which would flash when in programming/UF2 mode would be a nice addition here : )
The next think I’d like to try is following the flashing procedure but with a powered-on board through the USB-C external power port and the jumper hack as described in post 4. @minute what do you think about this?
Hello! I’m experiencing a similar issue with the charging board, and bypassing the charging board leaves me with the same issue where the system controller will only remain powered-on for a short period. It sounds like by flashing a patched version you were able to boot successfully, yeah? So it seems like this is a software issue and not e.g. a corrupted emmc image?
Which charger are you using? I’m using Anker model A2343, maybe there’s something there.
FYI we just did a longer hacking session at the company and fixed several issues in the sysctl firmware, which made a Steam Deck charger work (so probably others as well) and implements charging board detection, so these hiccups should be gone when testing without charging board. Will clean up and push tomorrow.
You have to indeed flash a new firmware on the system controller chip (see previous post). As you’ve got no way to power the Pocket from the battery you have to power it through the USB-PD port with a compatible charger. I use too a high-end A2343 which is a damn nice USB-PD charger if you’d ask me!
If you need help flashing your firmware do not hesitate to ask (even if the previous post should cover the topic) and if possible wait for @minute’s release to be able to capitalise on the last developements regarding charger support.
Regarding a future mother board revision for the Pocket reform, I think it would be nice to see a dedicated “battery bypass/direct power” jumper on the motherboard to facilitate projects where people reuse the motherboard externally (like the projects where people use Framework computer’s motherboard as a dedicated PC and not as a laptop). This would also make debugging easier but I don’t think the few problem we see here and there will became prevalent in the future, on the contrary.
Thanks! I’ve seen the manual and the process for flashing the system controller firmware already.
Rephrasing my question: what we’re experiencing with the system controller powering off after some seconds seems like a pre-existing issue written into the firmware, which presumably affects all devices being operated without the charging board (pending an updated firmware), right? And it seems like replacing the charging board would also return the device to a functional state, and would make it somewhat easier to update the system controller firmware?
Yes, to me there’s some margin of improvement in the current firmware which is understandable as USB-PD is kinda complex to deal with, but seeing how you and me encountered the same issue regarding the charging board maybe there’s an hardware problem which could be more widespread or at least isolated on few units.
Regarding the solution it’s definitively waiting for a charging board replacement but in the meantime flashing a patched system controller will do nicely.
Hey, just wanted to close the loop here: replacing the charging board allowed me to power the device on again with no other changes, and I have not had further issues. Being cautious, I updated the system controller firmware immediately as I described in another post before using the Anker A2343 USB-C charger again. This version of the system controller firmware (98310017) contains further changes to sysctl.c which appear to solve the system controller brownout issue and I am now able to additionally boot with the charger board unplugged, pins 2 and 3 in the charger connector jumped, and usb-c power as described above. Good news all around!
I received a new power charging board this week after a summer with a tethered Pocket Reform. I’m happy to be able to use it normally now!
The board installation was easy, and I’ve taken the opportunity to do a simple battery mod by fitting four 2mm rubber feet onto the battery cells to prevent them from rattling inside the compartment since I find it somewhat unsafe. I’v also upgraded the system controller firmware since the one I had was modded for a batteryless operation and I wasn’t sure how it’s react with a charger (don’t forget to powercycle the system controller after flashing it externally byt unplugging both the charger and the batteries and replug them after), otherwise the firmware would still display the previous firmware revision.
Well that wraps it up for this topic, now I can install a SSD in my Pocket reform and see how to do multiboot on it since it doesn’t seems anyone got that working yet (I want to experiment with plan9/9front, OpenBSD and Sculpt OS).
About the same time between my first post on this topic and the last one before this one so about 2 months. I was (am) mindful that MNT is a small operation, the summer is slower for everyone and that they were shipping dozens of units so few weeks of wait was expected and I wasn’t surprised. The support was mostly community based and as you saw in this topic I was able to quickly get a working (albeit tethered) Pocket reform thanks to the open source nature of it’s system controller, something that would have been impossible to do in such short time-frame (if ever) with a regular, closed-source hardware based laptop from another brand.
All in all I’m happy with the outcome and Lukas and plom and all the community have been very helpful : )
