Issues with the pine A64+ board (no ethernet, hdmi stops, etc)

[Mark Millard]

drigo Osorio rodrigo at osorio.me wrote on 
Sat May 16 19:05:27 UTC 2020 :

> Today I try to run pine64 images in my pine A64+ board[1]
> and found some blocking issues:
> 
> - No ethernet device not found
> - No sound device
> - Only one USB connector seems to work
> - HDMI only work during the first part of the boot sequence (tested with 
> the 12.1 only)
> - pciconf -lv result is empty
> 
> I try the 12.0-RELEASE , 12.1-RELEASE and 13.0-CURRENT (20200514)
> 
> 12.0:
> Serial output: 
> http://files.osorio.me/pine64-logs/pine64-12.0.boot.txt
> 
> 
> 12.1:
> Serial output: 
> http://files.osorio.me/pine64-logs/pine64-12.1.boot.txt
> 
> Errors: Module simplebus/awg failed to register: 17
>          Module awg/miibus failed to register: 17
> 
> 13.0:
> Serial output: 
> 
> http://files.osorio.me/pine64-logs/pine64-13-20200514.boot.txt
> 
> 
> I also did the test with the 12.1-RELEASE LTS, but u-boot fails with the
> following message:
> 
> U-Boot SPL 2019.07 (Nov 01 2019 - 01:52:40 +0000)
> DRAM: 0 MiB
> ### ERROR ### Please RESET the board ###

Your log file pine64-13-20200514.boot.txt reports that you have:

DRAM: 512 MiB
. . .
NOTICE:  BL31: Detected Allwinner A64/H64/R18 SoC (1689)
NOTICE:  BL31: Found U-Boot DTB at 0x4091018, model: Pine64
. . .
Model: Pine64


instead of (from the Pine64+ 2GB that I have access to):

. . .
NOTICE:  BL31: Found U-Boot DTB at 0x4091018, model: Pine64+
. . .
Model: Pine64+


So you have a Pine A64 instead of a Pine A64+. I do not
know if that explains any of the problems or not. It may
be that Pine64 (non-+) is just not supported by any
FreeBSD snapshot.


Next, taking your DRAM example:

The sysutils/u-boot-pine64 and sysutils/u-boot-pine-lts
ports are for different types of boards that have different
types of RAM. ( Both are based on sysutils/u-boot-master .)

Pine A64(+):
	• DDR3 RAM (up to 2GB)

Pine A64-LTS:
	• LPDDR3 RAM (up to 2GB)

The PINE64 vs. PINE64-LTS snapshots are different
by which sysutils/u-boot-point64* was used.

So the DRAM result of using u-boot-pine-lts on a
non-LTS board is expected.


For the rest, I at most can report how the Pine
A64+ 2GB that I have access to does based on
sysutils/u-boot-* as of ports head -523958 and
FreeBSD head -r360311 . I do my own builds and
installs. I've never tried to use the sound or
HDMI but I use EtherNet and USB.

I do report by noting differences in our log
files that might be of interest (instead of
listing everything) . . .


Your A64 log:

Net:   phy interface6
Could not get PHY for ethernet at 1c30000: addr 1
No ethernet found.

My A64+ log:

Net:   phy interface7
eth0: ethernet at 1c30000

(Note: Later in the sequence, and shown later
below, there are some other related messages
that are likely important.)


I had a Powered USB hub attached to the lower USB port,
with a USB SSD on the hub, and the USB SSD was found:

       scanning usb for storage devices... 1 Storage Device(s) found

The context for that seems to be:

scanning bus usb at 1c1b000 for devices... EHCI timed out on TD - token=0x80008c80
3 USB Device(s) found

(The USB SSD holds / after the kernel starts for
how I boot things. So the Pine64+ 2GB will not
finish booting without the USB SSD being found.)

Note: The above messages should be compared to the
upper-USB-port case that I later report on.

I also later get a:

Scanning disk usb_mass_storage.lun0...

that indicates that the USB SSD was found.


You then get EtherNet related messages that I do
not get:

phy interface6
mdio_register: non unique device name 'ethernet at 1c30000'
Could not get PHY for ethernet at 1c30000: addr 1

Note: My guess is that the "non unique device name" status
is itself a problem.


In my context, if the powered USB hub is plugged into the
upper USB port and I try such a boot in that configuration,
the USB hub and the USB SSD are not found:

scanning bus usb at 1c1b000 for devices... 1 USB Device(s) found
. . .
       scanning usb for storage devices... 0 Storage Device(s) found

However, as I understand it, that is the expected status on
FreeBSD at this point (and possibly always) for a Pine64+
2GB.

(Note: Technically, the powered USB hub and USB SSD are
both USB 3.0 capable but support USB 2 contexts as well.)


Hopefully, this note helps someone identify the issues via
the contrast with a context that does boot and has EtherNet
and the lower USB port working.

===
Mark Millard
marklmi at yahoo.com
( dsl-only.net went
away in early 2018-Mar)