VIM 3 won't boot, fast flashing white LED, stuck in "reset loop"

Technical Support
1

Problem

VIM3 no longer boots up, instead the White system LED flashes fast and gets stuck in a Reset loop.

Method

  • I installed latest OOWOW version 230308 on SD card.
  • Entered Upgrade mode using TST Mode keys (press Function key 3 times fast on power on).
  • Installed Armbian using Online Scripts method.
  • Power off VIM3 and remove SD card.
  • Power on and White LED flashes fast and VIM3 does not boot up.

Investigation

If I power off, then back on and enter Upgrade mode using TST mode then it boots up into Armbian ok.

When I connect via Serial/TTL console the following “reset loop” message is output repeatably.

G12B:BL:6e7c85:2a3b91;FEAT:E0F83180:402000;POC:B;RCY:0;SPINOR:0;0.
bl2_stage_init 0x01
bl2_stage_init 0x81
hw id: 0x0000 - pwm id 0x01
bl2_stage_init 0xc1
bl2_stage_init 0x02

L0:00000000
L1:20000703
L2:00008067
L3:14000000
B2:00402000
B1:e0f83180

TE: 58149

BL2 Built : 19:23:21, Sep 18 2020. g12b g9fde858 - gongwei.chen@droid11-sz

Board ID = 10
Set A53 clk to 24M
Set A73 clk to 24M
Set clk81 to 24M
A53 clk: 1200 MHz
A73 clk: 1200 MHz
CLK81: 166.6M
smccc: 00012c09
board id: 10
Load FIP HDR DDR from SPI, src: 0x00010000, des: 0xfffd0000, size: 0x00004000, part: 0
FIP HDR CHK: 0x000000ff ADDR 0xfffd0000
reset…

Other Attempts

To try and fix the boot problem, I tried other OS images (Manjaro) and it has same issue.

I installed Ubuntu image via USB Burning method and it has same no boot issue.

How do I go about fixing this no boot problem and get the VIM3 out of the “reset loop”?

2

So I see others on the forum have experienced this but no solution on how to fix it or details on what they did too fix it.

However after messing around a lot more I was able to find a solution;

Solution

Under OOWOW menu Device Configure -> Display Current KBI State it was showing variable BOOT_MODE=SPI.

As I had installed the OS to eMMC I decided to change this by going to Device Configure -> Set Boot Mode to MMC.

After reboot the device it now starts up without issue.

1 Like
3

I should further note that Khadas should update the OOWOW program so the correct BOOT_MODE value gets set based on what installation location was picked within the OOWOW GUI.

4

Tag @hyphop to see above note about OOWOW improvement.