Zedboard doesn't boot

Hi guys,

I've been working with a Zedboard for a couple of weeks now, and today stopped working, it doesn't boot anymore. When I turn the power on the "power led" goes on, but the blue led never turns on.

I've tried using the Out Of Box SD Card image and I've checked the jumper configuration as well. I know the problem is with this Zedboard because I've tried the SD Card image on another Zedboard and it worked fine.

Any ideas of what could be happening?

Thanks!

Nicolas

0 Former Member over 11 years ago

If you have not overwritten the QSPI Flash you should be able to boot from QSPI to help isolate the problem.
Take a look at Appendix II in the ZedBoard Getting Started Guide for instructions:

http://www.zedboard.org/documentation/1521

-Gary
Cancel
Vote Up 0 Vote Down

Sign in to reply

Verify Answer

Cancel
0 Former Member over 11 years ago

Hi Gary,

Thanks for your help! I followed the instructions on the ZedBoard Getting Started Guide and I was able to boot from QSPI Flash, I got the same led pattern as in the example.
Cancel
Vote Up 0 Vote Down

Sign in to reply

Verify Answer

Cancel
0 Former Member over 11 years ago in reply to Former Member

Since your ZedBoard boots from QSPI Flash that seems to narrow down the problem to the SD Card boot. While it could be a problem with the ZedBoard SD interface, it is more likely the SD Card itself. Even though it does work on another ZedBoard, and did work earlier, it might be a marginal card. We have seen problems with some SD Card brands like Kingston. If you could copy the image to another SD Card and give it a try that could help determine the root of the problem.

-Gary
Cancel
Vote Up 0 Vote Down

Sign in to reply

Verify Answer

Cancel
0 Former Member over 11 years ago in reply to Former Member

I've tried booting with 3 different SD Cards and with different images (the OOB image and other one), still no results. I tested the 3 SD Cards on the other ZedBoard (the good one) and all 3 worked fine.
Cancel
Vote Up 0 Vote Down

Sign in to reply

Verify Answer

Cancel
0 Former Member over 11 years ago in reply to Former Member

It sounds like a board problem then. You might visually inspect the SD Card socket and make sure there is no obvious issue. Otherwise, if your board purchase is within the warranty period, you can contact the organization you purchased the board from and request an RMA.

-Gary
Cancel
Vote Up 0 Vote Down

Sign in to reply

Verify Answer

Cancel
0 Former Member over 11 years ago in reply to Former Member

I was able to boot from QSPI Flash, as explained in the ZedBoard Configuration and Booting Guide (http://zedboard.org/design/1521/11).

To boot from QSPI I loaded a BOOT.BIN file from de SD Card into the QSPI Flash. After that I set the jumpers in QSPI mode and everything worked fine. This shows that the SD Card is working, I can read data from it.

I think the problem might be related to the boot ROM. Any ideas?

Thanks!
Cancel
Vote Up 0 Vote Down

Sign in to reply

Verify Answer

Cancel
0 Former Member over 11 years ago in reply to Former Member

The QSPI boot file would have already been there unless you had erased or over written it. Copying the boot.bin from the SD Card to the QSPI Flash would not have worked. While boot.bin is the correct format for an SD Card boot file you have to generate a .mcs file type image for a QSPI boot and then use the Xilinx 'Program Flash' utility in SDK (or similar function) to write it to the QSPI Flash. You may have also noticed that the application booted from the QSPI was different than the one from the one on the SD Card.

-Gary
Cancel
Vote Up 0 Vote Down

Sign in to reply

Verify Answer

Cancel
0 Former Member over 11 years ago in reply to Former Member

The first time I booted from the QSPI the leds turned on in the same pattern as the Figure 28 of the ZedBoard Getting Started Guide.

After I followed the instructions on the ZedBoard Booting and Configuration Guide (pages 28-35) and booted again from the QSPI, the leds don't turn on anymore, but I got the GPIO Test Demo example going.

I don't know exactly how the QSPI booting process works, maybe I did something wrong, but I think I overwrited the content of the QSPI Flash with another boot image and it worked.

I'll try to boot from JTAG to see what happens.
Cancel
Vote Up 0 Vote Down

Sign in to reply

Verify Answer

Cancel
0 Former Member over 11 years ago

Hi guys,

I was able to boot from JTAG (based on this post: http://www.zedboard.org/content/jtag-linux-boot-fpga-design) and the ZedBoard Booting and Configuration Guide.

This was the steps I made (jumpers set in JTAG mode):

In XMD:
connect arm hw
fpga -f system.bit
connect arm hw
fpga -f system.bit
source ps7_init.tcl
ps7_init
init_user
source stub.tcl
target 64
dow u-boot.elf
con
< pause uboot in terminal >

In terminal (running uboot):
mmcinfo
fatls mmc 0
fatload mmc 0 0x8000 zImage
fatload mmc 0 0x800000 ramdisk8M.image.gz
fatload mmc 0 0x1000000 devicetree_ramdisk.dtb
go 0x8000

(You can see the output here: http://pastebin.com/qXMqu4XT)

After the "go 0x8000" line linux start booting (output here: http://pastebin.com/L3sqq0EA). It has some errors when trying to access de SD Card, but it's able to boot anyway.

Inside linux I'm able to see the SD Card in /dev/mmcblk0, but I'm no able to mount it. (output here: http://pastebin.com/PHSpHT7J).

The weird thing is I'm able to get access to the SD Card in uboot, but not in linux. Any ideas if this is hardware or software related?

Thanks!

Nicolas
Cancel
Vote Up 0 Vote Down

Sign in to reply

Verify Answer

Cancel
0 Former Member over 11 years ago

I had to disable the modem manager service on my Fedora 19 machine because it was somehow interfering with the boot process.

My board was freezing up while the kernel was booting and after a print statement reading "xgpiops e000a000.gpio: gpio at 0xe000a000 mapped to 0xe080a000"

To disable the modem manager service, I commented out the line reading "Exec=/usr/sbin/modem-manager" in /usr/share/dbus-1/system-services/org.freedesktop.ModemManager.service and then rebooted my machine. I tried this after I formatted the SD card and copied over the sd_image from the out of box files on the digilent website and the kernel was still hanging up.

Hopefully this helps someone along the road.
Cancel
Vote Up 0 Vote Down

Sign in to reply

Verify Answer

Cancel