A13 hardware problem

[rhorvat]

Hi everyone,
perhaps someone can help me. I don't have much experience with ARM boards but I'm a proficient electrician and programmer. Soldering and playing with scope, designing hardware and software is not a problem to me. Some time ago I purchased A13-OLinuXino board to experiment with but was unable to find time to play with. I installed the Debian image version 7 to see if the board works and that was all.
Recently I found time to play with the board, and I put the newest Debian image version 9 to SD card and experienced a number of problems which I believe to be hardware related. I tried to swap SD cards with no avail. The problem manifest itself with the corruption of the file system on the second ext2 file partition and in the log file with the message: __find_get_block_slow() failed. I also checked power supply and voltages on the board (with multimeter and scope), inspected board for the visible defects, but visually everything looks great.
The board is the latest revision E.

So, my question is: Do I throw the board, send it for a repairs, or something else...?

Not to mention that my first OLinuXino experience is ruined...

[vinifr]

Maybe problem could be EXT2. You can you to use EXT3 or better, EXT4.

[JohnS]

Try other A13 OS images.

Be suspicious of PSU.

John

[rhorvat]

Try other A13 OS images.

Be suspicious of PSU.

John

Yes, the first thing that I was suspicious was PSU. That's the reason I put 12V, 4A PSU and checked everything with multimeter and scope but to no avail.
PSU was not the reason!

I tried other Debian images, version 8 and version 9 but they have the same problem. Didn't try other ones because I'm interested in Debian OS primarily.

I even recompiled the u-boot and kernel with minimum drivers to see if that's the reason, but no, kernel wasn't faulty

I suspect that other images will have same problem, but will try.

Everything points to a hardware problem of some kind...

[rhorvat]

Maybe problem could be EXT2. You can you to use EXT3 or better, EXT4.

I seriously doubt it. Olimex wouldn't have official Debian images with problematic FS, and ext2 is an old and reliable FS.

[LubOlimex]

Hello there,

First of all, this is not a typical error message. We haven't received such during production, or at least I can't remember.

Double check if the microSD card is ok, these go faulty quite often. Then try with the Debian and Android microSD card images listed below:

1. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-bAEPML8fwlRHN4UzhrWVhzQms/edit?usp=sharing

2. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B-bAEPML8fwlVF9zcUxzQ1NDbms/edit?usp=sharing

Instructions on how to download each image to the microSD card might be found in the wiki article of the A13 board here: https://www.olimex.com/wiki/A13-OLinuXino

If the problem persists in Android this would further narrow the suspicion that it is a hardware problem. A good idea would be to post the whole log of the boot here so we can check if the problem is not elsewhere.

If the problem persist, of course, you can send the board back to us for inspection and repair. The warranty and returns policy is located here: https://www.olimex.com/wiki/GTC#Warranty.  If you have purchased it from another source you can contact the re-seller for your warranty (the procedure would depend on the supplier's policy).

Best regards,
Lub/OLIMEX