[U-Boot-Users] at91sam9260-ek intermittenly fails at u-boot init

[Norman Cheung <normankeehoon@gmail.com>]

Dear all,

I am still struggling with this problem, but getting to reproduce this 
problem repeatably.  Hoping folks in the forum can give me some 
pointers.  Our Atmel FAE is clueless also.

This is repeatable, on two boards (both 9260 Rev A and Rev B):
- bootstrap, u-boot, kernel, RFS all downloaded to NAND with SAM-BA 2.6
- Without recycle power, just push reset button; u-boot will come up.  
And I can continue to boot Kernel (2.6.25)
- Push reset second time(and subsequent times), bootstrap will run and 
fail in the first few instruction of u-boot
- Sometimes power cycle, u-boot will come up again

- When it runs, if I has u-boot boot kernel, linux will run. 
- Push reset button in Linux board will reboot and u-boot will run again 
(all the times)
- If I use linux reboot, the board will stop after running bootstrap 
and  (I believe) branched to u-boot.

Our h/ware guy has checked all the timing NAND, SDRAM etc and we have 
experimented with all the settings. 

Thanks in advance for your help,
Norman

Norman Cheung wrote:
> Many thanks Stelian for the replies.  My comments inline.
>
> Norman
>
> Stelian Pop wrote:
>> Le mercredi 25 juin 2008 ? 01:36 +0000, Norman Cheung a ?crit :
>>  
>>> I am struggling with this problem for a week now and not making any 
>>> progress. So any suggestions, ideas or pointer will be greatly 
>>> appreciated.
>>>     
>> [...]
>>
>>   
> Since the post earlier, I have narrowed the problem to the bootstrap 
> during the copy from NAND to SDRAM, memories are corrupted.  I think I 
> have a marginal NAND chip.  I played around the  SMC  cycle timing  in 
> bootstrap,  I have a setting that I can boot u-boot with power cycle 6 
> out of 10 times.  So I am convinced that it is not an u-boot issue, 
> Thanks!
>>> The board works with u-boot 1.3.2 and at91bootstrap(1.5 I only have 
>>> the binary)
>>> booting from NAND.
>>>     
>>
>> The source (for the latest version) is freely available on the Atmel
>> site: http://www.atmel.com/dyn/products/tools_card.asp?tool_id=4093
>>
>> If you really need the source for an older version, I'm sure the Atmel
>> support will send it to you upon request.
>>
>>  
>>> U-boot fails intermittently at the start.  When it fails, it didn't 
>>> make it to
>>> my first printf statement.  When I use JTAG to debug it, it always 
>>> works. 
>>> If the board has been let without power for 1+ hour, it will also 
>>> boot up when I apply power to it(something to do with the battery 
>>> perhaps).
>>>     
>>
>> Did you try disconnecting the battery ? Or replacing the battery with a
>> new one ?
>>
>> [...]
>>   
> I tried disconnecting the battery and with the new SMC timing changes, 
> I can boot up only one time after disconnecting the battery.  I will 
> go and get a new battery.
>>     
>>> We had at91bootstrap 1.5 working well in 32-bit mode with u-boot 
>>> 1.3.2.  But I
>>> don't have the source.
>>>     
>>
>> See above.
>>
>>  
>>>   I wonder what is the current stable version of u-boot
>>> and at91bootstrap?     
>>
>> AT91Bootstrap seems to be at v1.9.
>>
>> As for U-Boot, try the latest git (which will soon be u-boot v1.3.4).
>>
>> (BTW, if Wolfgang is listening, it would be nice to have proper tags in
>> git as well as releases on the ftp server for the -pre version. Since
>> the merge window is closed, I guess we're up to v1.3.4-pre1 now, but
>> this version tag cannot be found anywhere...)
>>
>> Stelian.
>>   
>
>