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

[Norman Cheung <brjerome.1@gmail.com>]

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.

The board works with u-boot 1.3.2 and at91bootstrap(1.5 I only have the binary)
booting from NAND.  We have changes the SDRAM from 32bit databus to 16bit and
NAND to 32M.   I am using U-boot 1.3.2 and AT91bootStrap 1.8. 

I changed the SDRAMC and PIOC init per Atmel's application notes in 
at91bootstrap.

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).  Once it booted
up,it is very stable.  I can run Mtest etc.  

We tried replacing NAND, SDRAM, etc.  Along the way we are battling bugs with 
SAM-BA as well.  We think that we have observed the same behavior on another
board.  We also experimented with different bootstraps and u-boot binaries.  

The only thing we can think of is Reset cycle or some h/ware init code in 
u-boot that might not be compatible with at91bootstrap's init code. 
   
We had at91bootstrap 1.5 working well in 32-bit mode with u-boot 1.3.2.  But I
don't have the source.  I wonder what is the current stable version of u-boot
and at91bootstrap? 

Thanks in advance for your help.

Norman