Pandora Freezes During Boot

[CFWhitman]

Right from when I first turned my Pandora on, it randomly freezes before it finishes booting. Sometimes it freezes on the progress bar screen; sometimes it freezes at the login screen (hitting enter or typing letters or DEL doesn't work). Sometimes it boots up completely, and sort of works.


I thought perhaps it could be some kind of firmware issue, so I tried flashing to Hotfix 5, and I had a devil of a time completing the flash correctly because it seemed to have the same freezing issue when trying to flash the firmware. So I had to get two successful boots in a row to complete the flash (one for the flash, one for first bootup afterward) in order for the firmware not to end up corrupted. When it freezes, I've tried waiting a long time (sometimes up to a few hours), but that doesn't help. I tried waiting a long time during the reflash process also, but it did not help. When the reflash finally worked, it didn't really take that long to complete. I think it's fair to say that the shortest time I waited during the failed reflashes (probably around twenty minutes) was significantly longer than it took when it was actually successful.


I was hoping that this perhaps was a battery seating issue or something simple, but none of the normal steps seem to make a difference.


Does anyone have any suggestions, or am I going to have to RMA this unit?


Thanks


Edit: Incidentally, I did try different SD cards, and although one or two seemed to be problematic (even after formatting them with SD Formatter), I found those that seemed to work correctly, but none of them made the flash or bootups more reliable. Bootups are unreliable with or without an SD card installed.

 

[mhadf]

Try holding down the Right shoulder on boot and selecting Default boot. It bypasses the Splash screen and might show what is causing the fail.

 

[CFWhitman]

It doesn't fail at the splash screen. It freezes during the progress bar or at the login screen. Actually, it seems like no matter what happens it freezes eventually.

 

[MarioPandio]

Among the normal steps is the advice to remove the battery completely for at least 10 minutes, which can allow some settings to reset. Have you given that a try aswell?


Thereafter, how about leaving the battery out of the equation (not installed) and trying to run the system purely from the mains. Does it boot then? Some units may not work in this way and at no time should you put the battery back in, whilst it is already on the mains, as that will fry things. So this is for testing purposes only really.

 

[mal_CanDo]

> It doesn't fail at the splash screen. It freezes during the progress bar or at the login screen.


I had it freezing at the progress bar ( about 95% done ), or just after ( clear screen, blinking cursor ).


I ended up reflashed the Pandora.

 

[CFWhitman]

I have figured out what's going on in a general sense.

Among the normal steps is the advice to remove the battery completely for at least 10 minutes, which can allow some settings to reset. Have you given that a try aswell?


Thereafter, how about leaving the battery out of the equation (not installed) and trying to run the system purely from the mains. Does it boot then? Some units may not work in this way and at no time should you put the battery back in, whilst it is already on the mains, as that will fry things. So this is for testing purposes only really.

Well, now I've tried both of these things, and they make no difference.


I have, however, identified a pattern with the way the device works. If you leave it off for a long period of time, it will work fine for the first several minutes you have it on. Then it will start behaving erratically until in short order it freezes. Once that has happened, it will not reboot again, or will just make it through the reboot, and then freeze. If you wait a long period of time (probably only 15 minutes or so is necessary), it will work for a while again.


This makes it clear that this is almost certainly a heat issue. Either (1) there is some kind of heat sink or dissipation mechanism inside that is missing or not working, and some component is overheating, or else (2) some component is bad in a way that makes it work alright cold, but not when it reaches normal operating temperature.


I am confident now that I could easily reflash again successfully by waiting for a significant period of time between running the initial flash and doing the first boot (in fact, I have realized now that this is what I happened to do for the reflash to finally be successful in the first place). Of course, there is no point since reflashing will not take care of the heat issue.


I'm guessing that this means I will definitely need to RMA it, unless there is some chance that a heat sink is merely out of place or something like that if I open it (which I am slightly hesitant to do while it is under warranty and not working correctly).


This is quite a disappointment since I really like the device during those few minutes it works. :-/

 

[the_marshal]

This definitely sound like an hardware issue and I would RMA it.


That being said heat really isn't a problem on an ARM device such as the Pandora. There is no heat sink and no need for any particular cooling. The only time the device will effectively warm up is when you are charging it.

 

[CFWhitman]

Well, I realize that the Pandora and ARM devices in general only require passive cooling. Of course, though, that doesn't mean that heat is not something to be considered. Heat is always a factor in any microprocessor. It has to be addressed, if not with active cooling, then at least with the layout of the processor itself so that its surface area provides sufficient cooling. Also, I've used ARM based devices that got quite warm to the touch during normal operation.


Looking at the Pandora's hacking guide I indeed don't see any indication of even a small heat sink anywhere (although it's possible I could have missed something small). That just makes it more likely that there is a bad component which only functions cold, or which for some reason heats up much faster than it normally would (and therefore makes the normal, designed in cooling insufficient). It's fairly apparent that heat is still almost certainly involved in the issue.