Diagnostics on a Pandaboard

Hi,

I managed to acquire a Pandaboard in addition to my Pi and attempted to set it up. Unfortunately at the moment – nothing happens. I suspect there are several variables causing this.

Firstly I’m trying to go through the HDMI→VGA adaptor I use for the Raspberry Pi. I suspect this is where things are going wrong. However, even if I get this right my monitor had to be set up iwith mode parameters on the Pi – something I’ve not done/not sure how to do on the Panda. So even if it /is/ happy, I won’t get much of a clue. I’m betting I will need an HDMI to DVI cable and use a DVI-D capable monitor. But as I don’t (currently) have one, best checking everything else…

Secondly, I have followed the steps to make my SD image. This looks correct on the Pi. But again – untested, and presumably an SD image that doesn’t work will result in not a lot happening.

Power-wise, I’m using an A9Home supply – which quotes 5V 4A.

The only flicker of activity I have seen thus far is when I plug the HDMI cable into the the DVI port the Status1 light briefly comes on. They aren’t on at any other time, nor are what I suspect are ethernet lights behind the ethernet port.

From the description hiven, could anyone confirm for me what I would ‘usually’ expect to see on an incorrectly configured Panda?

My plan over the weekend will be to put Ubuntu on another card, and use the HDMI port to plug into the HDMI TV to check whether I can get it booting something else with some of the variables removed. But useful to know what I might ‘expect’ to see if anything.

Connect a serial cable and watch what is on the serial terminal. http://omappedia.org/wiki/Minicom

I have try with a RPi-card. I only change the bootfiles in the loader-dir. It works. You need the right one for your Panda. Look at your Rev..
Only one HDMI Port is working under RISC OS. I mean the “inner” one.

Only one HDMI Port is working under RISC OS. I mean the “inner” one.

I’d call it the ‘outer’ one. The one that works under RISC OS is the one furthest away from the RJ45/USB sockets. If viewed from the rear with the power in on the left, it is the far right socket.

Thanks all.

The answer was that the Panda did not like an HDMI→VGA adaptor (or could not negotiate a mode to display).

Intrerestingly when plugged into the HDMI → VGA adaptor only one status light came on. When used with HDMI both came on before coming off. I wonder if this represents a fatal error on boot if no mode can be negotiated?

The adaptor is an active (powered) one which works fine on the Pi (providing the startup mode is specified.

Has anyone ha experience of using a Panda with a VGA monitor? Can you specify a startup mode?

Sorry – a couple more (easier) questions:

1) does RISC OS support adding two extra USB ports onto the header pins?

2) Has SD support moved forward from the documents page? I notice (on HDMI) that the Boot partition created with SDCreate shows up on RISC OS. Would a disc created with SystemDisc show and allow RISC OS files as per the Pi yet, or is that still some way off?

3) is the Panda icon available from anywhere? Very disappointed that the default OMAP 4 icon set was panda-less :-(.

1) yes