Raspberry Pi 4

Should work – though it is untested.

-Before I spend too much time on why it is not working for me. Can anybody confirm that it does work?-

EDIT: Sorry Colin, for expressing doubt.
Of course it works.

The trouble I had was caused by the add-on board I was using from my CPC Farnell Raspberry Pi Desktop Kit.

The board (which is the same size as the Pi) sits on the GPIO pins and is used to power the Pi via the GPIO thus leaving the PI4 power connector free to connect a USB hub with keyboard and mice.

With the GPIO ROMmodule active I had problems at boot time which prevented the Pi4 from starting. *Unplugging the GPIO ROMmodule cured those issues and Colin’s build now works perfectly.

The add-on board has a mSATA card mount which I think would work reliably with the recommended 3.5amp power supply. I am currently using just the SDcard with a 2.5amp power supply.

It contains the files from my !Boot.loader directory – the riscos module has a modified USB module but that shouldn’t matter to you.

Colin thanks for sharing the files, all worked well and now my pi4 has fully function internet access using the normal connection. I was intrigued by your aside about a usb module is this a sign of things to come?

a sign of things to come?

Don’t think so. I got tired of the process to get ROOL to accept my changes – probably my fault I find the whole process rather opaque. Maybe if I was a professional programmer it would make more sense. The iMx6 is using the changes. All I’ve changed is I added Isochronous support which enables USB audio which you can use on an external DAC.

The trouble I had was caused by the add-on board I was using

Are you saying the add on board sata drive is working? The pi4 has 2 USB systems. For the board to work on riscos it would have to work with the DWCDriver – the one we have. But I found that the DWCDriver didn’t work on raspian. Do you know if your addon board works with both raspian and riscos?

Do you know if your addon board works with both raspian and riscos?

The Element 14 “Pi Desktop” (as sold by CPC Farnell) consists of a case plus the mSATA HAT. The case is designed for the Pi 2 / Pi 3, so can’t be used with a Pi 4 as the power/USB/Ethernet ports are in different positions. It would thus be a rather expensive way of buying an mSATA adapter.

If you’ve already got one, you could use an ordinary USB-to-microUSB cable to connect the mSATA HAT to your external USB hub, which is of course plugged into the USB-C power input port: this should get mSATA working under RISC OS. For Raspbian you could move the cable to one of the built-in USB ports on the Pi 4, thus bypassing the “DWCdriver” problem. I haven’t tried this out myself as I don’t have a spare mSATA drive :-(

Ah ok. I don’t have one but didn’t realise that you could just plugin a usb cable. I thought it just worked via pogo pins touching the board and was a bit surprised if the pi4 worked using this method.

Are you saying the add on board sata drive is working?

Yes, I have had it working. But as Stuart says, you have to use a USB cable from the board to the HUB.

EDIT: I thought I had! But it certainly isn’t working now.

I now have the Pi4 running with an external mSATA adapter plugged into the HUB (no cable). The Element 14 HAT is used only to power the Pi via the GPIO pins (GPIO module still unplgged). And, of couse, with an external mSATA drive 4, there is no need for a partitioned SD card, just a simple FAT SD card is needed with the loader files. Making backups and new machine setups so much simpler.

The Element 14 “Pi Desktop” (as sold by CPC Farnell) consists of a case plus the mSATA HAT. The case is designed for the Pi 2 / Pi 3, so can’t be used with a Pi 4 as the power/USB/Ethernet ports are in different positions.

If you don’t use the case, but have the board lying around unused, then it can be used to power a Pi4 via the GPIO pins. As you say, an expensive option if you don’t already have one unused.

I thought it just worked via pogo pins touching the board

No pogo pins are used. The mSATA connection on a Pi 2/3 is via a nice neat USB link which will not fit on a Pi4. (and the USB3 does not yet work in RO anyway)

Todays Rpi beta ROM should include the …….

Colin, the rerenced ROM does indeed include the items you mentioned. But I do have annother query.

I first noticed this on a Pi4, but I have the same problem on a Pi3, which is that when running Avalanche in full screen mode the usual Alt Gr menu option to exit full screen no no longer works.

I have tried everything I can think of to fix the issue but with no success.

I don’t use full screen – I run my other machines at a lower screen res – but just tried it with Avalanche on my armx6 and pi4 and (Alt Gr – menu) works fine here – the pi4 is using the rom I posted, not that it should make any difference.

Avalanche 0.22 (28-Dec-2009)

OK. Thanks for that.

I will continue looking for what I have wrong here.

Colin – thank you for your help! I have got the files (in a zip file on my SD card now); unfortunately my Pi4 still hangs at ‘SDIODriver’ (without a blinking cursor), even if I fully copy over the entire contents into ‘Loader’. It seems that RO is ‘hanging’ fairly early on my Pi4; it is a 4GB model, but I do seriously wonder whether there is a hidden fault in early RPis – since I bought my Pi4 very soon after they were made, so I may well have a ‘rare’ early version with undiscovered design faults! I will keep watching this thread for now, trying newer ROMs etc, and hope that eventually it will work on my RPi4!

My Pi4 hangs after “power on” if the USB hub plugged. With Colins stuff and with the other I have.
I use an y-OTG cable to power the Pi and plug the hub. Remove the hub continued boot. After the initial screen is visible, I can replug the hub.
Restart (warm start), no problems.

tymaja – are you running with the latest harddisc4 image? if not then this may be causing you problems.
I’ve got an early (day of launch) 2mb pi4 running headless (vnc over the onboard ethernet).
you could also try running without the usb hub, so power the pi directly through the usb c, just to check that it will boot ok.

From a recent post of mine …

I first noticed this on a Pi4, but I have the same problem on a Pi3, which is that when running Avalanche in full screen mode the usual Alt Gr menu option to exit full screen no no longer works.

I have now eliminated this problem on my Pi4. (It was not Pi4 related).

Is GPIO / SPI what ever working at the same way like RP3B+?
Have my Pi4 in PiTop V1. I2C is working (BattMgr), but “power off” not. Needs PiSPI I mean. I use the “old” module.

I have been running my Pi4 with SDIO power and a ‘standard’ USB-A hub plugged into the USB-C power connector by means of a USB-C to USB-A adapter. It works fine (Keyboard, mouse and SSD).

I have just bought myself a UGREEN USB-C HUB. It doesn’t work on my Pi4.

Research suggests that this may be caused by the, now, notorious USB-C power bug on the early Pi4s (I ordered mine on release day!).

I would be very pleased if somebody with a newer, fixed, Pi4 could tell me if it works with a non-powered, USB-C hub plugged into the USB-C port on the Pi (and with SDIO derived power)?

This morning I decided that the Pi 4 status was good enough for me to use it as my main system.

So, I decided to upgrade the EEPROM firmware (using Raspbian) to get benefit for the reduced power consumption and hence lower running temperature. Certainly, the power consumption has gone down by 200mA (or more) and at idle the temperature seems to settle at 56’C instead of 60’C (at today’s ambient room temperature).

However, leaving the resolution set at 1920×1080 resulted in the mouse pointer disappearing when moved to the right hand 50% of the screen. During my attempts at changing the resolution I saw all sorts of peculiar displays including the whole screen upside down and the mouse movements going the wrong way (although not necessarily with these two at the same time).

I now have the boot resolution set to 1280×720 which gives me a mouse pointer which can traverse the full screen and I can then change it after every boot to 1920×1080.

So, I decided to upgrade the EEPROM firmware (using Raspbian) …

However, leaving the resolution set at 1920×1080 resulted in the mouse pointer disappearing when moved to the right hand 50% of the screen. During my attempts at changing the resolution I saw all sorts of peculiar displays including the whole screen upside down and the mouse movements going the wrong way (although not necessarily with these two at the same time).

So I decided to upgrade the EEPROM here … and it is all OK, at 1920×1080.

Raspberry Pi 4 Model B
RAM 1915MB

*fx0
RISC OS 5.27 (17 May 2020)

*vcgencmd bootloader_version
Apr 16 2020 18:11:26

bootcode.bin  01May20
fixup.dat     12May20
fixup4.dat    12May20
start.elf     12May20
start4.elf    12May20

Thank You.

That suggests I need to get myself some newer files.

I need all of the loader files except to the ROM image.

But where from? I can’t see any other links in this topic.

I need all of the loader files except to the ROM image.

But where from? I can’t see any other links in this topic.

https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/tree/master/boot

Thank You.

One day, I will try to understand github. But the files did appear after a few false clicks.

I now have files dated 17 May 2020 and all is well at 1920×1080.

Oooh. That’s nice. :)

Current consumption and temperature have dropped again.

And this thing really flies! Far faster than than the raw CPU clock speed would suggest.

This isn’t a completely serious question, but is the name ‘EtherGENET’ set in stone? It seems a little redundant, assuming that the E in GENET stands for Ether…

I would be very pleased if somebody with a newer, fixed, Pi4 could tell me if it works with a non-powered, USB-C hub plugged into the USB-C port on the Pi (and with SDIO derived power)?

I would too, as I have a 60W USB Type-C PSU+Hub on my desk.
Would be nice if it could work, as it’s not really pricey.

https://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B06ZY1ZJDQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B07ZGG8WB5/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s02?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I’m nor very successful with this combination so far.

This isn’t a completely serious question, but is the name ‘EtherGENET’ set in stone? It seems a little redundant, assuming that the E in GENET stands for Ether…

GENET is the name of the driver for the Broadcom Ethernet MAC component on the Pi 4 SoC. It’s the same driver used across multiple platforms, so it makes sense to call it what everyone else calls it. RISC OS adds the Ether bit – it doesn’t strictly have to be called Ether, but that’s the convention.

Also, there’s no reason for ethernet device names to begin with E either, that’s another RISC OS convention. At least we’ve moved on from single letters (EtherH, eh0) now…