Spo Comm Nano Ion 3 no boot + no gui

1st Official Post

    My Spo Book Nano Ion 3 device, wich is actually a Giadatech MI-D2550GT-R , gives me a lot of pain.

    First, it refuses to boot from usb flash drive. As i understand it only supports 32bit efi. Since LE only supports 64bit efi, whatever i try, it refuses to boot. Booting for example knoppix works fine. I have the latest bios revision installed.

    Second, when i install LE on its harddrive in another machine, and put de disc back in the ion 3, it boots, shows te LE boot logo, initiates the gui, and then freezes on a black screen (Kodi interface is not seen).

    The device holds an Atom D2550 with integrated graphics, and an Nvidia GT610 gpu (yey, motion-adaptive de-interlace :) ).

    Is there any way to get this machine to run LE?

    This is the device: spo-comm GmbH spo-book NANO ION3 - Digital Signage Entry Model with NVIDIA Graphics Card

    Edited once, last by dipswitch (March 7, 2017 at 8:41 PM).

    • Official Post

    If installing on another machine results in something that boots .. do CTL+ALT+F3 on the "hung" screen and you should see a local console (because it hasn't hung, it's just not showing output). At the console run "cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log | paste" and "journalctl -b 0 --no-pager | paste" and share the URL's generated. You should also be able to do "ifconfig" and see the IP address and then SSH in to the box.

    [hr]

    Quote from chewitt


    If installing on another machine results in something that boots .. do CTL+ALT+F3 on the "hung" screen and you should see a local console (because it hasn't hung, it's just not showing output). At the console run "cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log | paste" and "journalctl -b 0 --no-pager | paste" and share the URL's generated. You should also be able to do "ifconfig" and see the IP address and then SSH in to the box.

    Thank you for your reply.

    LRTS

    NZCP

    What happened is: i wasnt able to ssh in to the box, since i couldnt enable ssh in the first welcome screen. I then connected the box not with hdmi but on analalog d-sub vga. It then booted fine, showed the gui, and i was able to enable ssh. Then i shut it down, connected it again through hdmi, and did as you told.

    Strangely enough, when connected on hdmi, when i do CTL-ALT-F3, i only get a blinking cursos and no prompt. Typing text also results in nothing.
    [hr]

    Quote from Klojum


    LibreELEC Generic is a full 64-bit build. so if your machine is a 32-bit only box, it wil not only not boot, but also not run the 64bit Linux OS.

    FYI, the last 32bit build available is the OpenELEC v5.0.8 build.

    The problem is not the cpu's microarchitecture. The Intel D2550 cpu is a multi core 64bit processor. The problem is the bios/efi being not able to boot in 64bit efi, only in 32bit efi. I know, this is weird. But there are more devices that suffer from this issue. For example a budget laptop that i encountered some time ago; had a intel z*** atom with 32bit efi. So it was only able to run 32bit windows even when the cpu was a native 64bit intel cpu. That cpu also had a 2gb memory limit; that is intel preventing that cpu to become "to good". This is why there are 32bit bootable efi media and 64bit bootable efi media.

    Edited once, last by dipswitch (March 8, 2017 at 12:10 PM).

    • Official Post

    It looks like everything is up and working .. run "/usr/lib/kodi/kodi-xrandr | paste" so we can see the Xorg modes available. You can also switch modes by running "xrandr --output HDMI-1 --mode 0x1be" (where 0x1be is a valid mode shortcode). You might need to see if other modes are within range of what the monitor will handle?

    Do you have the TV connected to your nvidia card via hdmi? If so you could try using a dvi to hdmi adapter.
    I have this issue ever since i am using a n3700 board. Over hdmi I don't get a picture with dvi to hdmi everything works.

    Also you can check if the nvidia (pcie device) is set as primery display at the bios. You can also try to dissable onboard intel video.

    Maybe this will do the trick

    Quote from Nicolas


    Do you have the TV connected to your nvidia card via hdmi? If so you could try using a dvi to hdmi adapter.
    I have this issue ever since i am using a n3700 board. Over hdmi I don't get a picture with dvi to hdmi everything works.

    Also you can check if the nvidia (pcie device) is set as primery display at the bios. You can also try to dissable onboard intel video.

    Maybe this will do the trick

    The spo comm device has an onboard nvidia gpu, it is not a seperate card. There is only a hdmi and a d-sub output. The phoenix bios of this device is terrible, there is nothing to configure related to the gpu(s). (and nothing related to booting efi/csm :s )
    [hr]

    Quote from chewitt


    It looks like everything is up and working .. run "/usr/lib/kodi/kodi-xrandr | paste" so we can see the Xorg modes available. You can also switch modes by running "xrandr --output HDMI-1 --mode 0x1be" (where 0x1be is a valid mode shortcode). You might need to see if other modes are within range of what the monitor will handle?

    DcFW

    This is weird: it says DVI-D-0 . The spo comm doesnt have a dvi output.... Or am i misinterpreting (yes im a noob :D )

    xrandr --output HDMI-1 --mode 0x1be results in "warning: output HDMI-1 not found; ignoring"

    when i do xrandr --output HDMI-0 --mode 0x1be it results in "xrandr: cannot find mode 0x1be"

    Tried xrandr --output HDMI-0 --mode 0x1f5 . This results in nothing, just the prompt, and the screen stays black.

    Edited once, last by dipswitch (March 8, 2017 at 10:04 PM).

    To sum things up: it seems that the device boot's LE fine, but it only fails to output on hdmi. Could this be an issue duo to it having two gpu's? (intel and nvidia)?

    Quote from chewitt


    Please run "lsmod | paste" and share the URL; let's see if there is more than one GPU detected. If there is and the BIOS doesn't provide options for disabling one of the cards we can blacklist modules to prevent them loading and confusing Xorg.

    MhSa

    What is weird is that the hdmi output does output a signal, only without "content". So now in test setup it does 1080p/60 on my monitor. And in case of the television it also outputs 1080p.

    • Official Post

    two things:

    a) cp /etc/x11/xorg-nvidia.conf /storage/.config/xorg.conf .. then edit the file so modedebug is "true" and reboot, then "cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log | paste" again so we can see debug output. There is a single GPU detected, but maybe something is wonky.

    b) wget 96-nvidia.rules -O /storage/.config/udev.rules.d/96-nvdia.rules .. then reboot and see if the card prefers the older 340.xx driver instead of the 357.xx one.

    Quote from chewitt


    jTAXtwo things:

    a) cp /etc/x11/xorg-nvidia.conf /storage/.config/xorg.conf .. then edit the file so modedebug is "true" and reboot, then "cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log | paste" again so we can see debug output. There is a single GPU detected, but maybe something is wonky.

    b) wget 96-nvidia.rules -O /storage/.config/udev.rules.d/96-nvdia.rules .. then reboot and see if the card prefers the older 340.xx driver instead of the 357.xx one.

    jTAX

    After the last command, for the old drivers, the result is the same. A blank screen, it does have a output, just nothing in it .

    I've added some pics of the device. As you can see theres almost nothing to config in the bios.

    • Official Post

    From the logs you've give us it looks like the correct drivers are loaded, Xorg is running, something is being output. If the result is still a black screen I have to guess it's an issue with connectors/cables or something funky about the TV itself. If I had local access to the box to experiment I could test a bit more, but remotely.. I'm out of sensible suggestions. Have you tested with it on a different TV?

    Quote from chewitt


    From the logs you've give us it looks like the correct drivers are loaded, Xorg is running, something is being output. If the result is still a black screen I have to guess it's an issue with connectors/cables or something funky about the TV itself. If I had local access to the box to experiment I could test a bit more, but remotely.. I'm out of sensible suggestions. Have you tested with it on a different TV?

    I did some more testing, only to conclude that this really is a LE problem. I was able to boot Ubuntu (64bit) , once it booted i gave me no problems whatsoever. I got an instant 1080p60 output over hdmi.

    Next up was Knoppix. This also gave me no problems, again 1080p60 over hdmi perfectly. Keep in mind: this all was done with exactly the same hdmi cable and display. The LE problems keep occuring on both a fullhd computer display and my television (panasonic 42" fullhd over hdmi).

    What is weird is that LE , once the LE bootlogo disappears and the GUI should appear, it does output a 1080p60 signal over hdmi, but just gives a blank screen. Also the text terminal only displays a blinking cursor, again perfectly in 1080p60.

    See attached screenshots for more info.

    I was thinking, could it be something else that keeps X from showing the gui? Since everything is working and i've got a 1080p output over hmdi, could it be some hardware component stalling the system?