bolt won't start

I just got my bolt and really excited to try it out. However, it won't boot at all. There's a red light that just flashes on and off every other second. When i press the power on button, it stays red for a few seconds but then goes back to flashing red on and off. Can't find anything about what the flashing color means, that would be helpful if that information was provided.

 

The blinking light is the Arduino default program. The typical issue with Bolt failure to start is the power supply, are you using the standard Bolt power supply or another USB-C power supply ? The listed requirements are the absolute lowest the Bolt will run with, not a single volt lower or it won't boot the pc side of the Bolt at all.

 

i've tested it with my Macbook pro USB C charger and one i just bought, both are rated at 65W. Still won't power on. I'm bummed

 

they're customer support is really lacking too. i'm almost ready to return the bolt. honestly if the power requirements are so damn important they should have included the power supply with the bolt. no one in customer service has been helpful

 

i've testing now using an 80w charger that has both 20v 3A output and 20v 3.5A output. Neither works

 

Re: Macbook pro USB C charger (post #3)
Insufficient info. Some models (such as the authentic one) cannot offer 20V 3A but just 16.5V 3.65A, but some 3rd party versions can.
It's a YMMV thing.

My advice is to use the DC plug method, not USB-C method.

 

i've looked over that page many times. it mentions something about USB-C Sink Mode. Is that something that has to be set manually? Does it go into sink mode when you plug in a USB C cable with the right voltage amp (tried that, didn't work). There's no links or information on sink mode anywhere.

 

Nothing a user can set or control.
You have to have the correct power adapter and correct cable. (See my response in the "compatibility list" thread.)

 

i bought the offiial power source from UDOO for the bolt. IT'S DOING THE SAME THING. The amber light blinks when i have the power source plugged in. If i press the power button, it stays on for a few seconds, then starts blinking on and off again. I think that light is just the arduino indicator. So, since the official power supply doesn't work, does that mean i have a faulty unit?

 

Did you check the switch for Bios Reset? On my board it was on the wrong position and after change it the board booted without problems

 

Blinking led in the middle is Arduino led. You can ignore this one for the moment
The udoo board status led is on the left back corner giving orange light when power is attached and green when PC is started after pressing the power button front left corner.

Will your Udoo led become green?

 

See picture above for the LEDs and button. Also note the Bios UEFI reset switch on the bottom. If that switch is in the wrong setting the Udoo will not boot correctly and keeps rebooting.
See also the trouble shooting section in the documentation https://www.udoo.org/docs-bolt/Troubleshooting/index.html

 

Hello everyone,

I was very excited to receive my Udoo Bolt Gear a couple of days ago. Assembly and initial installation of Ubuntu went smoothly yesterday, I powered up and checked that all was well, running it for maybe 30 minutes all told. The only thing of note to me was that the fan never came on, even though the unit seemed to get quite hot. I resolved to look into this in my next work session. Later that night I switched it on for ten minutes, and all seemed well.

This morning I powered up again, and after two minutes of idle operation - no heavy tasks of any description - everything just died. Just the orange standby light. I pressed the power button, the light flickered green then stayed orange. I disconnected all power, waited a minute, plugged back in, hit the power button, and once again the light flickered green then went back to orange. It thereafter stayed orange no matter what I did.

I went through the troubleshooting measures, as advised on the site, running tests each time.
- Verified the power supply (I'm using the one supplied by Udoo)
- Disconnected all peripherals
- Left only the screen connected
- Followed the instructions for the BIOS reset switch, but saw no obvious response and eventually put it back to the recommended setting
- Disconnected the power button from the front header and used just the little one on the board
- Reconnected the power button
- Tried running with just one 8GB RAM card, then the other
- Switched to the other RAM slot and went through that process again.

All to no avail. As of now I'm left with a board where the only thing happening is that the orange standby lights up, along with the blinking Arduino LED; a bit anticlimactic...

I'm beginning to have a bad feeling. Has anybody here experienced power-up issues to this degree? Any thoughts on the next steps I should take? Any and all advice appreciated...

 

I would raise a support ticket in case you need to RMA the Bolt. I had something similar happen to me (albeit after several months) and had to RMA my unit and the replacement has run fine for over a year now.

 

Good to hear that the replacement has worked out, itimpi, thanks for the response. How about the other Bolt users here, any thoughts? Perhaps a Udoo Bolt technician would care to comment?

 

The only thing I can add is that your Ubuntu install is corrupt. Can you boot from an Ubuntu USB drive?

 

Hello waltervl, thank you for that,
Yes, I tried to get that to happen, but no response; it didn't ever go from the orange standby light. Would it make any difference if I flicked the Bios switch while the USB drive is plugged in?

 

Unless what is on the USB drive is itself corrupt, of course...

 

I would advise you to open a support ticket https://ticket.udoo.org/open.php