UP2 not powering on.

JRamirez

Got my Up2 Pentium 8/128 today.
Have a fresh Meanwell 5V/5A 25W Power Supply.
After attaching the Powersupply, the UP gives a very short Flash
of the 4 LEDs and than nothing. Tried with Screen, Keyboerd and USB Stick
attached and without in some combinations.

How should the LED on the UP behave at normal Operation?

Do the UP Power on if there is no bootable USB Stick attached and no
Operating System installed?

Is my Up broken?

Nicola Lunghi

The meanwell is not the supported DC power supply

check if the voltage is stabilized and is 5V

JRamirez

Are you kidding me? Why should the meanwell powersupply not be supported? That is one of the few manufacturer that yoy can get such a powersupply from. Which is supported then and why is this not stated anywhere?

Nicola Lunghi

Dear JRamirez

here's the official power supply:
https://up-shop.org/up-peripherals/126-up-squared-power-supply-5v6a.html

As I said check that the power supply that you have is a 5V stabilized power supply
For the pentium version you need at least a 5V / 5A stabilized supply

Regards
Nicola Lunghi

JRamirez

I have this Power Supply:
Meanwell GS40A05-P1J
it is a stabilized 5V /5V Powersupply.

Do you state that the Up2 board only functions with the Powersupply delivered by your Shop?

Can you give me hints about how the LED on the Up2 Board should behave if Power Plugged in.

What does a shot Flash of all 4 LED when pluggin in Power mean?

Ryan

I have the same problem with the power supply that came with my board in the mail. I received the board today, plugged in my peripherals and HDMI, then the power. I got nothing but the 4 LEDs flashing on briefly. The heatsink does get warm if I leave it plugged in, but I never get any indication that the board is actually on. I tried a few different USB peripherals with lights on them and none of them lit up.

Ryan

I had the same problem. I removed the heatsink and then reattached it and the board turned on, but now I have no video.

David Rolfe

I don't wish to derail this thread, but where are the four LED's being referred to here, as I am only seeing one?

Mind you I am using the official power supply as supplied by the UP Shop, and everything seems to be working OK, although all I have done so far is to update the UEFI BIOS.

Kabuli Chana

There seems to be a design issue with the heatsink having too close a tolerance to something on the top of the board. I had to back off the brass standoffs to not have things short out. And I mean I had to loosen the standoffs to less than any pressure/pull on the heatsink. But even then just a slight touch of the heatsink can/does short things out, causing loss of power and the high pitched oscillating sound others have noted.

@Montala, the leds that flash when things go wrong are above the NICs

JRamirez

After dismounting the Heatsink the Up Board works.
Without Heatsink the Temperatur in the Firmware Hardware Monitor goes about 52°C.
I took away most of the Thermal Compounds from the Heatsink an only letting so much that the
Die is coverered, i coud re attach the Heatsink and the Board is working.

I think that the Thermal Compund was shorting the little resonators on the Surface of the SoC.

Aling

@Others who have to unscrew UP Squared a little bit from the chassis: We have asked our chassis supplier to provide screw with less thread, so that users will not screw the heatsink too hard to fix into the chassis. Sorry for the trouble.

@JRamirez , in your case. You didn't screw UP Squared into a chassis, right ? If so, I will conduct further investigation on the thermal pad/ heatsink design.

eduncan911

When I received mine, I didn't even try to power it on. I immediately remove the beefy heatsink and attached it to the even-beefier all-metal chassis heatsink for the UP^2.

If I recall, the all-metal chassis had additional pads - and does not flex.

JRamirez

AlingWu wrote:

@Others who have to unscrew UP Squared a little bit from the chassis: We have asked our chassis supplier to provide screw with less thread, so that users will not screw the heatsink too hard to fix into the chassis. Sorry for the trouble.

@JRamirez , in your case. You didn't screw UP Squared into a chassis, right ? If so, I will conduct further investigation on the thermal pad/ heatsink design.

I did test with and without the Chassis and with the standard screws and the long ones for mountin in the chassis.

After removing the most of the thermal pad that goes over the little resonators, the screws can be fully fitted to the heatsink and the board.

David Rolfe

AlingWu wrote:

@Others who have to unscrew UP Squared a little bit from the chassis: We have asked our chassis supplier to provide screw with less thread, so that users will not screw the heatsink too hard to fix into the chassis. Sorry for the trouble.

Hi Ailing,

Could you please clarify which screws you are referring to here?

Are they the ones already fitted to the UP Squared boards, or those supplied with either of the cases?

Thanks!

Aling

For the screws(stand-offs) which were supplied with UP Squared plastic chassis.

Due to the mechanical design difference, we didn't receive the problem on the metal chassis yet, if there is any case, please report.

The bronze color stand-off...don't screw it too tight.

David Rolfe

Thanks for the clarification Aling.

If it is indeed the stand-off screws which you are going to ask your chassis supplier to change, can we assume that once you have received these that replacement screws will automatically be sent out to all customers who have already purchased the plastic chassis from you?

If this is not going to be the case then perhaps you could advise us accordingly, and at least offer them for purchase, at a nominal sum, for those customers who do require them, or would prefer to use them.

Thanks!

bomber

Hi,

Something similar happened to me also.
For me UP2 was working fine for most time, but under load it was randomly switching off and making noise like buzzing and not powering on for a while.
Now after loosening standoffs UP2 is working again.

But. loosening standoffs is not very reliable solution. What if heatsink gets hotter, expand and board shuts down in critical moment.
So where is problem ? Something make contact and create short circuit ? what it is ? can we insulate it ? Is there more reliable way of fixing this ?

For now I lost confidence in UP2

Aling

The UP^2 design has no problem. The problem only happens when users put UP^2 into ABS chassis.
We understand users tend to screw the standoff tightly to make sure they are doing a right job.
However, CPU is a very delicate silicon, that's why we have a thermal pad on top of it to protect and increase the efficiency of heat conduction.
the over-pressure could cause a problem.

We will add this as a precaution in assembly guide, and also reduce the thread of stand-off.

Thanks for your support!

JRamirez

AlingWu wrote:

The UP^2 design has no problem. The problem only happens when users put UP^2 into ABS chassis.
We understand users tend to screw the standoff tightly to make sure they are doing a right job.
However, CPU is a very delicate silicon, that's why we have a thermal pad on top of it to protect and increase the efficiency of heat conduction.
the over-pressure could cause a problem.

We will add this as a precaution in assembly guide, and also reduce the thread of stand-off.

Thanks for your support!

For me the UP2 Board was not bootable even with the normal screws and even without the ABS Chassis.

The Heatsink does not shorten any Components on the Board, i am really shure that the Problem lies within the Thermal Paste what is shortehing the Components on the SoC.
After removing most of the Thermal Paste the UP2 Board works even with fully tightened Screws.

Aling

@JRamirez, thanks for your information. We will make some test from our side.

bomber

You have thermal paste between heatsink and cpu ? On my UP2 there is only thermal pad (like tape, more like solid) not paste.

Aling

Hello,

It is thermal pad, not thermal paste.

CPU is a very delicate silicon, that's why we have a thermal pad on top of it to protect and increase the efficiency of heat conduction.

Kasper Olesen

I finally got around to trying out my UP Squared. I wanted to make sure I had attached its WiFi antenna first. But now I have this problem as well. I have not tried detaching the heat sink yet, I have one LED that turns on, the blue one at the power button. When I press it it just turns off. No indication that its working in any way. I have then checked the PSU I got with my UP2 board and it says it gives 5V -> 4000 mA... but the specs says it needs 5A? So... have I actually gotten a weak PSU with my UP2... that would be annoying.

Nicola Lunghi

Hi
Did you buy your PSU at the UP shop?
The led turn off is normal means that the FPGA is correctly initialized by the BIOS.
Did the BIOS menu show?
Did the OS boot?
Regards
Nicola Lunghi

Kasper Olesen

nicola-lunghi wrote:

Hi
Did you buy your PSU at the UP shop?
The led turn off is normal means that the FPGA is correctly initialized by the BIOS.
Did the BIOS menu show?
Did the OS boot?
Regards
Nicola Lunghi

That is the problem, I am getting nothing at all on the HDMI. I use the monitor my computer is connected to so I press input on it and it goes through the different inputs, but does not find the UP2 signal on the DVI port where I have a DVI to HDMI adapter in.

Does it really only have one LED to go by? There is no boot sounds and no LEDs blinking to indicate activity from what I can tell.

I got the PSU in the package with my UP2 that I ordered from the Kickstarter. At least I am 90% sure. I also looked at the PSUs you can order and it has the same pattern on the back.

Nicola Lunghi

If you got the UP^2 PSU in the package then its fine.
Try to remove the wifi board and see if the board at least show the AAEON logo on start
Also double check that your monitor works on the selected port.
If the board shows no logo at startup there's a chance that you've get a faulty board.
Contact directly AAEON for a replacement here https://up-shop.org/content/5-cancellation-and-return-policy

Regards
Nicola Lunghi

Kasper Olesen

nicola-lunghi wrote:

If you got the UP^2 PSU in the package then its fine.
Try to remove the wifi board and see if the board at least show the AAEON logo on start
Also double check that your monitor works on the selected port.
If the board shows no logo at startup there's a chance that you've get a faulty board.
Contact directly AAEON for a replacement here https://up-shop.org/content/5-cancellation-and-return-policy

Regards
Nicola Lunghi

Thanks, I will give this a go.

Kasper Olesen

nicola-lunghi wrote:

If you got the UP^2 PSU in the package then its fine.
Try to remove the wifi board and see if the board at least show the AAEON logo on start
Also double check that your monitor works on the selected port.
If the board shows no logo at startup there's a chance that you've get a faulty board.
Contact directly AAEON for a replacement here https://up-shop.org/content/5-cancellation-and-return-policy

Regards
Nicola Lunghi

I removed the WiFi card and connected it all again, still no signal at all. I tried the same thing with my Pi 3 on the same cable and port and it works fine.

I still think its likely the PSU though. Cant it just be that they sent me a PSU for the first UP board? As far as I can tell it did use a 4A PSU. The PSU clearly says 4000 mA output while it is also mentioned many times that the UP^2 requires 5A.

I took some photos of it:

Kasper Olesen

Are those images as corrupted as they seem to be to me? I will try another upload.

Ahh, they were more than 2MB in size.

Kasper Olesen

nicola-lunghi wrote:

If you got the UP^2 PSU in the package then its fine.
Try to remove the wifi board and see if the board at least show the AAEON logo on start
Also double check that your monitor works on the selected port.
If the board shows no logo at startup there's a chance that you've get a faulty board.
Contact directly AAEON for a replacement here https://up-shop.org/content/5-cancellation-and-return-policy

Regards
Nicola Lunghi

I figured I would try this... but since I got this through the kickstarter I dont have an account on the store and if I made one I dont think it would show the UP^2 I got from the Kickstarter.

I still think its just the wrong PSU. I guess I would have to go through the Kickstarter? I shared images of the PSU I got to show that its the one I got from AAEON (If they did the Kickstarter) to show that its only 4000mA and I am pretty sure it should say at least 5000mA as output.

Kasper Olesen

Okay, so I cannot get help from the store which I get referred to from this forum and when I take this up with the Kickstarter page they refer me to this forum.

Well, this sucks.