I have spent hours trying to get any activity on my new Orange Pi PC I just purchased. I have been downloading and burning different images, reformatting / trying different SD cards, 2 power supplies, using DD, WIn32DiskImager, Rufus, scanning my SD using F3, etc lots of "pain".

 

The solution - which I found somewhere halfway by accident - is that some boards do not have card slots mounted correctly, but you can flex the card to make it work. So yes, I flexed the SD card and applied power, and like magic I got actual LED activity. OMG it boots now! Would have worked the entire time but it did not make contact with the SD card.

 

My solution for now is to stick a layer of paper to the back of the micro SD card so it fits tighter, and makes contact. This is working for me but can it be reliable over time? Not sure. Would like a better fix.

 

Does anyone know a method to fix the slot so it makes reliable contact without the extra wedge?

 

May I suggest that this could be added to a troubleshooting area of the getting started? I have been going crazy re-reading the getting started tutorial and other tutorials, trying to fix what was not broken - my SD is fine, my PS is fine, my first burned image would have worked. A 3rd source of trouble could be a poor-fitting TF card.

 

So at least it ends well! The card boots and seems really speedy!

 

(Thanks to the Armbian maintainers for a nice OS image - that was a cool first-time login sequence)

 

Willie

It seems the QA person who tested your board before shipping has very BIG fingers to get this kind of issue (fitting a SD card to see if it boots is part of QA testing) Orange boards are usually of a decent quality and design.

 

Either you can ask for a board exchange or you can live with this bothering but quite "minor" contact issue

 

The nice thing, the Board boots, lucky. I guess you appreciate your board even more now

May I suggest that this could be added to a troubleshooting area of the getting started? I have been going crazy re-reading the getting started tutorial and other tutorials, trying to fix what was not broken - my SD is fine, my PS is fine, my first burned image would have worked. A 3rd source of trouble could be a poor-fitting TF card.

 

I had lot's of board around and I have been sticking lot's of cards into them  It happen perhaps twice, that card was not recognized but it worked when ejected and plugged again. I never heard of bigger trouble, so I guess it's an rear even. Probably nobody went this far and simply trashed a board before.

 

Thanks for sharing your story.