hello i have a new sbc board cubie a5e 1GB Ram starting via sdcard 32GB  and tried to boot it with armbian cli image.
Very early while the boards stuck with:

 

RADXA Cubie A5E 1GB RAM Armbian CLI stuck while uboot via sdcard

 

seems to be an issue with the uboot which hangs very early. 

 

With original debian image from radxa the board is b ooting and running. But i intend to use the armbian version with newer debian and kernel.

 

 

What can i do?

 

Regards Rolf

 

try DIY image with this pr on top of main: https://github.com/armbian/build/pull/9626

Problem remains the same. 

i have cloned a new build repos and patch with pr-9626 and rebuild image.
console output result remains:

U-Boot SPL 2026.01_armbian-2026.01-S127a-Pa547-Hc6a9-V2b7c-Bd0d2-R448a (May 18 2026 - 10:12:32 +0200)

DRAM: 1024 MiB

Something wrong with the uboot timing of the dram etc.? 

 

i can supplied the timing and trimming of the board with the funtional debian bootloader saved to spi. Setting of voltage regulators etc.  see attached file.

Regards Rolf

 

hardcopy.0

I found information indicating that the 1GB, 2GB, and 4GB RAM versions use different DRAM memory chips, which appears to cause incorrect startup settings on the 1GB version.

Details can be found here:
https://luotianyi.vc/8777.html

I therefore decided to return the board and wait until the 2GB or 4GB versions become available again.

 

Rolf

I am facing similar issue with this board and now I am stuck with it.

Hello Aniket,
as i mentioned the armbian is not working because of the different DRAM Voltage setting in uboot. 
The board was running with original debian version from RADXA https://github.com/radxa-build/radxa-cubie-a5e/releases.
If you check the log you see the dram voltage settings and training.
For me i'm waiting until a board with 2/4GB which hopefully runs with armbian.

 

Rolf

 
 

I found that this is related to the DRAM parameters in u-boot. I modified these parameters and now it can boot on my RADXA Cubie A5E v1.2 with 1GB RAM. However, I am not sure if these parameters are valid for the 2GB/4GB version that uses 0.6V.

 

This is the image with the parameters I modified: radxa-cubie-a5e-armbian-build

 

This is the tool I use to obtain parameters: radxa-cubie-a5e-u-boot

Guation, the image has no update MTD flash option in armbian-install so I can't boot from a nvme.

Guation. Would you be willing to share the patches (or Git commits) used to build the 1 GB Cubie A5E images? I'd like to incorporate them into the current Armbian build framework instead of using a prebuilt image.

Here is the commit: https://github.com/Guation/radxa-cubie-a5e-armbian-build/commit/202f1bf3943e2a583e10405f54b206fae9991a98

Edited July 3Jul 3 by xunicatt

On 7/2/2026 at 5:36 AM, xaja34 said:

Guation. Would you be willing to share the patches (or Git commits) used to build the 1 GB Cubie A5E images? I'd like to incorporate them into the current Armbian build framework instead of using a prebuilt image.

Hi xaja34,

The patches and all code modifications used to build the 1 GB Cubie A5E images are already present in my repository. I pushed the complete Git commits alongside the prebuilt images that I published in the Releases section.

You can find the changes here: radxa-cubie-a5e-armbian-build@202f1bf

Best regards,

Guation

Good Morning together,

I tried installing the image from here radxa-cubie-a5e-armbian-build@202f1bf. Unfortunately for me booting my 1gb Cubie a5e failed. The green flashlight is blinking (first a bit slower than a bit faster) which seems an improvement to the version before (static green light, no blinking)
As soon as I'm getting a UART Adapter, I'll hopefully get some more insights about whats going wrong

 

cheers.

Edited July 20Jul 20 by domillo
add more details

Hi domillo,

 

If the green light has started flashing, it may indicate that the system has been started, but at this point, we cannot determine the IP address of the Cubie a5e.

Once you have a UART adapter, please try to capture the DRAM parameters of the Cubie a5e according to this document: radxa-cubie-a5e-u-boot/README.md

 

Guation

Good evening

I finally managed to debug via the UART Cable and first got the following output:

U-Boot SPL 2026.01_armbian-2026.01-S127a-P6148-Hc6a9-Vf757-Bb190-R448a (Jul 15 2026 - 23:30:45 +0000)
DRAM: 1024 MiB
Failed to set core voltage! Can't set CPU frequency

But after a couples of reflashes the cubie finally started successfully and prompted for login. I then tried login via ssh as root with password 1234 which unfortunately failed. According to getting started the credentials are root & 1234?

Dominic

Hi domillo,

 

I remember that when you first start the image, it will ask you to create a user and set its password.

So the password 1234 for root may not be usable.

Perhaps the repeated startup caused the initialization process to be missed.

 

Guation

9 hours ago, domillo said:

I then tried login via ssh as root with password

This is disabled by default since many years in Linux distros. You need a public key for that usually or manually change sshd config yourself.

 

If you want ssh login at or after fist boot without first logging in via (serial) console, you can use this:

https://docs.armbian.com/User-Guide_Autoconfig/

 

If I search in an exiting/running Armbian installation:

# find / -xdev -name "*first*login*"
/etc/profile.d/armbian-check-first-login.sh
/etc/profile.d/armbian-check-first-login-reboot.sh
/usr/lib/armbian/armbian-firstlogin

I see from the latter script that if file:  /root/.not_logged_in_yet  exists, the fiirst login procedure should be run. I just tested this in a cloned temporary container and it works. It saves you from re-writing the whole SD-card again I would say. So as root at the (serial) console:

# touch /root/.not_logged_in_yet

# reboot

 

Hi there

thank you eselarm for your valuable input, eventually I managed to login using a custom configuration with Armbian Image. Maybe during the previous flashing there was another config file with a different root password, which I did not notice.
However, according to https://docs.armbian.com/User-Guide_Getting-Started/, an initial login for root should be possible with password 1234?

Anyway at least its working now, thanks again and thank you Guation for the custom image!

Domillo

29 minutes ago, domillo said:

However, according to https://docs.armbian.com/User-Guide_Getting-Started/, an initial login for root should be possible with password 1234?

Yes indeed it is written there, So I might have mixed-up the defaults for other distros. The test I did in a container does not work with ssh because it uses the kernel and IP address of the host that has already occupied port 22 for sshd.

Hi @Guation  你好@Guation
Can you submit this upstream?
你能把这个提交到上游吗？
However, this is a hard-coded configuration. Could we create a new configuration for 1GB of RAM, or should we modify U-Boot to recognize both memory types?
不过，这是一种硬编码的配置。我们能为1GB内存创建一个新配置吗，还是应该修改U-Boot以识别两种内存类型？

Edited August 19Aug 19 by zmxyz

Hi @zmxyz

 

I prefer to first verify on the 2GB/4GB version whether the parameters can be unified, in order to avoid splitting it into two versions as much as possible.

我倾向于先在2GB/4GB版本上验证是否能统一参数，尽量避免它分裂为两个版本。

I need someone who has this version to help verify it.

需要一个拥有该版本的人帮忙验证。

So it hasn't been submitted to the upstream yet.

所以至今还没有提交到上游。

Of course, dynamic recognition is also feasible, but the changes will be slightly larger.

当然做动态识别也是可行的，改动会稍微大一点。

 

Guation

Hi Guation, thanks for the 1GB RAM fix — it got my Cubie A5E (v1.2, 1GB) booting on Armbian Trixie, kernel 6.18.36-current-sunxi64.

I'm seeing very low sysbench cpu scores (single-thread ~56 events/sec, 8-thread ~1246 events/sec) and tracked it down to two things:

There's no cpufreq at all in this kernel — no /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq directory on any core, nothing in dmesg about cpufreq/opp/nvmem, and clk_summary shows no CPU-core PLL entry whatsoever (only pll-audio1). This matches linux-sunxi.org listing the A523 CPU clock/DVFS driver as still "work in progress" upstream, so it's likely a mainline gap rather than anything board-specific.

In the forum thread about your 1GB fix, someone's boot log showed "Failed to set core voltage! Can't set CPU frequency" — which looks like a separate, firmware/U-Boot-level issue tied to the 1GB DRAM voltage parameters, possibly capping the CPU at a fallback clock before Linux even loads.

edit

Edited August 24Aug 24 by zmxyz

Hi, @Guation

I am the owner of several Cubie A5E devices with 4 GB of RAM, rev. v1.2
Please let me know how I can assist you.

Edited August 29Aug 29 by karavan

2/4G device run just fine. only the 1G version needs different memory timing

Hi, @karavan

 

You only need to write this image to the TF card and check if it can be booted: Releases · Guation/radxa-cubie-a5e-armbian-build

 

Additionally, please check if the mainline version has a /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq directory for @xaja34.

 

Thank you for your help.

Edited August 30Aug 30 by Guation

Hi, @Гуация

 

The system does not boot.

In the UART console, two lines are displayed, and then all activity stops:

U-Boot SPL 2026.01_armbian-2026.01-S127a-Pd40e-Hc6a9-V2b7c-Bd0d2-R448a (Jun 22 2026 - 14:26:24 +0800)
DRAM: 4096 MiB

 

Цитата

please check if the mainline version has a /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq directory 

If I understood your request correctly.

In the Armbian_community_26.11.0-trunk.19_Radxa-cubie-a5e_trixie_current_6.18.45_minimal.img image, the requested directory exists, but at a different path:

root@radxa-cubie-a5e:~# find /sys/devices/system/ -name cpufreq
/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq

 

Hi, @karavan

 

Thank you for helping with the testing. It seems that the DRAM parameters of the 1G version and the 4G version cannot be mixed. I will try to enable U-BOOT to perform dynamic identification at startup.

 

The content of the /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq directory is empty. It appears that this issue has been present in the mainline version, and is not caused by the U-BOOT modifications I made.

 

I checked it on the official Radxa system and it looks like this:
 

root@radxa-cubie-a5e:~# uname -a
Linux radxa-cubie-a5e 5.15.147-10-aw2501 #10 SMP PREEMPT Mon Sep 8 07:12:29 UTC 2025 aarch64 GNU/Linux
root@radxa-cubie-a5e:~# ls -l /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Aug 31 02:49 /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq -> ../cpufreq/policy0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Aug 31 02:53 /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/cpufreq -> ../cpufreq/policy0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Aug 31 02:53 /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu2/cpufreq -> ../cpufreq/policy0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Aug 31 02:53 /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu3/cpufreq -> ../cpufreq/policy0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Aug 31 02:53 /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu4/cpufreq -> ../cpufreq/policy4
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Aug 31 02:53 /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu5/cpufreq -> ../cpufreq/policy4
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Aug 31 02:53 /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu6/cpufreq -> ../cpufreq/policy4
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Aug 31 02:53 /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu7/cpufreq -> ../cpufreq/policy4

 

Let me know if you need my assistance.

Hello everyone

I noticed that the mainline has updated the u-boot version of the RADXA Cubie A5E to v2026.07, but all the u-boot patches for this board are still retained at version v2026.01 and have not been enabled. I am now unsure where to place the patches for the 1GB memory version.

Interesting. Patches should be moved from https://github.com/armbian/build/tree/main/patch/u-boot/v2026.01 to https://github.com/armbian/build/tree/main/patch/u-boot/v2026.07-sunxi64