Re: Unable to boot Pi 3b+ UPDATED

Mark Millard wrote on 2023-08-17 12:22:
> On Aug 17, 2023, at 11:08, Peter G <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
>> Apologies for top posting, but now that I understand the problem better, most of the stuff below is not relevant. Here's the whole issue:
>>
>> Late last year there was a new hardware release of the Raspberry Pi 3B+ board. The PMIC chip was changed; more information is here:
>> https://pip.raspberrypi.com/categories/797-pcn/documents/RP-003337-PC/Pi3B-Revision-9-PCN.pdf
>> The new board is Rev. 1.4, a.k.a. a020d4.
>>
>> The FreeBSD image at
>> http://ftp3.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/ISO-IMAGES/13.2/FreeBSD-13.2-RELEASE-arm64-aarch64-RPI.img.xz
>> boots fine on the old Rev. 1.3 version of the board but it fails to boot on the Rev 1.4 version. I have tried it on more than one example of each version of the board. 1.3 boards boot fine, 1.4 boards fail to boot and flash the green LED in 4 long - 7 short pattern.
>>
>> Not sure what to do about this. Is it a known problem? Should I file a bug report?
> 
>  From the *.pdf document that you referenced:
> 
> QUOTE
> Software/Firmware Changes Required
> This new product revision is supported in firmware versions from September 2021 onwards.
> The firmware version . . . It can also be found for an image by running
>   strings /boot/start.elf | grep VC_BUILD
> END QUOTE
> 
> (The /boot/ path is not from FreeBSD, so replace
> with a FreeBSD path. Also, start4.elf is of more
> direct interest here.)
> 
> Until the recent change in systuil/rpi-firmware ,
> FreeBSD simply used too old of an RPI* firmware
> version (over 2 years old) to work for the RPi3B+
> Rev 1.4 (or later) parts.
> 
> I'm not aware of FreeBSD re-releasing the likes of
> a releng/X.Y with just updated RPi* firmware (or an
> updated U-Boot since such is also available now).
> 
> Any solution must involve replacing the older
> firmware with newer firmware. But the port to
> package builder is not done yet --and once it
> is there is also distribution time after that
> before the update will be available.
> 
> One way to do that replacement now is to get the
> material from the msdosfs for one of the snapshot
> builds that I referenced:
> 
> http://ftp3.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/snapshots/ISO-IMAGES/14.0/FreeBSD-14.0-ALPHA1-arm64-aarch64-RPI-20230811-136fc495615f-264678.img.xz

As you suggest, I tried substituting the msdos files from this 14.0 
image into the 13.2-RELEASE image.

First, I replaced all the files in the first (msdos) partition. That 
booted, but crashed when the kernel started, which caused it to reboot, 
and so on in loop.

Next, I tried replacing only the start4.elf file, leaving the others 
alone. That didn't boot at all, returning to the now familiar 4 slow - 7 
fast pattern of green LED flashes.

Any thoughts on which files should be substituted for a successful boot?

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