CuBox-M Quad not powering USB devices

NXP i.MX8M Plus
1

I’ve got 3 CuBox-M Quad modules for evaluation, The first problem I’ve noticed is that attaching a USB device to the USB host ports on the CuBox will not power the USB devices. It is unclear to me if this is a problem with the batch of units I’ve received, or if I’m doing something wrong.

What I’ve tried:
I downloaded the pre-built image from Here

and flashed it, then booted up, I can see the OpenEmbedded GUI served over HDMI, but connecting a mouse/keyboard to the USB host ports doesn’t work, the mouse isn’t even powered.

Am I missing something fundamental or do I have faulty boards?

2

I believe those images need to be rebuilt with some additional patches. You can test with the Debian images that are available here https://solid-run-images.sos-de-fra-1.exo.io/IMX8/Debian/ I will get the Yocto images updated ASAP and update this thread when the CI has built them.

3

Thanks for your response jnettlet, but the link you provided is broken

4

Isn’t the modern internet fun. Here is the generic link, SolidRun Images

1 Like
5

That link works thanks!

So I’ve zeroed my sdcard and dd transferred Debian bullseye.

I’m assuming the image doesn’t come with a UI since there’s no HDMI signal, which is fine, but I still can’t get the mouse to power up.

I also can’t check if it is actually detected as a USB HID device since there’s a password on the ssh root login which I do not know (where can I find this password?), and the serial console doesn’t work, but I’m assuming it has the same issue since the mouse isn’t powered

To be more specific, I have this product: IMX8m plus CuBox M, and the power adapter that is suggested on the same purchase site.

6

Managed to get a serial console on one of the boards (previous board did not work), so I tried checking for a storage device from u-boot:

after attaching a USB thumb driver, and interrupting the boot process, I see:

Fastboot: Normal
Normal Boot
Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0
u-boot=> usb start
starting USB...
Bus usb@38100000: Register 2000140 NbrPorts 2
Starting the controller
USB XHCI 1.10
Bus usb@38200000: Register 2000140 NbrPorts 2
Starting the controller
USB XHCI 1.10
scanning bus usb@38100000 for devices... 1 USB Device(s) found
scanning bus usb@38200000 for devices... 1 USB Device(s) found
       scanning usb for storage devices... 0 Storage Device(s) found

it cannot find the storage device, so I believe it’s a power issue, but maybe this is expected? Am I supposed to do something to the CuBox to get the USB host to function?

7

I will post an image for you to test. Sorry about the confusion I thought my patches had been merged into that image already.

8

Thank you jnettlet, but what would be helpful is knowing how to make the changes in your yocto layer (or extending it with a bb to add the changes in our own layer), which would make more sense for our workflow.

in an email, someone from solidrun suggested the following to test:

echo 7 > /sys/class/gpio/export
echo out > /sys/class/gpio/gpio7/direction
echo 1 > /sys/class/gpio/gpio7/value

This works, so I"m trying to figure out where to make this change to be the default behaviour of the platform