[Orange pi win plus] black screen with VGA

Ucino · Published in 2017-7-31 22:50:17

Edited by Ucino at 2017-8-9 17:58

Hello,

I'm trying to participate to make available an open source & open hardware nano computer for children education.
For this, I have bought the orange pi win plus, and I'm using it with a Dell E152FP 1024 x 768 60 Hz monitor (cf. specs) with a HDMI to VGA converter sold by OrangePi (this item).

However I'm not able to use it, I had problems to display something on the screen :

debian_desktop_xfce4_jessie_A64_Win_V0_1.img : black screen
ubuntu_desktop_xfce4_xenial_A64_Win_V0_3.img : screen display "Impossible to display it"
Armbian_5.27.170614_Orangepiwin_Ubuntu_xenial_dev_4.11.1_desktop.7z when starting we can see something but after aproximatlivy 5 seconds, nothing, black screen
Raspbian_desktop_lxde_For_win_A64_V0_1.img : screen display "Impossible to display it"

Could someone please give me advices to be able to use the orange win plus with this screen ?

I have seen that there is the possibility to modify or add some files to use some Orange Pi with VGA ( cf. this post). Do you think it's possible that i try to do this with one of these OS for Orange Pi Win Plus ?

As the goal is to make an open source & hardware nano computer for children education (certainly make a primtux version for orange pi win), if this problem can have a solution and I can choose an OS, i priviligy to use first debian, then Armbian, then ubuntu and for final Raspbian (but i'm not sure it's a good choice - easyly adapt the OS and the FSF spirit are the needs).

Thanks for your help

silentbogo · Published in 2017-8-5 04:01:19

Have you tried switching screens.
On Ubuntu Server I get debug messages, so I have to manually hit Ctrl+Alt+F7 to get to login screen. Maybe desktop versions suffer from the same problem?

wkriesch · Published in 2017-8-5 03:41:02

I've been trying some distros too but unsucessfuly... but i found one that works... if you can try!!!! https://github.com/avafinger/opi-win-a64-firmware

Ucino · Published in 2017-8-9 17:48:54

@wkriesch Thanks a lot ! https://github.com/avafinger/opi-win-a64-firmware didn't work for me on Dell E152FP 1024 x 768 60 Hz but works on a Dell 1280x1024 60Hz ! It seems that is because avafinger has improved https://github.com/avafinger/gc2035, maybe this work will be reused by the other distros later.
@silentbogo thanks a lot for your reply, i tried sometimes to switch between the above two screens but maybe not everytime. I will now switch everytime when testing , and tried your solution Ctrl+Alt+F7.

Ucino · Published in 2017-8-10 22:57:39

Hi guys, thanks to your help, and the feedback and builds of Avafinger, he made 2 new files of screen resolution :
The default was a64-2GB.dtb set to 1920x1080@60Hz  : too big for old VGA screen.
He added a DTB for 720p@50Hz ;
And a DTB for 720p@60Hz.
The files could be downloaded on https://github.com/avafinger/opi ... uecomment-321518096

The DTB for 720p@60Hz make that i could use both screens : 1024 x 768 60 Hz & 1280x1024 60Hz .

It's quite easy to change these files.
1) Install the ubuntu LXDE as described here : https://github.com/avafinger/opi-win-a64-firmware (and use an USB SD reader, with the integrated SD reader of a laptop it's not working).
2) when you boot, if there is a black screen or a too big resolution, download the DTB files on an other computer, choose 50hz if your  screen has this frequence, or 60 if you have these.
3) put the SD card on your other computer,  make a backup of the SD card of boot/a64/a64-2GB.dtb
4) rename the DTB downloaded file in a64-2GB.dtb and past if in boot/a64/ (the original will be erased)
5) open a terminal, and add sync, and enter
6) you can put the SD card in the orange win pi and see if it works.

Ucino · Published in 2017-8-11 04:27:50

I discovered that we can also use these DTB with other distribution, it works fine now with debian_desktop_xfce4_jessie_A64_Win_V0_1.img on the 1024 x 768 60 Hz screen.

wkriesch · Published in 2017-8-14 21:47:30

Ucino replied at 2017-8-11 04:27
I discovered that we can also use these DTB with other distribution, it works fine now with debian_d ...

Awesome.. congratz!!!!!

waipotn · Published in 2017-9-17 05:29:31

It works for me with ubuntu_desktop_xfce4_xenial_A64_Win_V0_3.img. But the .DTB file places in BOOT/orangepi/OrangePi-A64.dtb.

Ucino · Published in 2017-9-22 20:00:50

Thanks for your feedback

I have also found in the manual user of OpIWIn+ that it seems there is instructions on how to make a custom DTB files for resolution : p. 45 of OrangePi Win.Win Plus_A64 User Manual_v0.9.1.pdf (in http://www.orangepi.org/downloadresources/ sowfare Design) Maybe this could help us.