Hello everyone,
I am reaching out for help with a serious issue on my Banana Pi BPI-R4 Pro 8X board, which I received just 5 days ago.
The core problem:
The board does not boot on its own with any firmware. I have flashed firmware to both eMMC and SD card — the result is always the same. Without connecting the console cable (Type-C UART), the boot process does not proceed. The board hangs at the preinit stage indefinitely and only continues booting after the cable is plugged in.
The log confirms the anomaly:
[ 6.653852] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 2 using xhci-mtk
[ 6.705460] mtk_soc_eth 15100000.ethernet wan: renamed from eth1
[ 6.711994] ttyS ttyS0: 71 input overrun(s)
[ 6.728938] mtk_soc_eth 15100000.ethernet eth0: configuring for fixed/internal link mode
[ 6.738179] mtk_soc_eth 15100000.ethernet eth0: Link is Up - 10Gbps/Full - flow control rx/tx
[ 6.807716] hub 1-1:1.0: USB hub found
[ 6.813165] hub 1-1:1.0: 4 ports detected
[ 6.941347] usb 2-1: new SuperSpeed USB device number 2 using xhci-mtk
[ 6.993690] hub 2-1:1.0: USB hub found
[ 6.998266] hub 2-1:1.0: 4 ports detected
[ 16.474038] platform gpio-leds: deferred probe pending: leds-gpio: Failed to get GPIO '/gpio-leds/sys-led-red'
[ 16.485026] ttyS ttyS0: 9 input overrun(s)
[23836.360733] mount_root: loading kmods from internal overlay
[23836.382122] kmodloader: loading kernel modules from //etc/modules-boot.d/*
[23836.392354] kmodloader: done loading kernel modules from //etc/modules-boot.d/*
[23836.888496] block: attempting to load /tmp/overlay/upper/etc/config/fstab
[23836.897530] block: unable to load configuration (fstab: Entry not found)
[23836.904269] block: attempting to load /tmp/overlay/etc/config/fstab
[23836.910577] block: unable to load configuration (fstab: Entry not found)
[23836.917316] block: attempting to load /etc/config/fstab
[23836.927386] block: unable to load configuration (fstab: Entry not found)
[23836.934160] block: no usable configuration
The time gap between [16.48] and [23836.36] is nearly 6.6 hours. The system remains stuck until the console cable is connected.
Hardware configuration:
- Wi-Fi module: MediaTek MT7915E (Mini PCIe)
- Storage: NVMe SSD (used as data storage)
Additional symptoms: The fan starts running immediately after power-on. Its speed can be changed using echo 50 > /sys/class/hwmon/hwmon2/pwm1, but echo 0 > /sys/class/hwmon/hwmon2/pwm1 does not turn it off.
What I have already tried: Multiple firmware versions (official Banana Pi builds and frank-w builds) — no change. Booting from both eMMC and SD card — same behavior. Currently running firmware: Эта версия браузера устарела, папку нельзя открыть
Kernel version: 6.18.34 Firmware version: OpenWrt SNAPSHOT r34789+5-1ba7b38cfc
My question: Does this look like a hardware failure? Are there any known issues with the BPI-R4 Pro related to power delivery or clock generation? I would appreciate any ideas or suggestions.
