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Need help getting access to Qualcomm resources - DragonBoard 820c - 96Boards Forum

Need help getting access to Qualcomm resources

Products Support DragonBoard 820c
#1

Apologies if this is not the right forum but I really need help and I don’t know where to get it.
I’m hoping that someone can at least point me in the right direction.

I am software engineer with no embedded development experience and have been handed a board (Qualcomm® Snapdragon™) with

1: an image (Automotive Grade Linux: Halibut release)
2: flashing instructions
3: some source code for building the image
4: some build instructions (limited not from Qualcomm)

I need to
1: flash the existing image to the board to verify that it works
2: build a new AGL image with some additional packages (primarily a package manager and build tools)
3: flash the new image to the board
However, I am having great difficulty trying to figure out how to do this.

I do not have access to the Qualcomm documentation for this product or support from Qualcomm engineering.

The instructions that I was given to flash the image with QFIL do not work. It gets stuck at the moment of flashing. Here is a video:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/oYLyrEwsQn7MLxUY9

I’m thinking this might be related to the fact the instructions said that DIP switches 1&2 needed to be ON.

However, the only way for QFIL to detect the device is if they are turned off.

Apparently the instructions for the board elsewhere (which I don’t have access to) specify that they should be off.

As a non-embedded developer my competency is not very strong in this area to begin with and I am under a tremendous amount of pressure from management to make this work, so I could really benefit from access to (1) documentation, (2) engineering support, (3) source code updates.

But I have no idea how to get these things.

The organization within our company who sent this to me has the relationship with Qualcomm and they have not been as responsive to my requests for assistance as I need to make this happen, so I really don’t know how to solve this problem.

I’ve tried posting on Stack Exchange:

I’ve opened a case with IoT Sales to inquire about purchasing support, but I’m not sure how long they will take to respond or if they will be able to help me.

I’ve opened a tech support case.
Similar doubts. No response yet and not sure if they will be able to help me.

If anyone has any ideas about how I might go about getting access to the resources I need, I would very much appreciate that.

Thanks,
Alex

#2

Since it’s not about db820c, Can you replace dragonboard820c with custom board tag. Can you also please indicate which SoC you’re trying to deal with?

What you would like to have is access to the serial output of the board, to see what’s really happen (bootloader output, linux console, etc…). Development boards usually have uart pins availables, or even a dedicated uart-to-usb (ftdi) directly on the PCB.

Well, either the board will not be detected or if download mode is enabled will be enumerated as a com port (windows) or serial (ttyUSB under Linux).

Usually, this mode (EDL) is used for board recovery, because it’s implemented by the SoC ROM code. The EDL method is mainly used to bootstrap an other flashing protocol, fastboot, from which you can flash the boards partitions, boot, system, rootfs…

I’ve never used the Windows tool, but maybe you can have a try with the Linux one (QDL) [1], the method could be close to what we are using for dragonboards [2].

[1] Qualcomm USB flashing tool - 96Boards
[2] DragonBoard™ 820c Board Recovery - 96Boards

#3

I think the most important first step is to identify what, EXACTLY, the board is. Saying that it has a “qualcomm snapdragon” doesn’t give anybody anything useful to go by.

  1. What is the manufacturer?
  2. What is the exact part?

A picture of the board could be helpful.

Support for a particular board would be provided by some combination of the board’s vendor, another company contracted to support the board, and potentially the manufacturer/vendor of specific components on the board.

So for example, in the case of Dragonboard 820c, that list would consist of Arrow Electronics, 96boards/Linaro (i.e., this forum), as well as to some extent, Qualcomm and other component vendors (though they’re not very active in it).

Now I will tell you right now that not all hardware vendors are willing to extend hardware support beyond the original registered purchaser of a piece of hardware. I could (but won’t) name several board vendors who do this, and I consider it an extremely sketchy practice and probably also illegal in most civilized places. If you happen to have a board from one of THOSE vendors, my best recommendation would be to gouge profanities into it and mail it back to the vendor.