IMX6 SOLO only boots with SPL

[jsmith883]

I'm seeing something strange and hopefully someone can explain it to me.  We have a custom board that has been populated with a SOLO, DUAL, and QUAD.  I've noticed that if I flash u-boot.imx onto an SD card or the eMMC (at location 0x400), it will boot up just fine on the DUAL and QUAD boards.  However, if I try the exact steps on the SOLO board, it will not boot.  If I place an SPL at 0x400 (the SPL image was taken from Solid-Run: http://wiki.solid-run.com/doku.php?id=products:imx6:software:development:u-boot, and https://github.com/SolidRun/u-boot-imx6 ), the SOLO board will boot, load u-boot.img, and continue to boot up just fine.

Any ideas what the difference would be between a SOLO and DUAL/QUAD?  The boot configurations are identical on all three, and I've confirmed with the Lauterbach that the SBMR registers are the same.  So what gives?

I'm using buildroot, and the U-Boot sources are taken from here: git://git.freescale.com/imx/uboot-imx.git, and on branch rel_imx_4.1.15_2.0.0_ga, so I know that I'm using an up-to-date version of u-boot.  I've created a custom board file copied from /board/freescale/mx6sabersd.

[marcosal]

Hi jsmith883‌ , I downloaded a kernel using yocto (Freescale · GitHub  - sumo branch) and I got kernel 4.9.67. I used as MACHINE setting the sabreboardsd for arm.

The board where I plan to run it is using an IMX6 Solo processor. I tried to find the mx6solosabresd_defconfig but it is not in the kernel sources (I started using imx_v7_defconfig). Do you know if I could use a different *defconfig file or should I get the defconfig you used from somewhere else and tailor it according my board specifications?

Thanks for any help.

[jsmith883]

For the kernel you should be fine using the imx_v7_defconfig as it supports all imx6 processors by default.  The issue I was having was due to the u-boot defconfig file.  Just make sure you have the proper DDR configuration and your board should boot.

[jsmith883 · Accepted solution]

I figured out the issue.  As I was poking around in the u-boot sources, I noticed there were multiple defconfigs for the sabresd board that pointed to the different ddr configurations for quad/dual-lite/solo.  I made a copy of the mx6solosabresd_defconfig and modified it to fit my board files, rebuilt and it worked!