Messages

1

Gemini PDA - Hardware / Gemini screen line and not boot

« on: December 18, 2019, 07:10:21 pm »

Oh man... could've come up with that myself  Thanks for the hint!

Just did that and it seems to have worked. The charging light came back on, which it didn't do before and the charging animation worked to. Unfortunately, the battery already shows 0%  I hope I didn't do too much damage by discharging it too much this one time.

I'll let it charge over night and see if it boots tomorrow.

Thank you very much for your help

2

Gemini PDA - Hardware / Gemini screen line and not boot

« on: December 18, 2019, 09:00:15 am »

How long did it take for the battery to die completely?

My Gemini has run for several hours yesterday showing the graphics error, then went dark and started vibrating in short bursts in irregular intervals. It wouldn't show the splash screen anymore, regardless of how long/often I pressed the Esc/On-key.

This had stopped this morning and when I connected it to the carger, the battery animation showed up on the screen and then vanished in the same graphics error as the splash screen did before. Now its back to black screen and irregular bursts of vibration.

I'm going to give it a few more hours to die and then try again...

3

Gemini PDA - Hardware / Gemini screen line and not boot

« on: December 17, 2019, 05:21:06 am »

Hi, I'm having the same problem and just posted that to the "Gemini PDA - General Discussion" forum yesterday. (And now I see this post here...tought I'd looked everywhere...) At least I'm not the only one with this problem.

I also tried all sorts of reflashing, but nothing changed. The method with letting the battery run dead I haven't heard before. I'm gonna try that tonight.

@idc: Did the partial reflashing solve the problem for you? If yes, can you give more details?

4

Gemini PDA - General Discussion / Gemini broken after flashing

« on: December 16, 2019, 05:44:07 pm »

Hi,

I join your forum with bad news: My Gemini seems broken after I flashed the latest Android8.1 and Debian from the PlanetComputer website, following the guide (https://support.planetcom.co.uk/index.php/Linux_Flashing_Guide).

Video of the strange display behavior

The scatter file was created with this tool https://support.planetcom.co.uk/partitionTool8.html

- 20GB for Android, 36.407GB for Linux)
- Boot 1: Rooted Android
- Recovery: Recovery
- Boot 2: Debian
- Boot 3: TWRP Recovery


I backed up the NVRAM section and successfully flashed all the files. The first boot went fine and started Android. After setting up Android I wanted to start Linux.

But when I then tried to reboot into Linux (by pressing the side button during boot) it shows the Planet Computers splash screen and then starts the strange wiping of the screen.

I've let that run for several tens of minutes without any changes.

I tried all three boot options, all now show the same behaviour. Even Android does not start anymore.

I've tried the "Download only", "Firmware Upgrade" and the "Format All+ Download" Options from the Download-page in the flash tool.

Flashing only the Android stock image shows the same behavior...

The debug UART port from the MediaTek SOC shows the following output:

https://pastebin.com/4hsryMeE

The display starts the wiping after the log has reached the end. It seems like the booloader is okay, but starting the OS fails.

Gemini Support suggested flashing the stock image, and if that doesn't help, sending it in for service.

I had hoped to use the Gemini for 36C3 to not have to carry around a big laptop. So any help for fixing it without sending it to Planet Computers would be greatly appreciated!