My VF2 died mysteriously overnight

As the title says, one day I had my VF2 running, working fine, using the standard Debian image. I went to bed, woke up and noticed it wasn’t running anymore. I’ve tried different power supplies…no LED’s light up, no fan, no activity whatsoever. I tried plugging in an inline USB power meter and it isn’t drawing any current. I don’t see or smell anything unusual on the board. No idea what happened to it :cry:

This one was an 8GB model purchased from ALLNET China on January 25. I’ll contact them about a possible warranty exchange but I’m not getting my hopes up.

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No fan implies a power supply failure, it’s directly connected to the main 5v rail.

So it’s either the onboard power regulator has failed (the circuitry near the usb-c socket), or a supply problem. I assume you have tried replacing power cable and supply.

Afik StarFive are reasonable with returns etc.

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Hello,

as mentioned, try replacing the power supply. If that doesn’t help, there is something wrong on the board itself.

Here is their contact info, I have mine from there too:
shop_cn@allnetchina.cn
EU branch: https://www.allnet.de/en/

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Thank you both. Yes, I tried a few different supplies and they didn’t work either. I emailed ALLNET last night but haven’t gotten a response yet. Today I might get my multimeter and check a few of the components on the board to see if I can find anything obvious.

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There is a good test point for the supply voltage /before/ the onboard buck regulator, but is’ on the underside of the board…

The fan socket is a good test point of the 5v rail :wink:

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If anyone is interested in an update, Allnet responded to my email and we are doing an exchange for a new board. They said I am the first one to report a dead VF2 to them, just my luck I suppose. I didn’t bother trying any further diagnosis on it because I’ve packed it up for the return shipment. So I’ll be without a VF2 for a while, but maybe we’ll have some mainlines/bugfixes in the meantime (big thanks to those working on development). :slightly_smiling_face:

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Glad to hear they are willing to do a swap. Another reason to keep doing business with them.

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