[U-Boot-Users] u-boot size and boot issue

[Jerry Van Baren]

mitsy wrote:
> Hello list,
> 
> I have mips board (au1550) and I'm having issues booting the board on
> its own when the u-boot size gets larger than 256k. It will boot fine
> when it's connected to BDI.
> 
> What am I doing wrong? I've been trying to figure out where I need to
> make a change to support u-boot with larger size since as long as the
> size if smaller than 256k, it works just fine.
> 
> Any suggestion will be greatly appreciated.
> 
> Thank you so much for your help.

Hi Mitsy,

Disclaimer: I am not a MIPS expert so I may be all wet...

My first guess is that you've allocated 256Kbytes worth of flash (2 
blocks at 128K each?  4 blocks at 64K each?) and so, when your image is 
more than 256K, you spill out of the allocated blocks and have a damaged 
image.  It may be as simple as erasing and programming more than 256K. 
After erasing your u-boot image, what is at the 256K mark?  Hopefully 
all 0xFFs (erased).

Another possibility is if you put your environment variables in a fixed 
location at the 256K mark, when your image exceeds 256K, the first time 
you do an env save command you will damage your image.  This shouldn't 
happen, but...

Best regards,
gvb