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Hi,

I have been running my OS on RaspberryPI for some time... Though i have one problem;

Usb power port is almost worn out because of rebooting.. Need to manually unplug power and connect again to do a REAL reboot and not just a reset.

Is there any way to make the video core os perform a reboot trough the mailbox interface? (or something else). I want to restart the entire process like poweroff/on would do starting from ROM, then doing SD-card boot process..

regards
Thomas

1: cut usb cable
2: add switch
3: ...
4: profit

I was thinking something a little bit more fancy..

You can connect a switch across P6.

I didn't have one to hand so soldered a small patch cable in one of the holes, and briefly touch the other one with the other end of the cable to cause a reset.

Regards,
John.

You can utilize RasPi's Watchdog timer for that. Enable it and let it expire.

Watchdog was not documented in SOC datasheet, but there's an example on how to use it: Dwelch67's blinker06.

mutex wrote:Hi,

I have been running my OS on RaspberryPI for some time... Though i have one problem;

Usb power port is almost worn out because of rebooting.. Need to manually unplug power and connect again to do a REAL reboot and not just a reset.

Is there any way to make the video core os perform a reboot trough the mailbox interface? (or something else). I want to restart the entire process like poweroff/on would do starting from ROM, then doing SD-card boot process..

regards
Thomas

What is that "video core os"? If you meant the rpi supported OS, you can just run /sbin/reboot
If you're developing your own OS, just plug your usb cable into usb-transformer then into a wall socket with switch button.

A switch on the power supply works for me with my Pi. KISS.

And if a power adapter with switch is not available I'm sure you can find an extension cord with a switch

The issue is that if you're debugging an OS on the Pi you probably have a USB to TTL cable connected to the board. If this is the case then the board draws its power directly from this rather than the USB port on the board, so if you need to repeatedly power cycle in this mode without constantly plugging/unplugging you need another means. I may have misunderstood the setup the OP was describing.

Regards,
John.

I think you have misunderstood the OP's issue

Usb power port is almost worn out because of rebooting.

Momentarily disconnecting the pin that carries power on a serial cable isn't going to damage the power port (or even the header it is connected to).

The watchdog does only reset arm core. It does not invoke the video core bootloader which loads from SD etc.

I guess it would be no problem for Broadcom to implement the feature, but no documentation is availabe on it.

One option could be to preserve the second stage bootloader and the vector table etc. Then the reset trough watchdog could work. But if kernel crash and fucks up something in memory then it could potentially prevent the bootloader working.

I'll do some research on it.

Edit;

Actually looks like blinker6 is managing to reset it (vcore). Will give it a shot.

Regards
Thomas