Did I just brick my new toy?

D

dfelicia

New member
I just got a Z83-4U from eBay, plugged it in, and it booted to Windows no problem. I want to run Ubuntu, so I flashed Z83-4U-BIOS-[CHT0C04-001]. At the end it reported success and I exited. It then started booting Windows.

I think this is where I made a mistake...

I know I want to boot my Ubuntu installer (downloaded the iso from this forum), so I pressed and held the power button to interrupt the boot process.

It seems I have bricked the device. The power light is green, and I think ity was previously blue. I can't get display from HDMI or DisplayPort.

Did I break my new toy 10 minutes into ownership??

Any help appreciated.
 
So nothing shown during pre-boot ? No MINIX logo ?
Can you go into bios ? (press DEL key very early)
 
Skynet said:
So nothing shown during pre-boot ? No MINIX logo ?
Can you go into bios ? (press DEL key very early)
Click to expand...
Display doesn’t even come on. :-( I found another thread that lists LED light meanings, and green pretty much means S.O.L.

I will try DEL immediately after power on, but have low hopes. Might try to reapply old firmware using JTAG when I’m bored. Looks like I need to grab a new one from eBay, though.

I would like to know if I caused this by impatiently holding power after successfully flashing? To be clear, it flashed successfully, I typed exit and hit enter, and it rebooted. It showed the MINIX logo and spinning circle icon blow it. That’s when I decided to hold in the power button to avoid booting the OS. My guess is that if I’d just let it boot and shutdown things would be fine.
 
dfelicia said:
I just got a Z83-4U from eBay, plugged it in, and it booted to Windows no problem.
Click to expand...
I'm confused because a Z83-4U should already have Ubuntu installed, not Windows!

I presume the previous owner has changed it to Windows.

You didn't need to change the BIOS.
 
Villa said:
I think you had a CAT0A BIOS but by flashing a CAT0C (CHT0C) it has bricked the device! :confused:
Click to expand...
Got a new unit from eBay, today. $50 with no accessories... that's $10 more than my original that came with everything! Price of being impatient, I guess.

Anyway, it's got CHT0A 1.60 on it. I had no trouble installing Z83-4U-Ubuntu_2020.04_LTS-20200703.iso, which is how I should have started the last time.

I uninstalled the desktop and it's happily running headless in the closet, plugged into UPS and ethernet. Sweet! Now to put it to work...

Hopefully this thread helps the next guy. Don't fix what ain't broke! Neat little device.
 
Marty said:
https://pi-hole.net/
Click to expand...
I run unbound on my router (Asus Merlin), and I like it better than pi-hole. The MINIX is at work, though! It's running HOOBS and Docker (for time machine backups).

This whole MINIX adventure started because Pi's are out of stock world wide. In the end though, what a value! Box, power, antenna, cables, etc. for $42 shipped?! Well, plus another $50 because I'm an idiot. ;-)

Good info and people, here. Thank you for the support.
 
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