Rock4/FAQs

English

General

Where can I buy ROCK Pi 4?

Currently you can buy model B from Allnet. Check the Buy page.

Where is ROCK Pi 4 Model A, I can't buy it from anywhere?

At the time of writing(17th, Nov), ROCK Pi Model A is still in production now. We will announce it when model A is ready to ship.

What's the difference between Model A and Model B and Model C?

The model B has PoE header, 802.11ac wifi, bt 5.0 while the model A doesn't have. The form factor is compatible. The Model C has the same features as model B except one additional Mini DP port for dual display and the HDMI port connector is changed to Micro HDMI(D type).

What's the lifetime of ROCK Pi 4?

For ROCK Pi 4 model A and model B, we will keep manufacturing/supply/support till 2025. For ROCK Pi 4 model C, the lifetime depends on the LPDDR4 ram supply, we expect life time longer than 2023.

Hardware

How to mount M.2 SSD?

We have made a M.2 extended board to put the M.2 SSD on top of ROCK Pi4. It looks like this. See picture here and here.

Which M.2 SSD are supported?

SSD comes in different form factors, listed below

Form Factor	Description
Mini PCIE	physical not compatible
M.2 B Key	physical not compatible
M.2 M Key	Most of M Key SSD on the market are NVMe protocol(PCIe x4 lanes), supported, few PCIe AHCI SSD is also supported. SATA protocol(nearly none) is not supported.
M.2 B&M Key	Some of B&M Key SSD are NVMe protocol(PCIe x2 lanes), supported. Some B&M Key SSD are SATA protocol, not supported.

ROCK Pi 4 expose a M.2 M key connector, it's compatible with NVMe or PCIe AHCI protocol. SATA protocol SSD are not supported. So far what we tested:

Known working under bootloader(For SPI + NVMe booting)

HP EX900(B&M Key, NVMe) ✅
MaxMemory NVMe M.2 128G(B&M key, NVMe), works well ✅
Acer AT500M ✅
Gigabyte m.2 2280 pcie x2
Intel M.2 NVME

Known working under Linux kernel but not directly in bootloader(uSD/eMMC + NVMe booting)

Samsung EVO series(M key, NVMe), work well on ROCK Pi 4, fast speed <-- Warning nvme boot via SPI is not possible (970 EVO Plus)
KingSpec NVMe M.2 2280(M key, NVMe), works well
Western Digital WD Black 500GB M.2 2280 (model WDS500G2X0C, NVMe), works well on Debian Stretch
Western Digital WD Blue WDS500G1B0C
Sabrent Rocket NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 ssd 256GB, works perfectly in Ubuntu 18.04.2 server
Intel 660P SSD (boots with 4.4 kernel)
Kingston KC1000 NVMe
Kingston 240GB A1000 SSD = PHISON PS5008-E8-10
Integral 120GB M.2 2280 PCIE NVME INSSD120GM280N
Adata XPG GAMMIX S11 Pro 256GB (AGAMMIXS11P-256GT-C)
Zheino M.2 2280 NVME PCIE SSD 128GB (CHN-NGFFNV2280-128)
KINGSTON A2000 1 TB (SA2000M81000G) (not tested with SPI boot) = Silicon Motion SM2263ENG

Known to have issues

Asgard 256GB (M key, NVMe) - Formatting fails with some FSs, performance degrades quickly, Formatting via USB and using on NVMe seems to work but reliability is questionable.
WD Green M.2 2280 SSD 250GB, detected for formatting on usb3 but unable to read/write to SSD with MKFS.
Kingston A2000 - requires newer kernel, eg 5.3 found in Armbian
Adata XPG GAMMIX S5 PCIe Gen3x4 M.2 2280 512 - kernel error
PNY CS3030 250GB - errors while booting
HP EX900 - issue with newer kernels

Note: SSD with ✅ are tested by the Radxa Team, the rest is reported by community.

How to solve board heat issue?

We have made a giant heatsink at the bottom. You can check the picture 1 and 2.

Can I use the Raspberry Pi Camera?

Yes. Currently the Raspberry Pi V2 camera, IMX219, 800Mp is supported. It works with Debian and Android. Please note that the camera is supported on Android tablet version only for now.

Can I use the Raspberry Pi Display?

Yes. The touch and the LCD works on ROCK Pi 4. Both Debian and Android. Same as camera, touchscreen is supported on Android tablet version only.

Can I use the Raspberry Pi PoE HAT for ROCK Pi model B?

No. The official Raspberry Pi PoE HAT is not mechanical compatible with ROCK Pi 4 model B, besides, the official Raspberry Pi PoE HAT can not provide enough power for ROCK Pi 4. We have made a PoE HAT which can provide up to 22.5W power to ROCK Pi 4. Check PoE_HAT. ROCK Pi PoE HAT also supports Raspberry Pi 3B+ and 4.

Is the GPIO on 40pin header 1.8V or 3.3V

The GPIO is 3.3V level

Is there I2S on 40pin header?

The I2S signal is 12/35/36/38/40 pins of the header, which is the same as Tinker Board. It should be compatible with Raspberry Pi but we haven't actually tested and DAC HAT.

Can I power the RockPi 4 Model B using only the USB 3.0 OTG port?

No. Because with USB 3.0 OTG power from PC or power supply, the power might be not enough(the voltage is only 5V, so we need high current to meet power demand, not all USB type A are designed for big current) and it's risky when flashing the firmware from USB3 OTG. So we just don't design this feature. That's why we support USB PD or QC on ROCK Pi 4, it can increase the voltage so the current is less or with the same current but gain more power.

How much mA can i get from the USB 3 and 2 ports for charging or use a 2.5" disk?

The upper USB3.0 OTG has one dedicated current limit control which is 1.45A. The rest USB 3.0 HOST and the two USB 2.0 HOST share a current limit control of 3A together.

OS

Can I run Windows on ROCK Pi 4?

No.

What Android verison running on ROCK Pi? Can I install Google Play apps?

Currently ROCK Pi 4 have two android 7.1 based images, Android TV interface image and Android tablet interface image. Both support Google Play Store. The Android tablet like version supports touchscreen and Camera and HDMI. The Android TV version supports HDMI. Newer Android 9 is working in progress now.

Can I install Android on USB 3 or M.2 SSD?

Currently Android is running on eMMC and microSD card only. Running on USB3 or NVMe SSD is a little bit trouble some since the CPU can not load USB/NVME directly to boot. So we must put an external bootloader in SPI flash or eMMC or microSD card to loader the image in USB 3 or NVMe SSD. ROCK Pi 4 has reserved SPI flash on board but currently not mounted by default shipping. We are still considering it since if the program in SPI flash is corrupted, it will be trouble some for user since the SPI flash is not removable. We will work on Android running on USB 3 or NVMe SSD.

Do you support Armbian?

We now have a preview release of Armbian image, you can download it from Rockpi4/downloads

Radxa APT public key is not available

When I try to run apt update, i get following error:

$ sudo apt update
...
Err:21 http://apt.radxa.com/bionic-stable bionic InRelease                           
  The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY B99C4BEFEC47E96E
Get:31 http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports bionic/universe Translation-en [4941 kB] 
Get:32 http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports bionic/multiverse arm64 Packages [126 kB]
Get:33 http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports bionic/multiverse Translation-en [108 kB]
Reading package lists... Done                                                                                                             
W: GPG error: http://apt.radxa.com/bionic-stable bionic InRelease: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY B99C4BEFEC47E96E
E: The repository 'http://apt.radxa.com/bionic-stable bionic InRelease' is not signed.
N: Updating from such a repository can't be done securely, and is therefore disabled by default.
N: See apt-secure(8) manpage for repository creation and user configuration details.
...

The reason is the public key used before is expired. You can execute the following command to get the new available.

sudo apt-get install -y wget
source /etc/os-release
export DISTRO="${VERSION_CODENAME}-stable"
wget -O - apt.radxa.com/$DISTRO/public.key | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt-get update

Why is DP on ROCK Pi 4C unavailable?

Please install one Radxa Official system image. And upgrade the package rockchip-overlay to the latest version (>=2.9).