Frequently Asked Questions: Premier P550

HiFive Premier P550 board has a USB2.0 port available on the Type-C connector in the rear that brings out SOC’s debug UART. The SOC provides a TTY terminal through this UART which can also be used to observe the boot progress from power-ON. Please refer to the section “Starting the Console (USB to Serial) Terminal Window” in the “Getting Started Guide” to setup your computer to connect to this UART.

HiFive Premier P550 has a PWR button (S3) as shown below that is used to power-up the board after the slide switch has been turned ON. It can also be used to power down the board by holding it down if the software hangs. Please refer to sections “HiFive Premier P550 Components Locator” and “Power, Reset and Recovery Buttons” in the “Getting Started Guide” for additional information.

Make sure the board is getting power, refer to sections “LED Description” and “Testing the Setup” in the “Getting Started Guide”. If appropriate LEDs are not lit up then the slide switch might be OFF, turn the slide switch ON (refer to section “Power Supply and ON/OFF” in the “Getting Started Guide”). If the board does not start booting on TTY terminal when the LEDs are lit and power button is pressed then check Boot SEL DIP Switch Settings of the board by referring to section “Boot Selection DIP Switch” of “Getting Started Guide”. If the DIP Switch is set correctly and the board does not start to boot on TTY terminal then try using a different power supply. If the board starts to boot but does not progress all the way up to the login prompt on the TTY terminal then boot medium might be corrupted and re-flashing the board might be required.

HiFive Premier P550 Development Board does not work from some ATX power supplies, we are investigating this further. Current recommendation is to use a different power supply. The power supplies listed in the recommended equipment list have been tested and are known to work.

HiFive Premier P550 has a SOC_RESET button (S2) that is used to reset the SOC.

Use GFx Cards recommended in approved equipment list, found in the “Getting Started Guide”, for Freedom U-SDK (Yocto). Use Ubuntu (when available).

M.2 E-Key (SDIO WiFi module) – not supported. Please refer to “Getting Started Guide”, section 1.1.

DC 12V power adapter jack (2.5mm) is for factory use. Please refer to “Getting Started Guide”, sections 1.1 and 5.1.

Please use CR1220 and refer to “Getting Started Guide”, section 6.1.3

Formatting and mounting empty space in eMMC. Use gparted to format the ~80GB empty space and it will mount automatically on the next boot cycle.

Freedom U-SDK (Yocto): Refer to “Getting Started Guide”, section 7.3.

Bare Metal support is not provided by SiFive on HiFive Premier P550 Development Platform.

The following third-party components are being used and qualified by SiFive to work out of the box with the Premier P550 board. Refer to our PSU compatibility list for more details.

ATX Power Supply:

• MSI MAG A650BN
• Seasonic SSR-850PX
• FLEX GURU 250W 80 Plus Gold Certified
• Corsair CX550 (CP-9020277-NA)
• EVGA 500BV 500W (100-BV-0500-K1)

PCIe Graphics Cards – AMD HD6000 and RX500 series cards should work with HiFive Premier P550 board. The following cards have been tested:

• VisionTek Radeon 6350 1GB DDR
• Radeon RX 550 4GB
• Radeon RX 580 8GB

M.2 Key NVMe SSD Module:

• Samsung 970 EVO Plus MZ-V7S25

USB Flash Drives:

• SanDisk Ultra Dual Drive Go USB Type- C
• Kingston DataTraveler Exodia Onyx 128GB
• Kingston DataTraveler 70 128GB Portable
• Transcend 128GB JetFlash 790 Super Speed
• HP USB 3.2 Flash Drive Type C OTG 128GB

SATA Hard drives/SSDs:

• HDD - Seagate ST500VT000
• SSD - Consistent 2.5" 256GB SSD
• SSD - Crucial BX500 240GB 3D NAND S
• SSD - ZEB-SD26 256 GB Solid State D

microSD Cards (Class 1):

• 32GB - SanDisk Ultra UHS

USB Hubs:

• VIBOTON USB Hub
• Gear Head UH2100

 USB WiFi Adapters:

• tp-link Archer T3U Plus (US) – USB WiFi Adapter.

ATX Power Supply:

• FSP DAGGER PRO 650W (SFX PSU) when used to also power RX580-8GB GFx card.