Initial Setup Guide for Jetson Orin Nano Developer Kit

1. Connect your monitor and USB keyboard to your developer kit.
2. Turn on the developer kit by plugging in the bundled DC power supply
3. Repeatedly press Esc key on the keyboard, especially after NVIDIA logo boot splash screen first appears on the monitor
4. You should see UEFI setup menu screen
5. Check the third line from the top (below "Not specified"), which should be the version number of Jetson UEFI firmware

1. Connect USB to TTL Serial cable onto the following pins on J14 "button" header of carrier board located under the Jetson module.
   • RXD (Pin 3) Adafruit adaptor cable Green
   • TXD (Pin 4) Adafruit adaptor cable White
   • GND (Pin 7) Adafruit adaptor cable Black

     For the detail, refer to Jetson Orin Nano Developer Kit Carrier Board Specification .

2. On your PC, run your console monitor program and open the USB serial port.
3. Power on the developer kit by plugging in the bundled DC power supply
4. On the PC console, repeatedly press Esc key on the keyboard, especially after NVIDIA logo boot splash screen first appears on the monitor
5. You should see UEFI setup menu screen
6. Check the third line from the top (below "Not specified"), which should be the version number of Jetson UEFI firmware

You could skip to 6. Flash JetPack 6.0 GA image onto your microSD card , and try your luck to see if your Jetson just boots your Jetson Orin Nano Developer Kit up to the initial software set up (OEM-config).

Your Jetson Orin Nano has the latest firmware that is ready for JetPack 6 SD card.

Skip to the next section ( 6. Flash JetPack 6.0 GA image onto your microSD card )

Your Jetson Orin Nano needs its firmware updated in order to make JetPack 6 SD card work.

Perform the following steps (2 to 5).

2. Flash JetPack 5.1.3 image onto your microSD card

First we need to run JetPack 5.1.3 in order let its nvidia-l4t-bootloader package to get its bootloader/firmware updater activated, so that the firmware update automatically runs the next time it reboots.

1. Download SD card image on to your PC

   On your PC, download JetPack 5.1.3 image for Jetson Orin Nano Developer Kit from the official JetPack 5.1.3 page or from the below direct link button.

   Warning

   NVIDIA had updated the JetPack 5.1.3 image on 5/28/2024, as the old version had some issue and the following process did not work.
   So please download and use the latest image (the new file name is JP513-orin-nano-sd-card-image_b29.zip ).

   Jetson Orin Nano Developer Kit
   JetPack 5.1.3 image

2. Use Balena Etcher to flash image to SD card

   If you don't have Balena Etcher on your PC, download from Balena official site .

   

3. Insert the flashed microSD card into the slot on Jetson module

   

3. Power-on and reboot to ensure firmware gets updated to 5.0 (JetPack 5.1.3)

1. Power-on

   Turn on the Jetson Orin Nano Developer Kit with JetPack 5.1.3 SD card inserted by plugging in the DC power supply.

2. Complete the initial software setup ( oem-config )

3. Ensure firmware update is scheduled.

   Once Jetson boots into Jetson Linux system, a background service automatically runs to schedule a firmware update (if needed) to be performed during the next boot-up process.

   Once you see the following, or just wait about 5 minutes after powering on to ensure the scheduling is done, reboot.

   GUI CUI

   

   $ sudo systemctl status nv-l4t-bootloader-config
   [sudo] password for jetson: 
   ● nv-l4t-bootloader-config.service - Configure bootloader service
       Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/nv-l4t-bootloader-config.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
       Active: inactive (dead) since Fri 2024-05-03 13:36:13 PDT; 1min 57s ago
       Process: 11439 ExecStart=/opt/nvidia/l4t-bootloader-config/nv-l4t-bootloader-config.sh -v (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
   Main PID: 11439 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
   

4. Reboot

   Reboot your Jetson Orin Nano Developer Kit.

   You should see the following during the boot up process.

   With monitor Headless (serial)

   

   

   Once done, you will boot into JetPack 5.1.3 (again), with underlying firmware updated to 5.0-35550185 .

4. Install and run QSPI Updater package

1. Double-check your firmware version is up to date ( 35.5.0 = JetPack 5.1.3)

   Once it reboots back into Jetson Linux system, on Jetson terminal, run the following:

   sudo nvbootctrl dump-slots-info
   

   You should see something like the following, with the Current version indicating 35.5.0 .

   Current version: 35.5.0
   Capsule update status: 0
   Current bootloader slot: A
   Active bootloader slot: A
   num_slots: 2
   slot: 0,             status: normal
   slot: 1,             status: normal
   

2. Install QSPI Updater Debian package to trigger another (final) firmware update

   On Jetson terminal, run the following:

   sudo apt-get install nvidia-l4t-jetson-orin-nano-qspi-updater
   

   Installing the nvidia-l4t-jetson-orin-nano-qspi-updater automatically runs its script to schedule another (final) firmware update to be performed during the next boot process, so that the firmware is ready for JetPack 6.

5. Reboot and power-off the developer kit

1. Reboot

   Once the QSPI update is scheduled, reboot your Jetson Orin Nano Developer Kit.

2. Observe update

   You can observe the update during the boot up process.

3. Power off

   Once the update is done, it reboots and tries to boot, however it will get stuck UNLESS you change the SD card to JetPack 6 one .

   Therefore you should just power off the developer kit by disconnecting the DC power supply.

   Attention

   This part may look very confusing as neither the attached monitor nor the debug UART shows any explicit message on what action to take next.

   What is going on here is that the Jetson's firmware (inside the QSPI-NOR flash memory) is now updated, ready for the JetPack 6 SD card, however it is now incompatible with JetPack 5.1.3 SD card left in the Jetson module's slot, so after the reboot it gets stuck in the boot process.

   So there is nothing problematic with this boot halt (or endless rebooting). We just need to power-off and insert a new SD card.