We have one person here at Red Hat who managed to brick theirs. We're not sure of the exact cause but heat might have been an issue. Looking at the article I was quite worried that the author isn't using a heatsink (yet)!
Re:First Impressions of the VisionFive 2
by snvzz on Saturday February 25, 2023 @07:05PM
(#34941756)
If they still have the board, try booting with boot switches set to UART.
An XMODEM 'CCCCC' should show up in the serial port at 115200 8N1.
If that's the case, bootloader in SPI got corrupted. There's a rescue tool for this UART boot. It can fix that.
They don't ship with spacers?
CPU can take some quite industrial range (125C? I know I've seen a number somewhere...), and will throttle starting at 85C. In practice, it will get to 75C in long compiling sessions. Thus, it doesn't really need a heatsink.
However, you might want to install a m.2 nvme, in which case you'll definitely want that heatsink as you'll have more heat. I went with XU4Q's (from ODROID), which is a passive solution, a tall heatsink. It fits in place w/o issue and doesn't disturb m.2. CPU tops out at around 57C now.
I notice that, in the pictures, the reviewer did not install the 4x spacers that shipped with the board. This board will not sit evenly on a desk, as the m.2 slot protrudes; it might interfer with cooling. That'd explain 90C where I got 75C.