Booted once, won't work again [solved]

Got my Raspberry Pi yesterday. Made an SD Image, tried to boot it with an iPhone power supply but it didn't work, so tried with the computer, also nothing. Reimaged the SD card, and it booted while connected to the PCs USB. Used it, booted into X, explored a bit, then shutdown and powered off.

Tried again today using a HP Touchpad PSU, then the PCs USB but nothing. Reimaged the SD, still nothing, downloaded a different image, tried that, still nothing. Tried with and without various options, such as USB, HDMI and Ethernet.

Connecting it with the HP Touchpad PSU gives me 5.02v on the test points, the PC USB slightly less (but still ok). I get the red light to say it is powered on the board, no green light at all. Transcend 4G SDHC 4 (which worked yesterday).

What can I check next?

No green light means not accessing the card - ensure it's still seated properly - perhaps unplug and plug firmly but gently back in. If you've another card, try that.

In theory the computer's USB will give you up to 500mA and you really need 700mA - do you have another power supply to try, you may just have been lucky yesterday.

I have reseated it many many times!

The HP Touchpad USB provides 2A, and as I say is producing over 5V on the board nicely, but just in case I tried the touchpad, iPad, iPhone and powered hubs for power supplies.

I will see if I can find another card I can rob, although I think that was my only 4GB card.

OK, found an old 2GB card, installed the image on that and it booted.

Took the image I did on the 4G card and redid it, on the mac this time (where I did it first) with dd. Didn't boot. Looked at it on the PC, removed the dot files (as I remember some linuxes having issues with those). Still didn't boot. Unplugged replugged, as I thought I saw a flash of green, it booted.

Unplugged, replugged, pause of a few seconds, and then burst into life.

I guess it is just very sensitive!

Very sensitive. Today it won't boot again!

Booted with the 2GB card ok though, and after it got warm, tried the 4GB card. Started on the third attempt.

I guess I need to go out and get a non transcend 4G card!

I have a Transcend 4Gb Class 4 coming to me in the post - I'll try that asap and let you know if it's the card or maybe just yours.

It seems once it has booted it will always boot until the raspi cools down.

I have resized the partition, and am now off out, so I will see if it works when I get back

This is exactly the behaviour I was seeing with a SanDisk class 4 SDHC card - all seemed well until I left for a while, then the boot partition would end up corrupted.

I've swapped it for a cheap 2gb card and it seems fine now (though I did use a newer Arch image...)

The thing is I am not sure if it is corrupting the card, I think it must be just on the edge of working somehow as it seems it will boot after another card has from cold, but not as the first card.

The card itself is one of the faster ones I have from a camera point of view, I guess there must be something about it that isn't quite right, or is just on the edge of working, so that when the system has warmed up a little, the timing changes and it works.

[dom]

woodinblack said:

The thing is I am not sure if it is corrupting the card...

Next time you image the card you could copy the files off the boot partition.

Then when it's not working see if you can compare the files with the copied ones.

But I agree, it sounds like card is borderline working and either chance, or temperature makes it work. (You could use a hairdryer to see if warming either the sdcard, or the Pi board makes it more likely to boot).

When it fails does the OK led flash? Do you get anything on display?

Yes, shall do the copy thing to check, although I suspect it is more hardware.

Came back after a while, plugged it in, unplugged it, plugged a few times. No joy. I tried the hairdryer (well, you never know!) but no luck. I put the 2G card in, and that didn't boot either. I took it out, and put it back in, and it booted. Turned the power off as soon as the text started scrolling up the screen, put the 4G card in and it booted!

When it fails the pi starts and the red light goes on, nothing else.

When it works, the pi starts, the red light goes on and the green light flashes almost imperceptively, then it pauses for about 5 seconds, then the green light starts flashing and the screen wakes up with text scrolling up the screen.

[dom]

Hmmm if the 2G card also sometimes fails, then perhaps it is the R-Pi board.

Maybe a dry solder joint on sdcard socket?

Can you see anything suspicious? Can applying pressure anywhere when booting help?

Not sure. Once it has booted, I can't get it to fail to boot (and I have tried). I will order a new SD card tomorrow. Oh, hello video camera with your 16GB SD card!

Lets see if this one works.

dom or another engineer would know better than me, but if it only works when the board is warm, there is always the possibility of a race or a marginal timing situation somewhere on the SoC and/or in the SD card. The speed at which logic gates switch is affected by temperature.

bad solder joints (eg. bad BGA solder under the SoC) can also show temperature dependence, but that would be confirmed if you can fix or trigger the fault just by mechanically pushing on the area.

Seems like third time is the charm. With the Kingston 16Gb SDHC4 from the video camera, it boots first time every time.

I can give the other cards back to the cameras and put it down to it being very sensitive!

I"ve been having similar issues. No matter how hard I tried to finagle it in there properly, which power supply I use (Nook – .75A, TouchPad – 2A), or whether I use the Debian image or OpenELEC (built yesterday), it simply will not boot off of my 16GB SanDisk Extreme HD. I had a 512MB card lying around and decided to dump OpenELEC onto it. Sure enough, it's too small for OpenELEC to work properly, *but* it would boot as long as each time I tried to reboot I made sure that the card was seated nicely. Can"t say the same for the SanDisk. A little disappointing, but unless anybody has a better idea, I guess I'll just try to pick up another card or two off of Amazon. Still…an annoying start. First taxes of over 50%, and then I can"t even boot the thing

I am sure I remember a list when I first looked where the sandisk was listed as a brand that didn't work, but I can't find it now (which is often the way).

Mine is very reliable with the kingston 16GB card now, hopefully eventually there will be a list of cards that work, and maybe someone that knows about these things will work out why the defective cards don't work.

That's weird. SanDisk is the premier maker of SD cards, and I've previously never, ever had a problem with them. I can't say the same for Kingston, two of which have died on me, or A-Data, which is painfully slow. Sigh. Thanks for the info though.

So I'm assuming this is the thread:

http://www.raspberrypi.org/for.....ould-i-buy

Possibly relevant info:

Class 10 cards would not work without a kernel change to inhibit switching to a high speed mode the Pi can not support. I suspect that change may be in the latest Debian squeeze – but wait for verification from a current Pi owner.

There's a lot of conflicting information in there. Some people say microSD in an adapter works, some not. Some say that they've had great success using smaller versions of the same card that I have. Ugh. Forget this. It's Avenger time!

Yes, that thread leads to here:

Wiki link

which shows that the 4GB card I have that consistently fails is working, as does the 2GB card I have. Which is a bit of a pain if you are trying to buy one.

woodinblack said:

Yes, that thread leads to here:

Wiki link

which shows that the 4GB card I have that consistently fails is working, as does the 2GB card I have. Which is a bit of a pain if you are trying to buy one.

More good news. Yay team.