New PI does not appear to be booting

[mlinnen]

Hi and thanks for any help in advance.

I am struggling to get a Raspberry PI running that I received new as a gift.
I have gone over the troubleshooting guides but I cant seem to get the device up and running.

Currently when I power on the device it does the following:
* red led comes on
* green led comes on bright for a brief amount of time and then it goes off and on 2 more times. The on time for these 2 additional blinks is shorter than the first time the LED comes on.
* then the green LED flashes 3 times repeatedly in a loop
* i dont get any display on my HDMI device
* the voltage on TP1 and TP2 is 5.28
* I am using Raspian that came already loaded on an SD card purchased from Adafruit
* I have tried 2 other SD cards loading NOOBs onto those cards but I still cant get the PI to boot
* I have inspected the SD Card slot and all pins look like they would make good contact.

From what I read in the boot troubleshooting guide the 3 flashes means the loader.bin is not found. I looked on my SD card using a card reader in Windows and I dont see a file named loader.bin. In some other troubleshooting guides (http://elinux.org/R-Pi_Troubleshooting) there is mention about loader.bin not even being needed anymore in which case the 3 flashes would mean the start.elf file is not found. Looking at my SD card I do see the start.elf file.

Just in case I have tried several USB cables, several USB power adapters (including a PC) and hooked the HDMI up to 2 different TVs.

I have also tried to disconnect everything except the USB power and I get the same 3 flashing lights. I assume that the PI can boot without anything connected and the green LED would not flash in a consistent pattern if it booted OK. Is that a correct assumption?

At this pint I am thinking the Raspberry PI must be bad but I wouldn't think that I would get the green flashing LED if that where the case.

Thanks
Mike

[mahjongg]

simply buy a new sc-card, and install it using the noobs install method.

[mlinnen]

simply buy a new sc-card, and install it using the noobs install method.

I have tried 3 new SD cards (all different types that are on the list of approved cards). 1 of which was purchased with an image already on it. None of them seem to fully boot.

[DougieLawson]

How did you create the SDCard?

Try this recipe: http://learn.adafruit.com/setting-up-a- ... s?view=all

[mlinnen]

How did you create the SDCard?

Try this recipe: http://learn.adafruit.com/setting-up-a- ... s?view=all

Yes I have tried those same steps with NOOBs and I never get the first screen were you are supposed to pick your OS. I even re-formatted the SD Cards using SD Association's Formatting tool using the instructions outlined on the "Quick Start" PDF. I have even tried using WinDisk32Imager as outlined here http://elinux.org/RPi_Easy_SD_Card_Setup with a Raspian Raw Image.

I either end up with the green LED flashing 3 or 4 times and no display on the HDMI display.

[mclohmann]

Did you remember to set the bootable flag "on" in your SD card after formating (FAT32)? It worked for me!

[DeeJay]

Did you remember to set the bootable flag "on" in your SD card after formating (FAT32)? It worked for me!

How do you do that?

(I've never seen that referred to in any RPi documentation, and have never knowingly done it in any of the many installs I have performed, but I haven't had a failure... )

[Phill Rymer]

has splash screen come up at all if not try checking tv source is set to hdmi first load can take some time but screen should flash at start up then go black then you get odd messages and signs of life

[DougieLawson]

Did you remember to set the bootable flag "on" in your SD card after formating (FAT32)? It worked for me!

How do you do that?

(I've never seen that referred to in any RPi documentation, and have never knowingly done it in any of the many installs I have performed, but I haven't had a failure... )

Oh good, it's not just me. There's not "bootable" flag set on any partition on my SDCard.

The RPi bootloader simply assumes that the first primary FAT partition IS the bootable partition.

[rpdom]

Did you remember to set the bootable flag "on" in your SD card after formating (FAT32)? It worked for me!

No point. It must have been something else that fixed your issue as the so-called "bootable" flag is ignored by the Pi.

[mlinnen]

Did you remember to set the bootable flag "on" in your SD card after formating (FAT32)? It worked for me!

I certainly did not set a bootable flag "on" after formatting. Wouldn't the green LED be on faintly(not blinking) if the SD card was not bootable? How would I check to see if the bootable flag is on with a windows machine?

Thanks
Mike

[mlinnen]

has splash screen come up at all if not try checking tv source is set to hdmi first load can take some time but screen should flash at start up then go black then you get odd messages and signs of life

The splash screen has not come up at all. I left it powered for 45 minutes just to be sure it wasn't taking a while to initialize. I will check the hdmi setting but I thought hdmi is the default on Raspian and NOOBs.

[FTrevorGowen]

has splash screen come up at all if not try checking tv source is set to hdmi first load can take some time but screen should flash at start up then go black then you get odd messages and signs of life

The splash screen has not come up at all. I left it powered for 45 minutes just to be sure it wasn't taking a while to initialize. I will check the hdmi setting but I thought hdmi is the default on Raspian and NOOBs.

Whilst it may no longer be so for the current version of Raspbian, older versions used a form of "auto-detection" relying on HDMI "hotplug detection" to enable HDMI otherwise falling back to composite video mode. Unfortunately some HDMI devices/cables do not provide that signal and thus NOOBs "forces" a HDMI mode** compatible with most monitors/TV's by default. W.r.t. the splash screen: that is not always seen on "first boot". It's only there for a few seconds and some monitors/TV's don't appear to "activate" their display's or change inputs quick enough. (My HDMI/DVI monitor, which also has a VGA input, tends to only show it "post-install" ie. second or subsequent boots)
Trev.
**or uses the HDMI mode selected by the user pressing key "1" or "2" to get a display.

[Phill Rymer]

has splash screen come up at all if not try checking tv source is set to hdmi first load can take some time but screen should flash at start up then go black then you get odd messages and signs of life

The splash screen has not come up at all. I left it powered for 45 minutes just to be sure it wasn't taking a while to initialize. I will check the hdmi setting but I thought hdmi is the default on Raspian and NOOBs.

Whilst it may no longer be so for the current version of Raspbian, older versions used a form of "auto-detection" relying on HDMI "hotplug detection" to enable HDMI otherwise falling back to composite video mode. Unfortunately some HDMI devices/cables do not provide that signal and thus NOOBs "forces" a HDMI mode** compatible with most monitors/TV's by default. W.r.t. the splash screen: that is not always seen on "first boot". It's only there for a few seconds and some monitors/TV's don't appear to "activate" their display's or change inputs quick enough. (My HDMI/DVI monitor, which also has a VGA input, tends to only show it "post-install" ie. second or subsequent boots)
Trev.
**or uses the HDMI mode selected by the user pressing key "1" or "2" to get a display.

On my tv you have to go to the tv menu select source and change it to hdmi tv does not do it automatically pi may be outputting hdmi but tv will not accept the signal

[mlinnen]

I have tried a couple more things based on the replies I got so far on this thread.
* I tried manually switching the HDMI source on my TV (my TV doesn't Auto switch anyway)
* I tried using composite video to my TV
* I tried 2 different TVs in case it was an issue with my TV
* I tried 2 different HDMI cables in case it was a cable issue
* I tried disconnecting everything except the power adapter

In all attempts the PI basically does the following:
* flashes the green LED 3 times repeatedly when I try the Raspian Distro from Adafruit
* flashes the green LED 4 times repeatedly when I try creating my own SD Card (2 different cards) using Win32DiskImager and Raspian
* I also tried NOOBs but I dont remember if the green LED did in this example
* no mater what SD card I use I never get anything on the HDMI or Composite display

At this point I decided to order another Raspberry PI just to rule out that the PI isn't bad. I should be getting my replacement PI today.

[kal602921]

I have the same exact problem, I thought that my pi was fried, I ordered a new one, but came to find out that the problem was the sd card, you can see the green LED flickering but no video output, when I tried the new sd card on the old pi it worked like a charm; my conclusion is somehow the diskimaging goes wrong at some point.
Good Luck.

[kal602921]

I have just noticed while browsing the sd card a config.txt file; if you open that file using a text editor (notpad++) you'll see the following line:
# uncomment if you get no picture on HDMI for a default "safe" mode
#hdmi_safe=1
Uncommenting hdmi_safe=1 might help, I'll try it tonight then I'll update the post.
Thanks.

[mlinnen]

I have tried a couple more things based on the replies I got so far on this thread.
* I tried manually switching the HDMI source on my TV (my TV doesn't Auto switch anyway)
* I tried using composite video to my TV
* I tried 2 different TVs in case it was an issue with my TV
* I tried 2 different HDMI cables in case it was a cable issue
* I tried disconnecting everything except the power adapter

In all attempts the PI basically does the following:
* flashes the green LED 3 times repeatedly when I try the Raspian Distro from Adafruit
* flashes the green LED 4 times repeatedly when I try creating my own SD Card (2 different cards) using Win32DiskImager and Raspian
* I also tried NOOBs but I dont remember if the green LED did in this example
* no mater what SD card I use I never get anything on the HDMI or Composite display

At this point I decided to order another Raspberry PI just to rule out that the PI isn't bad. I should be getting my replacement PI today.

I got my new Raspberry PI and plugged in the SD Card with Raspian from Adafruit and it booted fine. So the end result is that my original Raspberry PI was defective. I haven't gone through and checked the other 2 SD cards I was trying to use but my guess is that they are fine as well.

[kal602921]

Hi, confirmed just browse your SD card and edit the config.txt file then uncomment the line that enables the HDMI output.( by removing the sharp sign at the begining of the line).
Thank you.