[SOLVEDRaspberry died 2nd time in the same way my first did.

[triplus]

Hello

About a month (and a half?) ago my raspberry suddenly died after it had been working for about 10 months. I tried everything (reformatting + rewriting, booting w/o internet, ...). I went back to where I got my pi from and got a replacement. I wrote my own custom version for raspbian and was good to go again.

Yesterday while I was working on my webserver on the pi I suddenly couldn't get connection anymore. My webserver was empty, couldn't ssh (connection refused). I went to check and all lights were on as supposed to. As there was no way to shut him down I just cut the power.
Rebooting after about 2 minutes gave me the same result, every light on, but no connection. I couldn't even ping my pi.

This morning I tried again. Plugged in my pi, but now only the red light was on. As far as I understand it's either a corrupted SD card or just a malfunction in the pi itself.
I rewrote the SD card as I did the first time (with my custom image) but still the same. Red light only.

So it happened twice in about 2 months. Am I doing something wrong to my pi? It's not overclocked, and the only things I've installed is a LAMP server.
I'm going back to (hopefully) get a replacement but I would like to know what could be the issue.

Thanks in advance.
Joren C.

[RaTTuS]

how are you powering it all

[triplus]

I bought a pack at my vendor. It had everything in it. (sorry it is in Dutch).
Micro-USB: 5 Volt, 700mA.
http://www.alternate.be/html/product/1095132

As it is 1 pack i think it should be okay.

I also forgot to mention that there are no other things attached.

[mayannaise]

• What sort of atmosphere are you running it in? Enclosed in a box? With heatsink? Still air? Cooling fan? Damp/moist/humid? On a windowsill in direct sunlight?
• How heavy is the server you are running on it? CPU intensive?
• From where did you purchase your PI? A reputable supplier?

There is a chance that it might have overheated and cooked the BCM. The most common causes of failure are from incorrect use of the GPIOs, and using hungry USB devices without a powered hub, but as you have no peripherals, I would say overheating or a faulty PI.

EDIT: Actually, I correct myself. The most common cause of "failure" is a corrupt SD card. This happens most often when the power is pulled before shutting down properly. But 90% of the time this can be fixed with a quick "e2fsck". Besides, you have re-imaged the SD card, so it's not that.

[triplus]

I'm running it from just on top of a closet in a room. It's not hot there, my pi is (was) almost always around 53°C.
It's a standard LAMP server, that shouldn't be too intensive.
It's a reliable supplier, I buy most of my pc-related stuff there.

As it is the 2nd pi it would be strange it's a faulty pi (could be but...)
Any tips for what i could be doing wrong?

[redhawk]

Are you using the same SD Card for the OS??

Does your card have a bend in it??

Richard S.

[triplus]

I also got a new SD card when I got a new pi, but yes for now i'm using the same card.
I just noticed the "ACT" light flashes a couple of times after plugging the power in but then it's just the red light again.

There is a slight C-shape (only noticed it after putting it flat on my table) on my sd card, but i'm sure all the pins are still connecting.

[mayannaise]

It's quite a mystery! I would only expect the cause of a PI's death to be peripherals, corrupt SD or overheating (from overclocking etc etc) - but neither of these are applicable in your situation.

Normally I would start to check things like the polyfuse and the voltage across the testpoints TP1 and TP2, but I think it would be very unlikely that these will flag up any issues in you scenario. Worth a try though if you are confident to do so.

[RaTTuS]

I would suspect Power
700mA is going to be the minimum you can get away with and if you have a bad power lead it may not be in that range..
measure the power from TP1 TP2
edit [sorry didn't post for ages]

if the SD card is bent - you could try using a print loaded peg to see if it boot's, then that would mean it is not properly connected

[triplus]

I don't have a Volt meter in house, but I know there is something in between (I have something my grandfather made. It's similar to a volt meter but it doesn't show the actual voltages).

If it's the power source, I really don't know what to do. I'm not running anything heavy on it and it has been working for about 10months on my old PI

I made a little construction with some toothpicks to push down the SD card. I did it with my fingers first, but yeah.
When I boot now the Link light goes on for a microsecond (not very bright). Then the ACT lights keeps flickering for about 10 seconds. Then everything goes out but the PWR led.

[triplus]

Okay I don't understand now. I plugged the ethernet cable back in and it is working now. It must have had something to do with the SD card since my toothpick construction is still on it...

How can I prevent the card from bending? Since it's been in their for a month (10 months the other pi) and suddenly stopped working. And also I've only pulled it out and plugged it back in once before it stopped working. Could it be heat thats bending it? IF it gets that hot I'm kinda afraid about the toothpicks since it's wood...

[redhawk]

If the ACT is flickering then the Pi is clearly reading from the SD Card and booting the operating system a dead card would have no ACT activity.
My guess is you have a power supply issue and it's been pretty well documented that a poor / underpowered PSU can cause the Pi to crash/reboot/kernel panic or corrupt the memory card.
Try another power supply preferably one that's rated at 1A or higher and if you still having problems then check the power troubleshooting page http://elinux.org/RPi_Hardware#Power_Supply_Problems

Richard S.

[triplus]

The temperature is 41.2°C. I will continue to monitor this as time progresses.
Apparently it happens pretty often that the card bends. What could be the issue? (http://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewt ... 3&p=327342) This says it would be just the pressure of the pins. Is there any fix to this?

[mahjongg]

Apparently it happens pretty often that the card bends. What could be the issue?

The issue is cheap manufacturing, using the same plastic shell, but with no content in it, due to miniaturization of the electronics. The empty space is than often simply stuffed with a piece of discarded cardboard, so it loses all stiffness.
This especially often happens with cards that are "remarketed", 16GB cards that are partly defective, and are sold as 4 or 8 GB cards. see http://media.ccc.de/browse/congress/201 ... _xobs.html @ about 11:38 into the movie you will see this:
[attachment=0]whats inside.jpg[/attachment]

the small white rectangle is a piece of cardboard placed so that you cannot compress the card much, but it add almost nothing to the stiffness, its just "filler". Actually the cardboard is a piece of leftover "smt carrier strip" that is used in SMT production, but normally thrown away!

[triplus]

Is there any brand that is known to be pretty strong in the RPI? As i think mine might be pretty cheap (it was in the whole pack so...)

[drgeoff]

Get a B+. You won't have any more problems with bent SD cards.

[triplus]

So it's actually just the card. Is B+ much better? In that case I can try and get one of those since I still have warranty. With a bit explaining I might get something.

Thanks guys! I hope the card was the problem. I'll let you know. For now this is solved!

Joren C.

[AndrewS]

Lots of info in this thread

[Richard-TX]

Is there any brand that is known to be pretty strong in the RPI? As i think mine might be pretty cheap (it was in the whole pack so...)

Toshiba Exceria

[mayannaise]

I use a 64GB microSD card in an SD adaptor for one of my PIs, and as can be imagined, these have to be fairly rugged to mount the microSD card-holding mechanism etc. I've had no problems with this and I find it much cheaper to buy a 64GB microSD than a 64GB SD (I don't know why, but I don't mind).

[triplus]

My shop has agreed to switch my model B to model B+. I'm going to get one as soon as possible