Just still red and green lights (solved)

[TopGinge]

Hello Forum,

As a newbie I am having trouble getting my son's RP to boot, at least I think I am. I'm led to understand that the booting process takes some time during which all five lights flash intermittently. Well, once we are connected (TV, power and a wireless keyboard) only the red lights illuminates and the free light (though sometimes, the green light doesn't illuminate) and nothing appears on the TV.

I am using a pre-formatted SD card with the OS already saved to it, which I bought from the RP shop online (it's the new SD card that has the Raspberry Pi logo on it).


Please, can anyone tell me if I am doing anything wrong or if it's likely I have a faulty unit?

NOTE: We bought the unit as a package, with cables and power supply, from RS Components in the UK

[DougieLawson]

How is it connected to the TV?
HDMI or analog (yellow RCA)?

Try pressing 2 (if HDMI)
Or pressing 3 or 4 (if analog)

[TopGinge]

Great that worked.

BUT

After getting the list of OSs and loading the recommended Raspbian, we clicked OK when told it had loaded successfully...

Then nothing!

I switched it off and tried to reboot. But still Nothing.

The lights flashed weakly, for a minute or so and then all but the red bulb went dead.

I've searched the forum for similar experiences, but can't find any.

[sdjf]

Is anything else attached to the Pi? You may not have a good enough power supply. What are you using as a Power Supply?

Another power hungry device that could kill things is a fancy keyboard, is yours a simple one or fancy with lots of features demanding more power than Pi can deliver?

[Burngate]

Having successfully navigated one of the NOOBs elephant traps, you may have hit another

When you told it to use analogue by pressing 2 or 3, it then needs to be told to keep that setting - otherwise it forgets.
Full details in the guide - but who reads that? Manuals are for wimps

[TopGinge]

Having successfully navigated one of the NOOBs elephant traps, you may have hit another

When you told it to use analogue by pressing 2 or 3, it then needs to be told to keep that setting - otherwise it forgets.
Full details in the guide - but who reads that? Manuals are for wimps

Cheers for that, I'll inform my nine-year old son for whom I am posting these messages -- though I'll probably do so with a lot less arrogant sarcasm.

[Burngate]

... with a lot less arrogant sarcasm.

Sorry, it wasn't meant to be ...
I worked for many years in an electronic workshop. An elephant trap was the sort of mistake we all made, after which we looked back and asked "Why did I do that?", with the usual reply being "No Idea, I did the same thing last week"

As for manuals being for wimps, I'm sure the Ikea help-line is snowed under with calls from people like me who think they know how to assemble a flat-pack wardrobe but find they don't.
But even if I start by reading the manual, I often don't understand the instructions until I've made all the mistakes the manual is designed to help me avoid.

[TopGinge]

... with a lot less arrogant sarcasm.

Sorry, it wasn't meant to be ...
I worked for many years in an electronic workshop. An elephant trap was the sort of mistake we all made, after which we looked back and asked "Why did I do that?", with the usual reply being "No Idea, I did the same thing last week"

As for manuals being for wimps, I'm sure the Ikea help-line is snowed under with calls from people like me who think they know how to assemble a flat-pack wardrobe but find they don't.
But even if I start by reading the manual, I often don't understand the instructions until I've made all the mistakes the manual is designed to help me avoid.

My apologies -- I misread the meaning. I deliberately left my son to read the manual without my interference as he's pretty good with instruction guides in construction kits and we wanted to challenge him. Maybe we've challenged him too much! I posted these with him at the computer, so he can see how to source help when all else falters. I'll not show him my churlish response earlier, though!

Again, please accept my apologies for misreading your comment.

[TopGinge]

Is anything else attached to the Pi? You may not have a good enough power supply. What are you using as a Power Supply?

Another power hungry device that could kill things is a fancy keyboard, is yours a simple one or fancy with lots of features demanding more power than Pi can deliver?

The keyboard is a powered wireless one, which has its own battery (as does the wireless mouse). And the power cable is a 5V Power Pax UK brand. Any help?

[RobHenry]

Are you using the latest version of noobs? That's the usual trouble shooting advice at this point. You can download it from the link at the top of the page, along with all the instructions you should need.

I note this in the quick start guide:

Note that the output mode selected by the user through pressing one of number keys 1 to 4 (for HDMI preferred, HDMI VGA, Composite PAL and Composite NTSC respectively), will be automatically set in the config.txt files of your installed OSes. This means that you shouldn't have to worry about manually changing your display settings to get your installed OS to display correctly on your display device.

Which doesn't align with your report, so there must be something else wrong.

[TopGinge]

Many thanks to you all -- your advice was invaluable. I discovered what was at the core of my problem: the television we were hooked to. It was a SD screen and once we swapped to a HD TV everything fell into place.

Now for surely the hardest part -- learning to program it.

Again, thank you all.