Pi 3 boots up, but OS is unusable

[Sflamb]

Hi!

I just bought my first Raspberry Pi, but I'm unable to use it properly. I first installed Raspian from a Noobs pre-installed SD card. Unfortunately all the texts/icons soon became scrambled and every program I tried crashed.

I then formatted the SD card in Win 10 with SDFormatter, using full format (overwrite) and automatic size adjustment on. After this I installed Ubuntu mate and Lubuntu on the SD card using Win32DiskImager (with full formats in between), both were the RPi versions. After installation on the Pi I resized the file system with instructions from https://ubuntu-pi-flavour-maker.org/faq/. These distros also had the same kind of problems but additionally gave a memory warning. I'll attach pictures of the symptoms.





Curiously, I tried OpenELEC through Noobs and that seemed to work fine.

I had to improvise a bit with the power source because the vendor sent me one with the wrong kind of plug. Tried two different powers, a samsung galaxy tab charger and D-Link DUB-H4 powered usb hub, both are supposed to give out 5V and 2A. Power led was continuously lit on the Pi with both. As a display I had to use my 40 inch LG TV.

I don't have another SD card atm for additional testing. What do you think, is the problem with the SD card or the Pi itself?

Thanks in advance

[Rive]

Well from two of those images you have no space left. try a larger sdcard, and/or expand the file system.

Size 4.2G with 3.3G used, and 661M available

[Sflamb]

Current OS installed is Lubuntu, and df -h shows 5,1 GB of available space for /dev/root. So that can't be it.

I think during that Raspian screenshot I had OpenELEC installed as well. Before that I had just Raspian installed so there was more space and still the same problems.

[stderr]

I don't have another SD card atm for additional testing. What do you think, is the problem with the SD card or the Pi itself?

Often it is a good idea to pretend like you are Noah with these sorts of things and buy two of everything. It's much more difficult without swapping parts because you can't just try something else when you think you've got it narrowed down.

Try configuring just Raspbian on a card booting to the command prompt. This can be set with raspi-config. Don't overclock or put in a case or do anything questionable, perhaps run a video with omxplayer looping on a bash script for a few days. Does it get hot? Does it screw up?

[Sflamb]

Done that now. Launched Raspbian to command prompt and started to run a short video on continuous loop in omxplayer. Didn't use a script though, but instead the --loop command on omxplayer.

[Sflamb]

Often it is a good idea to pretend like you are Noah with these sorts of things and buy two of everything. It's much more difficult without swapping parts because you can't just try something else when you think you've got it narrowed down.

Try configuring just Raspbian on a card booting to the command prompt. This can be set with raspi-config. Don't overclock or put in a case or do anything questionable, perhaps run a video with omxplayer looping on a bash script for a few days. Does it get hot? Does it screw up?

I did that video loop and it ran for something between 36-48 hours before the whole system crashed. I was at work so can't tell a more specific time. During the test the Pi 3 didn't feel particularly hot, a bit warm but I guess that's normal.
I also bought another SD card to test the system, but it didn't make any difference, same problems.

Today I then tried to run memtester and was unsuccessful, here's a screen from that:



Maybe I just didn't know how to use it properly. There was also some warnings about locales but don't know if those matter or not.

Any further advice would be appreciated

[Rive]

Your error with memtester is that you tried to get more memory then is available. You have to leave enough memory for the system.

Set gpu memory to 48, reboot, then;

Code: Select all

memtester 700m 10

[Sflamb]

Your error with memtester is that you tried to get more memory then is available. You have to leave enough memory for the system.

Set gpu memory to 48, reboot, then;

Code: Select all

memtester 700m 10

Ok, set gpu mem to 48 and did the memory test with said parameters.
I saw the two first loops which were ok, then went to sleep and saw the last 3 loops in the morning. They were fine as well. Sadly I didn't find any working way to scroll up the command prompt from the internet. Tried several but I guess they are for terminal programs. So with loops 3-7 I have no idea what the results were. I guess I could pipe the output to a file but I'm a bit confused about what the correct syntax would be. Not that eager to run a 10 hour test again if the I can't capture all the results x)

I'm also starting to think that the problem might lie somewhere else.

LXTerminal won't launch from cmd prompt and now attempts to launch startx end up with a black screen and pi freezing, have to reboot with ctrl-alt-del from there.

[beta-tester]

what is your gpu mem currently ... still down to 48 ???
try to enlarge it back to 128 or 192 or higher for using a graphical user interface...

[Sflamb]

Changed it to 192 but still just a black screen and freeze. Earlier it worked with the default 64 (except for the initial problem) so guess I've managed to break it more so far

[beta-tester]

then better (re-)start from scratch with the virgin official raspbian jessie image on your SD card...

[Sflamb]

Done that now for one card. Not sure what to do next though.

I bought a third SD card (Sandisk Ultra) 32 GB and installed latest Ubuntu Mate on that. Same problems with that one as well. Tried with the default gpu mem and 256, no change. At this point I'm pretty sure that the issue isn't with the cards or their size. I think we can rule out operating system as well.

Does this mean I have a faulty Pi? Or is there something else I can try?

[drgeoff]

Power supply?

[Sflamb]

Maybe. Does this sound like a typical problem of a too low current?
I'd have to order the official power supply from abroad, haven't found the 2.5 A version from my country yet.

[drgeoff]

Maybe I missed it but I didn't see which model of RPi you have. On original models the PWR LED would be lit even if input voltage was very low. B+, 2 and 3 have low voltage warning which makes LED go out or blink. If you have one of those and LED is permanently on, then power is unlikely to be the issue.

[rpdom]

Maybe I missed it but I didn't see which model of RPi you have.

The clue is in the subject line.

[drgeoff]

Maybe I missed it but I didn't see which model of RPi you have.

The clue is in the subject line.

Indeed it is. I was so intent on looking through the bodies of the posts, I didn't see it scrolled off the top of the screen.

[rpdom]

Maybe I missed it but I didn't see which model of RPi you have.

The clue is in the subject line.

Indeed it is. I was so intent on looking through the bodies of the posts, I didn't see it scrolled off the top of the screen.

At least you actually read the bodies of the posts

[Sflamb]

But yes, the power led is continuosly lit. I've now tried 3 power sources, all with 5V and 2A specs, no difference. They all of course give slightly less current (0.5 A) than the official Pi 3 psu. To my knowledge, this shouldn't be a problem though.

[Rive]

Lets start over (cuz I am easily confused).
troubleshoot process of elimination:

Did you connect anything to the gpio pins, and/or short them out?
Run this for 15 min (do not use pi3 when it is running, then click 'select all', copy, then paste results in Code tags)

Code: Select all

while true; do vcgencmd measure_clock arm; vcgencmd measure_temp; sleep 10; done& 

Are you running headless or with a monitor/HDTV?
Do you see red power light blink at all?
Do you see colored (orange or rainbow) boxes upper right hand corner?
Did you download and install full Jessie to sdcard (after using diskpart to 'clean' the sdcard (disk))?
Did you update jessie?

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Is your file system expanded via raspi-config?
Are you stock, or overclocked?
Do you have the proper power supply (5.1V 2.5A or 5.25V 2.4A)?

[Sflamb]

Lets start over (cuz I am easily confused).
troubleshoot process of elimination:

Did you connect anything to the gpio pins, and/or short them out?
Run this for 15 min (do not use pi3 when it is running, then click 'select all', copy, then paste results in Code tags)

Code: Select all

while true; do vcgencmd measure_clock arm; vcgencmd measure_temp; sleep 10; done& 

Are you running headless or with a monitor/HDTV?
Do you see red power light blink at all?
Do you see colored (orange or rainbow) boxes upper right hand corner?
Did you download and install full Jessie to sdcard (after using diskpart to 'clean' the sdcard (disk))?
Is your file system expanded via raspi-config?
Are you stock, or overclocked?
Do you have the proper power supply (5.1V 2.5A or 5.25V 2.4A)?

I'll try to answer in the same order.

-There isn't anything connected to the gpio pins nor have I shorted them out
- Posting the results of that test is beyond my skills, since I cannot copy/paste in the graphical interface or launch a web browser, but I can try to summarize. It showed on each cycle: frequency(45)=600000000 and temp starting at first from 50.2'C and slowly reaching a max of 54.2'C, mostly holding at 53.7'C. Didn't know how to stop it after 15 mins, tried CTRL+C & CTRL+Z but then rebooted when that didn't work.
- I am running with a monitor atm. Eventually would be running headless because I would like to set the Pi to work as a 4G router (connected to a dongle)
- The red power light is steadily lit all the time, no blinking
- I do not see coloured boxes in the upper right corner
- Full Jessie is installed, but I did that in windows 10. (Using SDFormatter and Win32DiskImager). The problem appeared before this though, with the pre-installed image SD card bought from Pi Hut.
- Jessie is updated
- File system is expanded through raspi-config
- I'm running as stock, no overclock
- Power supply is 5V and 2A

[Rive]

Posting the results of that test is beyond my skills, since I cannot copy/paste in the graphical interface or launch a web browser

Power supply is 5V and 2A

Power supply is insufficient then.

Are you not using a keyboard mouse with monitor? Why cant you copy/paste in the graphical interface or launch a web browser? What happens when you attempt to do so?

[Sflamb]

Posting the results of that test is beyond my skills, since I cannot copy/paste in the graphical interface or launch a web browser

Power supply is insufficient then.

Are you not using a keyboard mouse with monitor? Why cant you copy/paste in the graphical interface or launch a web browser? What happens when you attempt to do so?

I do have mouse and keyboard connected. Web browser fails to start as well as text editor and other programs. Terminal works sometimes, after maybe 3 attempts to launch.

[Rive]

So, you replaced the pre-installed image SD card bought from Pi Hut, and went to the store and got yourself an HC-1 micro sdcard (such as the $11 Samsung EVO+ 32GB HC-1/UHS-1), right?


Then downloaded and install Jessie full (from here: https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspbian/), and then expanded, and then updated/upgraded it, right?


Lets test your Pi3 & power supply...see if it blinks or goes rainbow on screen.

timed 15min test

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get install stress
stress --cpu 4 -t 900& watch '(vcgencmd measure_temp; vcgencmd measure_clock arm)'

[Sflamb]

So, you replaced the pre-installed image SD card bought from Pi Hut, and went to the store and got yourself an HC-1 micro sdcard (such as the $11 Samsung EVO+ 32GB HC-1/UHS-1), right?


Then downloaded and install Jessie full, and then expanded, and then updated/upgraded it, right?

Yes. Have now two Sandisk ultra cards (8 GB and 32 GB) HC-1 and one Transcend premium 8 GB HC-1. Bigger Sandisk has Ubuntu mate (latest RPI version), other two have full Jessie. All expanded and updated/upgraded.

Lets test your power supply...see if it blinks or goes rainbow on screen.

timed 15min test

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get install stress
stress --cpu 4 -t 900& watch '(vcgencmd measure_temp; vcgencmd measure_clock arm)'

Seems that the stress test crashed the pi. Temp rose to around 78'C and at the sixth cycle got a black screen with the coloured box in the upper right corner and it's stuck there now. Does this mean the fault is with insufficient power?

EDIT: I can apparently switch consoles with ctrl+alt+f*, black screen and coloured box comes back after a second though in all consoles, test is still running in tty1