No HDMI or RCA Video Output from brand new board.

[nurquhar]

I just plugged in brand new Pi.  I am not seeing any video output on either the HDMI or RCA phono sockets.  The machine seems to booting in that when the power is applied the red led comes on followed by all the others with some flashing activiety.  I don't know what the LED's should do on boot.

I have tried with two different SD cards I have. No luck with either.  I have made a Debian image with the lastest download on a SanDisk 2GB SD Card and onto a SanDisk 16GB SDHC card with the win32diskimager tool.

I have these items plugged into the Pi.

USB wired keyboard

USB wired mouse

1A 5v micro psu

15" 4:3 DVI monitor via HDMI adaptor

17" 4:3 monitor via phono lead to yellow RCA socket.

Cat5 newwork cable to my network switch (DHCP enabled on the router).

How can I work out if the Pi actually booting correctly and the SD card image is good or if it has a dead video controller ?

Regards

Neil

[Tass]

Generally if you have an SD card issue the red power LED lights up, but that's it.  If you SD card works, the green LED will light up to.  The yellow LED is your network connection - if you get that, I'd assume that your SD card is fine.

[nurquhar]

Could it be my SD card ?  The big card I have is a SanDisk 16GB 45MB/s Class 10.  Having read here that class 4 is recommended ?  It think my card is faster than a class 4, but is that a problem ?

Neil

[Tass]

nurquhar said:


Could it be my SD card ?  The big card I have is a SanDisk 16GB 45MB/s Class 10.  Having read here that class 4 is recommended ?  It think my card is faster than a class 4, but is that a problem ?

Neil



Yes, it's possible.  The issue with Class 10 as I understand it is down to the voltage it uses - Class 10 use a different voltage, so are problematic.  I know that some people have reported Class 10 cards that work, but the large majority have issues I think.

I'm not sure what happens if you use a Class 10 - whether the green light comes on or not.  I've only ever experienced & heard that if the green light comes on, the Pi is reading the card.  Do you have any other cards that you can try?

[nurquhar]

I have been to tescos and got hold of two new 4GB SDHC cards.  Card 1 is SanDisk 4GB Class 4.  Card 2 is TDK 4GB Class 4.

I have put the Debian image on to each card.  With both cards the results seem to be the same.  I.e. the red led comes on and then the green led next to it starts flickering.  If I plug the network cable in the other two green and the yellow led come.  But still no video evident at either of monitors connect to the HDMI or RCA !!!!

I have also confirmed that the network appears to be 'up' by using an IP ping scanner tool from my PC to find all the devices on my network.  With Pi connected to the network the scanner identifies one extra IP address allocated by my DHCP than when its not plugged in.

A manual ping of the IP address identified from my PC gives a good result.  I also tried to telnet to the Pi (port 23) but the connection was refused.

Is my Pi faulty ????

If I manage to connect a TTL USB serial port to the 26 pin IDC header should I see boot messages on my terminal ???

Is the video only turned when the O/S boots ?  ie there is no video output by the bootstrap code on the bare board ??

[RaTTuS]

if the HDMI is plugged in then make sure it is powered up when you apply power to your rpi.

all the lights means it's booted.

if you get no display - make sure that you have fully plugged in the hdmi cable at both ends and the TV or whatever is set to displathe correct imput.

[Tass]

It might be your displays?  Have you got anything with HDMI only?  If not, take your Pi down to your local Electronics retailer, tell them that you're thinking of buying a new TV but want to make sure it supports your Pi and test it out.

Be prepared to be mobbed though

[nurquhar]

The Pi is definatly booting.  I connected my laptop to the Pi's serial port via a USB TTL serial converter and all the boot messages appear.  I have even logged on and followed the instructions to enable SSH.  I can therefore now login via network I/F from my PC using puTTY.

So there is either a problem with both the monitors connected to the Pi (ie HDMI & RCA) or its the Video controller on the board ?  Both of the two monitors were working.  Neither are seeing any signal.

I have checked the obvious as suggested, ie are cables plugged in fully.  My one querry might be the HDMI to DVI converter.  I am using this one from Farnell, which is where my Pi came from.

http://uk.farnell.com/jsp/sear.....f-00001000

However this does not seem to explain the simulaneous failure to the RCA phono output.

I am going to try the Pi directly into HDMI sony tv to see what happens.

[nurquhar]

Hoorray !

After connecting my Sony TV via HDMI I have figured the problem !

It seems there were two issues.

1.  The RCA video output will not work if you have something plugged into the HDMI.

2.  I don't think the DVI-HDMI converter works even though it is a pretty simple pin-to-pin patch device.

Thus since I was testing with both monitors connect, one of which did not display and stopped the other working !

So there are two things to learn here.

1. Using HDMI output stops the RCA.

2. Using a HDMI-DVI converter may not work.  Or it could be the Pi won't adjust its video mode output to 1024x768 automatically ?  This was the highest mode for my 15" Iiyama.

If there is bootime video mode selection issue is there a way to tell the Pi to start with a different mode ? ie the 1024x768 I have ?

[fodi]

nurquhar said:


2. Using a HDMI-DVI converter may not work.  Or it could be the Pi won't adjust its video mode output to 1024x768 automatically ?  This was the highest mode for my 15" Iiyama.

If there is bootime video mode selection issue is there a way to tell the Pi to start with a different mode ? ie the 1024x768 I have ?


i use my pi with a hdmi-dvi cable that i bought off ebay for about 0.99 usd and works just fine

for the resolution, you might want to try this: http://elinux.org/RPi_config.txt

create a config.txt file in your /boot/ folder and play width hmi_mode or force sd resolution

[Steady_Bear]

The real lesson to learn here, is when you first try something - especially if you're debugging - is to remove all bar the bare minimum and try each subsystem separately.

Easy in hindsight

[Kiri]

Received my Raspberry pi yesterday, plugged all and worked with Debian squeeze.
Today, I thought try the Arch Linux ARM. copy the image file on the SD card and plugged the power. Nothing. Re imaged the Debian and tried nothing. While I Playing with the SD card, I accidently flicked the write protect and all suddenly worked. I am using the 4GB micor SD with the extension card. Weird.

[mahjongg]

Received my Raspberry pi yesterday, plugged all and worked with Debian squeeze.
Today, I thought try the Arch Linux ARM. copy the image file on the SD card and plugged the power. Nothing. Re imaged the Debian and tried nothing. While I Playing with the SD card, I accidently flicked the write protect and all suddenly worked. I am using the 4GB micor SD with the extension card. Weird.

What makes it even weirder is that the write protect does absolutely nothing on the PI!
The write protect signal isn't wired through, the PI can only detect the card is inserted, not in which position the "write protect switch" is placed. Setting the write protect switch doesn't write protect anything by the way, its just a signal that can be read by the software (but not in this case).

So "flicking the write protect switch" could not have been the cause, maybe the SD-card holder is a bit flakey.