Is one of my brand new RPi's Faulty?

[BarrieAvis]

Two new RPi's each with a bundled 8Gb SD Card with NOOBS
(bought in December from RS Components but not used until 2 weeks ago!)
I labelled them as RPi1 and RPi2, and as SDCard1 and SDCard2.

I then took separate backup copies of NOOBS from the SD Cards using Win32DiskImager.

After an abortive installtion attempt, no matter which backup copy of NOOBS
I rewrite to the SD Card (using of course Win32DiskImager)
or which of the SD Cards I use, the result it the same.

I have tried many times to install RaspBMC on RPi1 but it always fails.
Immediatly after I click on OK after being told "Image applied successfully"
I just get a black screen and my TV says there is no HDMI signal.
Also at this point, only the Red LED is lit.
I have tried waiting up to 30 minutes in case something is busy, but to no avail.
(If I turn the power off - and then back on again, installation seems to continue for a while but
then gets stuck at a later stage of the sequence.)

I have tried installing different Operating Systems from NOOBS with the
same result, except in the case of OpenElec which did once seem to install OK on RPi1!

But installation of RaspBMC always succeeds if I am using RPi2.

RPi 2 - voltage TP1-TP2 is 4.92v
RPi 1 - voltage TP1-TP2 is 5.00v (so is RPi1 drawing less current?)
(both measured when powered from the RPi Hub and 3A PSU bought from Pimoroni)

I reported this to RS Componenets and said that I think RPi1 is faulty.

RS Componenets are being quite reasonable and have asked me to try the steps oulined in
http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/ so I have.

Do you agree with my diagnosis that RPi1 is probably faulty or have you any other suggestions?

Thanks.

[jamesh]

So a card (with anything on it, but preferably Raspbian - either via NOOBS, or Win32Diskimager for the raw image, preferably the latest images from here) that works in Rpi2, definitely doesn't work when moved to Rpi1?

[BarrieAvis]

Do you mean that in RPi1 I should try an SD Card onto which an OS has already been installed (using RPi2)? If so then yes I did try this with RaspBMC and it seemed to work. (I say "seemed" because I have not used it extensively.)

But nevertheless, whenever I try running an actual NOOBS process of installing RaspBMC (from an image freshly written to the SD Card), it always fails on RPi1 but succeeds on RPi2 - no matter which SD Card I am using and no matter which NOOBS backup image I have rewritten.

Unfortunately an RPi which cannot be used for doing the installation is of no use to me!

[jamesh]

Do you mean that in RPi1 I should try an SD Card onto which an OS has already been installed (using RPi2)? If so then yes I did try this with RaspBMC and it seemed to work. (I say "seemed" because I have not used it extensively.)

But nevertheless, whenever I try running an actual NOOBS process of installing RaspBMC (from an image freshly written to the SD Card), it always fails on RPi1 but succeeds on RPi2 - no matter which SD Card I am using and no matter which NOOBS backup image I have rewritten.

Unfortunately an RPi which cannot be used for doing the installation is of no use to me!

Since the SD card from Pi2 works in Pi1 that indicates the PI is actually working.

My only thought is how you are imaging. As I understand it, you are using in standard NOOBs (ie copy files to empty SD card, start Pi), then taking a image of the resulting SD card, and using that to create another image. Correct?

Why not just use NOOBS each time?

[DougieLawson]

Use the working pi with a USB SDCard reader (costs less than £8, you won't regret buying one). That way you can examine the SDCard in detail, you can mount it, you can clone the working SDCard.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fujifilm-Card-R ... B001725Y0Q is my expensive one.

Using a working RPi is a bunch easier than trying to do that stuff on Windows.

dmesg
fdisk -l
and
dd

are the commands to use.

[BarrieAvis]

I *do* use NOOBS each time.

I used Win32Imager to make backup copies of NOOBS from each of the SD Cards before I started, so that I could restore the SD Cards to their original pristine state by writing those backed up images back onto the SD Cards again using Win32Imager.

Whenever I put a new, pristine NOOBS into RPi1 and try to install RaspBMC from it it fails.

Whenever I put a new, pristine NOOBS into RPi2 and try to install RaspBMC from it it installs OK.

To me that says quite conclusively that RPi1 is faulty. But am I missing something?

[rpdom]

Are you using the latest NOOBS? The earlier versions may have old versions of firmware that may not support the memory chip on one of your Raspis.

What make of RAM chip is on each Pi? What are the markings on the top chip on the IC2 stack?

[jamesh]

I *do* use NOOBS each time.

I used Win32Imager to make backup copies of NOOBS from each of the SD Cards before I started, so that I could restore the SD Cards to their original pristine state by writing those backed up images back onto the SD Cards again using Win32Imager.

Whenever I put a new, pristine NOOBS into RPi1 and try to install RaspBMC from it it fails.

Whenever I put a new, pristine NOOBS into RPi2 and try to install RaspBMC from it it installs OK.

To me that says quite conclusively that RPi1 is faulty. But am I missing something?

What I don't understand is if you use a card made on 2, then Rpi1 works with it. If it boots then its working. I cannot see though why NOOBS wouldn't work/install.

[GTR2Fan]

I fail to understand why you're taking a disk image of a fresh NOOBS at all. Before installation of any OSes (ie, in its 'vanilla' state), NOOBS is just a bunch of files on a FAT-formatted partition. All you need to do to copy it is copy it, not image it.

What happens if you download NOOBS from this site (click on 'Downloads' at the top of this page to find it) and copy it onto both freshly formatted SD cards? Does either card boot in either Pi? I'd expect that to be the case.