Need help... Pi won't boot.

[elsiegee40]

OK so I've bought a Pi for son's birthday and am trying to test it out.

 

I have it connected to a USB mouse and keyboard and a standard flat screen monitor using an HDMI adapter

 

I bought an SD card with Raspbian pre-installed. I've pushed it as far and as hard as it will go.

 

I powered up the Pi and I get a red light and occasionally a green flashing light for a while but that stops and then no more. Any clues please?

[Steve21]

Honestly not bothered putting ours over to HDMI yet, but I know when reading about it a lot of people found they needed to do config changes to get the HDMI to work properly with certain displays etc.

 

Can you see the screen normally via composite etc?

 

Steve

[plexer]

If you put the card into a pc does it give you access to it?

 

Ben

[andynunn]

I think they like a 1024x768 screen resolution when the OS is fresh out the box; there is a config file you can edit to get round this, not near my PI so can't check it's location but not hard to find

[Andrew_C]

I had trouble getting ours to boot too. I found that the PSU was dropping voltage out of spec under load.

 

I started using a powered hub for the keyboard etc, but that caused problems feeding 5V back into the Pi via USB. A few scratches on the hub's circuit board seems to have fixed it.

[plexer]

I've hooked one up to a 19" tft via hdmi to dvi converter without a problem.

 

I'm using a dlink powered usb for both powering the pi and providing extra ports.

 

Ben

[elsiegee40]

OK latest status.

 

I tried connecting the LAN cable and that has made a difference. Does the Pi always need an internet connection?

 

I now have a different array of lights, Steady yellow (the LAN connection), flickering green, steady green, red (power)

 

I guess I need to find an HDMI cable and try plugging it into the tv. Is it OK to simply pull the power on this thing?

[Steve21]

OK latest status.

 

I tried connecting the LAN cable and that has made a difference. Does the Pi always need an internet connection?

 

I now have a different array of lights, Steady yellow (the LAN connection), flickering green, steady green, red (power)

 

I guess I need to find an HDMI cable and try plugging it into the tv. Is it OK to simply pull the power on this thing?

 

Doesn't always need it no, but depends how the card came setup. Is it the "preinstalled" but needs setting up one? If so it's only apreinstalled installer, that tries to connect to internet to updates before installing etc.

 

Generally the Pi never turns itself off, only bad thing of pulling it is if it's in middle of something really, like USB style.

 

Steve

[elsiegee40]

I'm in... Connected to the tv AND the internet it works fine. Need to have another play with the monitor!

 

Thanks all.

[nab]

[h=2]Where’s the on / off switch?[/h]To switch on: just plug it in!

To switch off: remove power.

 

From the pi website

FAQs | Raspberry Pi

 

nab

[Arthur]

I have it connected to a USB mouse and keyboard and a standard flat screen monitor using an HDMI adapter

Have you got any HDMI-related settings in your config.txt file? e.g.

 

####################
# DISPLAY SETTINGS #
####################
# The Raspberry Pi can only drive EITHER the composite analogue out, or HDMI,
# but not both at once. The presence of a composite output cannot be checked
# electronically, so the default is to check HDMI, then resort to composite if
# no HDMI device was found.

# Pretends HDMI hotplug signal is asserted so it appears a HDMI display is attached 
[color="#FF0000"]hdmi_force_hotplug[/color]=1

# Force the monitor to HDMI mode so that sound will be sent over HDMI cable (1 = Normal DVI mode without sound, 2 = Normal HDMI mode with sound)
[color="#FF0000"]hdmi_drive[/color]=2

# HDMI signal strength. Default is 0. Try 4 if you have interference issues with HDMI. 7 is the maximum.
# config_hdmi_boost=0

# Set monitor mode (0 = Get from EDID, 1 = CEA, 2 = DMT)
# hdmi_group=1

# Set monitor resolution (DMT: 1 = VGA, 82 = 1080p 60Hz, 85 = 720p 60Hz / CEA: 16 = 1920x1080 60Hz)
# [color="#FF0000"]hdmi_mode[/color]=16

# Set SDTV mode to PAL
# sdtv_mode=2

# Defines the aspect ratio for composite output (1 = 4:3, 2 = 14:9, 3 = 16:9)
# sdtv_aspect=3

Edited April 19, 2013 by Arthur

[elsiegee40]

Thanks @Arthur

 

# uncomment to force a specific HDMI mode (this will force VGA)
#hdmi_group=1
#hdmi_mode=1

Does this look promising to use a VGA monitor?

[jedmondson]

#vga monitor

 

hdmi_drive=2

hdmi_group=2

hdmi_mode=14

hdmi_force_hotplug=1

disable_overscan=0

 

is what i have on mine. hdmi_mode=14 is the line that changes screen size.

I am using a cheep hdmi to vga adapter and it works.

 

I also have to sometimes plug it into a hdmi monitor first if those lines are not there.