Since, my Raspberry PI 4 does not want to boot, I am asking here if any audio players exist which provide the same functionality like a Pi. I changed the SDCard unsuccessfully. The Raspberry Pi 4 did not boot notwithstanding I tried to boot several times. The LED flickers showing some sort of mysterious activity, but without booting. As this version of Pi has two HDMI ports, I tried to connect to both of them. Still, unsuccessful. It is becoming like a recurrent nightmare, since I love music, I am at a loss not having a substitute. If anything exists that is ready to use, I will consider it.
https://support.thepihut.com/hc/en-...937-My-Raspberry-Pi-4-will-not-boot-is-faulty
I've had several Pi's and so far they were all rock solid. I've got a 4 that's running a Docker server, and a 3B+ with HifiBerry "HAT" running PiCorePlayer with LMS. If there were any problems, it was a corruption on the SD card that usually could be fixed by putting it in a Windows PC and running a disk check on it.
I've had several Pi's and so far they were all rock solid. I've got a 4 that's running a Docker server, and a 3B+ with HifiBerry "HAT" running PiCorePlayer with LMS. If there were any problems, it was a corruption on the SD card that usually could be fixed by putting it in a Windows PC and running a disk check on it.
What OS are you trying to boot?
Did it used to boot then stopped?
I've found the Pi to be pretty resilient hardware. Not broken one yet.
Which LED flickers, red or green? If green flickers I'd agree almost certainly the SD card. If the red flickers, may be a problem with the P/S. Red going off indicates low voltage, which I've seen on occasion cause weird stuff. Did you change power cables and the new one is longer or possibly thinner wire?
You used an other USB wall power thingy and it doesn't have the juice to start the pi. Use an other?
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The 4 uses the most power on boot up so make sure you have the proper power supply. Unplug any USB or other storage devices to make sure they aren’t causing an issue. Use either HDMI port and look for the initial boot display, the multicolor square thing. Disconnect any network cables. If you have another computer with an SD card reader you can look at the contents of the boot card to see if it’s ok. If not, flash another card with the OS from RPi. I’ve never had hardware go bad but I’ve seen the SD card get messed up. Even without the card installed you should get the multicolor boot screen if the PS and unit are good.
I am using the official Pi power supply that I bought when I was still using the Pi 3B+. This, I assume, should have enough power to make the Pi 4 work. The green LED is the one that is flickering a series of around 8 flickers. The speed is too high for me at my age to count the flickers with accuracy, but my counts are around the 8th mark. The flickering sequence repeats itself at regular intervals. The operating system is the official Pi OS but without the bloat of a desktop or window manager.
I liked this setup with a command line interface to play my music with. However, having the Pi not booting, leaves me without any clues as to what is going wrong. When I try to boot nothing appears on screen, not even the rainbow screen, absolutely nothing! All I did to the power supply was changing its USB male connector that connects to the Pi. I connected a USB C connector for the Pi-4. I did nothing else. I still have the Pi-3B+, which I discarded from use because it was showing the same behaviour of not booting. The image with the OS file is named: 2023-05-03-raspios-bullseye-arm64.img. I used both the official imager and dd. I also verified that the partitions created by setting up the SDCard are mountable and contain the usual files.
The only feedback I am getting from the Pi is those regular 8 or so flickers. All else is dead and quite!
I searched for alternatives to using a Pi, like ready made music players, but I am finding only portable mp3 players. I want something better than that.
I liked this setup with a command line interface to play my music with. However, having the Pi not booting, leaves me without any clues as to what is going wrong. When I try to boot nothing appears on screen, not even the rainbow screen, absolutely nothing! All I did to the power supply was changing its USB male connector that connects to the Pi. I connected a USB C connector for the Pi-4. I did nothing else. I still have the Pi-3B+, which I discarded from use because it was showing the same behaviour of not booting. The image with the OS file is named: 2023-05-03-raspios-bullseye-arm64.img. I used both the official imager and dd. I also verified that the partitions created by setting up the SDCard are mountable and contain the usual files.
The only feedback I am getting from the Pi is those regular 8 or so flickers. All else is dead and quite!
I searched for alternatives to using a Pi, like ready made music players, but I am finding only portable mp3 players. I want something better than that.
Are you using the same physical SD card. If both Pi fail to boot it has to be PSU, SD card or the OS on it.
Don't recall you mentioning Pi hats or what else you might have attached to the pi at boot. What, if anything is there?
If you can write the OS to the card and it's a fresh image it's almost certainly ok.
Which leaves the PSU. Do you have a decent phone charger PSU?
Don't recall you mentioning Pi hats or what else you might have attached to the pi at boot. What, if anything is there?
If you can write the OS to the card and it's a fresh image it's almost certainly ok.
Which leaves the PSU. Do you have a decent phone charger PSU?
The PSU is the only thing I did not check. I have a fast charger for a Samsung Smart Phone. It charges the phone in 2 hours. I will check the current rating of the charger and try it if it is enough. My setup has an IQaudIO DAC Hat, a USB keyboard, and an SDCard connected to the Pi. However, before these failures it was working.
P.S.
I checked the USB phone charger but it lists the voltage in a weird manner. The rating is written as: 9V=2A; 12V=1.5A; 6V=27W. Since it lists 3 voltages I am worried it may result in damage to the PI. The voltage rating should be 5V, this lists 3 voltages and all 3 are more than the required voltage.
P.S.
I checked the USB phone charger but it lists the voltage in a weird manner. The rating is written as: 9V=2A; 12V=1.5A; 6V=27W. Since it lists 3 voltages I am worried it may result in damage to the PI. The voltage rating should be 5V, this lists 3 voltages and all 3 are more than the required voltage.
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If you can get an accurate count of the green led flashes then this page will indicate the boot errors and what to investigate.
https://www.makeuseof.com/troubleshoot-raspberry-pi-leds-solid-flashing-meaning/
8 repeated flashes on a Pi 4 is SDRAM (Yikes!) but 7 would indicate a kernel problem possibly related to the sd-card.
https://www.makeuseof.com/troubleshoot-raspberry-pi-leds-solid-flashing-meaning/
8 repeated flashes on a Pi 4 is SDRAM (Yikes!) but 7 would indicate a kernel problem possibly related to the sd-card.
I would try a boot with nothing but monitor connected. There's always the faint chance the hat is the thing with the fault. It's a pain, but use a fresh image too.
If there's a fault it has to be common between both Pi, and hat, psu, peripherals are all there is...
If there's a fault it has to be common between both Pi, and hat, psu, peripherals are all there is...
Ed said he'd had the same problem with a Pi3b+ (in #7) so not sure it's lack of power. I've been able to boot a 4gb pi 4 using the older official 2.5a supply.
It seems the malfunction is the dreaded SDRAM failure which is due to bad soldering of the SDRAM chip. This looks like a BGA, ball grid array, chip which is not easy to solder properly. This failure is the knell of death for my cherished Raspberry Pi music player. I will purchase another one although in the thread it is said that this failure falls under the warranty.
Never the less, I am open to suggestions as to what I should do.
Never the less, I am open to suggestions as to what I should do.
Certainly looks like it could be, after reading your link. 8 flashes pf green led. Bit scary. If that's the case you could try contacting the people you got it from perhaps you can be a refund or replacement...
I've got two Pi4, though so far no problems.
Thought you'd said that the Pi3b+ had also stopped booting???
I've got two Pi4, though so far no problems.
Thought you'd said that the Pi3b+ had also stopped booting???
It appears the most reported cause of SDRAM failure is a faulty power supply.
Given that your Pi3 seems to have similar symptoms and you reused the Pi supply for your Pi4 then if you are replacing the Pi4 with another biff the old power supply and get a new one.
(The likelihood of your two Pi both having faulty SDRAM soldering is vanishingly small.)
Given that your Pi3 seems to have similar symptoms and you reused the Pi supply for your Pi4 then if you are replacing the Pi4 with another biff the old power supply and get a new one.
(The likelihood of your two Pi both having faulty SDRAM soldering is vanishingly small.)
Drone7 may be on to something. Try looking at what 5V looks like on the GPIO header.I think I had one pi2 fry in a power outage. Otherwise the dozen or so I've got have not failed, although I have had to replace some SD cards, usually after an outage. I do try to turn off as much logging as possible to reduce the number of writes. Then when there is an inevitable monthly power failure with my incompetent utility, it is less likely to be during a write.
Yes, I have a Pi3B+ which stopped booting. Yesterday, I powered it with a mobile phone charger that can supply 2A. The Red LED lit up showing there was enough power for the Pi3B+. It boots very intermittently pointing to a bad contact somewhere on the PCB. However, the component density is too high for me to attempt soldering.
The best option is to buy another one which I did today.
The best option is to buy another one which I did today.
Interesting. If I were to point a fickle finger at something it would be the micro usb socket. They're quite vulnerable (hateful things) and I've had a couple of (non raspi) devices have intermittency problems with them.
That said. None of that explains the issues with the pi 4 unless it was just bad luck...
That said. None of that explains the issues with the pi 4 unless it was just bad luck...