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Raspberry Pi4B Setup

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MetalDesigner
(@metaldesigner)
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I attempted to Setup my new Raspberry Pi4B and followed the raspberry pi org setup site's directions.

RaspPi4B Faulty 2
RaspPi4B Faulty 1

 

Issue is when I plug in the Raspberry Pi4B a Red LED comes on and stays red and nothing else happens.  Just the solid Red LED, no Green LED blinking, no signal to monitor or TV HDMI.  I can't tell if Keyboard or mouse are connected.

Doesn't look anything like the videos online.  Their videos show the Red LED light coming on then after a few seconds a Green LED flashes.  So I am assuming it is an issue with the SD card because believe the Green LED flashing is an indication of the Pi reading the SD card.

THOUGHTS??  Suggestions??

?? Is this a possible Monitor/TV HDMI connection issue? 
( I'll have to purchase a second HDMI cable to test this out as Pi4B uses Micro HDMI to Standard HDMI  but that is OK because wanted to test out the dual monitor feature on the Raspberry Pi 4B)

We see how this goes ... I may skip NOOBS and use BalenaEtcher.

This topic was modified 4 years ago 4 times by MetalDesigner

   
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MetalDesigner
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... So I've had a little progress ...

Used balenaEtcher to flash Raspian directly to the Micro-SD card and when turn on RaspberryPi 4B I get Red then some Green LED flashes then do get a signal to Monitor then black screen then see the 4 raspberrys then signal is immediately lost on monitor and there are no more flashes on the Green LED, just the solid Red LED.

Waiting for a long time in case it was attempting to configure even though monitor signal lost ... Nothing ... 30 minutes ... no change ... so unplugged it and plugged it back it and same thing RED LED solid, and then lots of Green LED flashing then screen turns black, then immediately the four Raspberrys show up then in less than a second the signal to the monitor is lost and then there are no more Greed LED flashes.

... So ... I'll leave it connected overnight with the solid Red LED on and no Green Flashes and no signal going to the monitor.

I'll update in another post tomorrow after letting it sit for 6 hours so no one can say I didn't wait long enough ? 

I'm using a 128gb Mirco-SD 

Any Suggestions?

This post was modified 4 years ago by MetalDesigner

   
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MetalDesigner
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7th time was a charm? 🙂    Decided to unplug RaspberryPi 4B and plug it in again before leaving it on for the night and it came up on the TV monitor and didn't loose signal this time. 

Wireless mouse and keyboard worked great so finished setup process and all went well and it rebooted and opened again on TV monitor.    Unplugged HDMI from TV and plugged into Monitor and it also worked.  

I'm still going to leave it on overnight and then see how it works.  See if it will consistently open using monitor and/or TV.  (It has only opened stable when plugged into TV)

Then will test with both TV & Monitor plugged in when my 2nd HDMI cable arrives.

Screen On

 


   
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codecage
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@metaldesigner

I had a similar, but I'm not sure if it is exactly the same, thing happen with my first RasPi4.  It turned out to be an issue with how the Raspian software determines what type of display is connected to the HDMI port.  I was using a 32" Visio and had the supplier ship me another RasPi as even the tech support folks for the supplier thought maybe I had a bad RasPi.  With the new RasPi I still had the same issue.  I found some information from googling and searching several sites that wound up causing me to edit a file on the "boot" partition of the SD card that forced the Raspian to use some settings for the display instead of querying the Visio's HDMI port for what it thought was best.

The long and short of it was that Raspian was trying to use some video settings that my Visio monitor could not support.  I connected the RasPi to the much more expensive Sony TV in my living room and it worked right off the bat.

Now for the hard part!  Trying to remember what exactly it was that I edited in the file on the "boot" partition!!  ?  I can remember things from the tech school I attended for the USAF 50 years ago, but can't seem to remember what I had for breakfast yesterday.  I'll see if I can refresh my memory and find what edits I made.

But maybe that will give you some food for thought.

SteveG


   
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codecage
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Posted by: @metaldesigner

7th time was a charm? ? 

Looks like you have stumbled upon the same thing I experienced.  It looks like the code Raspian is using to determine what type of video is connected may have some issues at least working with my Visio monitor and what ever model you are using.  I wonder what the odds are that our monitors are the same models?  Is yours a Visio?  I would have thought the Visio might also be part of the issue, but it has never had a problem with versions of Raspian before using it on a RasPi4.

SteveG


   
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MetalDesigner
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@codecage

Yes my TV is a Vizio and purchased 7" monitor off Amazon.  After experimenting a bit more it seems the RaspberryPi 4B starts very stable when HDMI is connected to the Vizio TV; however, if I try to start it with the 7" monitor it konks out after the 4 raspberrys show on screen ... but after starting with HDMI connected to the TV ... if I pull out HDMI ... Probably shouldn't do that but ... 🙂 ... anyway ... I can then put the live HDMI into the Monitor and it works fine.  I'll get two cables going at same time once my other cable arrives and see what happens.  I'm fine using the TV for now and might even try it on the larger living room TV with cordless Keyboard & Mouse.

I just need the 7" monitor when move out to workshop to test Arduino sketches on items... but I know I can start on TV then jump cord to Monitor for now until figure it out better.

All-in-all a good first day - Got everything setup as needed for Viewing Arduino IDE on pi using TV while in office.  Also tested an Arduino Mega hooked up to Raspberry Pi via USB and was able to downloaded a sketch written on Arduino IDE opened with Raspbian onto the mega and it worked as it should. 

 CHEERS


   
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Spyder
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@metaldesigner

morepowerscotty

The 7" screen gets it's power directly from the Pi, while the Vizio TV is self powered and only gets signal from the Pi

I ran into the exact same set of flashy lights and screen shutdowns when I was trying to work out how to power my steampunk laptop (which is a Pi4) from batteries


   
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MetalDesigner
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Update 2 days later - Tested a 2nd HDMI Cord & Desktop Red Battery Icon

Not sure if this will help others but my issue during setup appears to have been a monitor that will not connect to the Raspberry Pi.  Once connected to my TV via same HDMI cable connection I was able to finish Raspberry Pi 4B setup without any other issues. 

Very pleased with the preformance of the Raspberry Pi 4B 4GB so far.

The TVs in the house all can connect to the RasPi4B ( Raspberry Pi 4B 4GB ) via HDMI cord; however, the little monitor purchased specifically to use with the RasPi4B does not connect at startup.  So that will be something sort out another day.  I have a little flat-screen TV out in the Metal Workshop that should be able to use for most Raspberry Pi 4B tests connected to equipment.

Did notice something that looks like a RED battery icon on the top of Pi Desktop? 
( See Photo Below)
Not sure why it is saying "Discharged: 0%" ... didn't notice the icon before?

No issues with overheating at this time but just-for-fun 3D-printed a mount for a cooling fan ... just-in-case stress the Pi in a later project.

WHEN/IF get the little monitor shown in photo below to connect on its own with Raspberry Pi I will update this post. 

At this time I have to start the Pi plugged into my TV and once running I can take HDMI cable out of TV and plug it into small monitor and it works as it should.  Hopefully a future update will help the issue.

CHEERS 

RaspPi4B Faulty Monitor
Raspian Red Battery icon
Monitor for RaspBerry Pi 4B
This post was modified 4 years ago 4 times by MetalDesigner

   
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Spyder
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@metaldesigner

That's a battery monitor for ppl who've built themselves a "PiTop". But not a lot of ppl have built them, so development was temporarily halted, so, the battery monitor is there because it's there, not because it works. 

You can safely remove it from the taskbar


   
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(@oldcodger)
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Obvious question, but have you tried the official Raspberry Pi .org forum pages. 

https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/


   
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