Dead Pi?

[D-Dan]

OK, so I finally bought a Rasperry Pi 3, and got it home excited to see it. Plugged in a USB KB and mouse, HDMI to the monitor, micro Sd card, and finally, a power supply. The light came and, and nothing!

Now, I got it from CeX, who usually test all their stuff before selling, and so I assume that it worked. I’ve tried two HDMI cables (including the one in use now) and three power supplies. Tried with nothing but HDMI and power. Nada, nothing, or as we say around here, diddly squat.

Dunno what I’m gonna do with it, but bringing it to life would be a start.

I know that there are some Pi veterans around here, so do I have a dud, or is there a solution.

Either you help me bring life into it, or it’s going back tomorrow.

Arch Linux, on a Ryzen 7 1800X, 32 GB, 5 (yes -5) HDs inc 5 SSDs, 4 RPi 3Bs + 1 RPi 4B - one as an NFS server with two more drives, PiHole (shut yours), Plex server, cloud server, and other random Pi stuff. Nice CoolerMaster case, 2 x NV GTX 1070 8GB, and a whopping 32" AOC 1440P monitor.

[Anonymous]

What power supply are you using?

The Pi 3 is a lot more power hungry than the original 2.

[PlaneMan]

The original could be picky about keyboard /mouse setups, no idea about the 3.

[Ed P]

”

OK, so I finally bought a Rasperry Pi 3, and got it home excited to see it. Plugged in a USB KB and mouse, HDMI to the monitor, micro Sd card, and finally, a power supply. The light came and, and nothing!”

A good description of what happens when the SD card is either improperly inserted, or it does not have a valid boot sector. I suspect the latter as the best way of formatting and loading Raspbian onto the SD card is via the Windows route, and I’m sure you would not have used that!

Try a full reformat of the SD card (use GParted to zap everything then format as a Fat32 card), then follow this guide.

Unfortunately SD cards are  very ‘fragile’ and easily zapped by just pulling the power plug on the Pi – improper shutdowns are by far the most common way of zapping a Pi. I now use a USB stick for everything except a boot sector that currently has to reside on the SD card. (Something to graduate to using when you are more comfortable with the Pi)

[D-Dan]

Good call, Ed. Seems a bad flash. Started again and it’s booting. Thank you 🙂 Time to play.

Arch Linux, on a Ryzen 7 1800X, 32 GB, 5 (yes -5) HDs inc 5 SSDs, 4 RPi 3Bs + 1 RPi 4B - one as an NFS server with two more drives, PiHole (shut yours), Plex server, cloud server, and other random Pi stuff. Nice CoolerMaster case, 2 x NV GTX 1070 8GB, and a whopping 32" AOC 1440P monitor.

[D-Dan]

OK. Having fun 🙂 Got my NFS shares mounted at boot. A desktop if I need it. Connected via ssh running headless at the moment, and after an hour of trying, finally got it connected to the pulseaudio server on my main rig (three computers now all using the same audio output simultaneously). If I start the desktop, synergy will hapily let me share the mouse and keyboard again from main PC (so three computers all using the same mouse and KB, again simultaneously).

I gave blender a try on it, thinking I may be able to use it as a part of a renderfarm, but it just doesn’t seem up to it.

Now, apart from playing music when the other computers are busy, I need to decide what else to do with it. Should probably make a box for it out of a cornflakes packet, or something, too.

This is fun, though. Been a while since I had to troubleshoot a Linux distribution too much. It’s just too damned stable these days.

Arch Linux, on a Ryzen 7 1800X, 32 GB, 5 (yes -5) HDs inc 5 SSDs, 4 RPi 3Bs + 1 RPi 4B - one as an NFS server with two more drives, PiHole (shut yours), Plex server, cloud server, and other random Pi stuff. Nice CoolerMaster case, 2 x NV GTX 1070 8GB, and a whopping 32" AOC 1440P monitor.

[Drezha]

They are fun – I’ve currently got a Pi 2 under the TV running my audio, a Pi 3 at my cadet hut as a file server (and now a temperature recorder), a Pi 3 next to my main machine that if needs be I can log in to and use a desktop and then two Pi Zero W’s that are awaiting USB temperature recorders before they to get placed around the house to act as a temperature logger.

"Everything looks interesting until you do it. Then you find it’s just another job" - Terry Pratchett

[Ed P]

Dan, I assume you did the rtfm bit. If not a sudo raspi-config and ‘advanced’ ‘expand filesystem is essential. If this isn’t done pdq the first sudo apt-get dist upgrade will barf over everything!

[D-Dan]

Read what? lol. No, I didn’t. Just playing at the moment. If it all goes pear shaped it’s not the end of the world.

My pulseaudio problem was a doddle in the end. I forgot the lesson from pulse troubleshooting 101. Check the channels aren’t muted in alsamixer. Doh!

As for ssh, since it’s pre-configured in the event of a reinstall I just need to copy the keys over again. In fact, I’ll almost definitely reinstall minus the X server. Not so sure I need it.

And setting up mount of the NFS shares is a doddle.

—————————————

OK, OK. done the advanced “expand filesystem”. removed the DE, DM and xorg (I can use X forwarding for any graphical applications).

Are we good, now?

Arch Linux, on a Ryzen 7 1800X, 32 GB, 5 (yes -5) HDs inc 5 SSDs, 4 RPi 3Bs + 1 RPi 4B - one as an NFS server with two more drives, PiHole (shut yours), Plex server, cloud server, and other random Pi stuff. Nice CoolerMaster case, 2 x NV GTX 1070 8GB, and a whopping 32" AOC 1440P monitor.

[Ed P]

Depends whether you want to run the Pi headless, in which case I would install vnc viewer on your PC and enable the VNC server on the Pi. (advanced menu again).

[D-Dan]

ssh is more than enough. Since I dumped the desktop, and have X forwarding working for graphical applications, I don’t see an immediate need for VNC.

Arch Linux, on a Ryzen 7 1800X, 32 GB, 5 (yes -5) HDs inc 5 SSDs, 4 RPi 3Bs + 1 RPi 4B - one as an NFS server with two more drives, PiHole (shut yours), Plex server, cloud server, and other random Pi stuff. Nice CoolerMaster case, 2 x NV GTX 1070 8GB, and a whopping 32" AOC 1440P monitor.

[Ed P]

I forgot – the Raspi3 has a potential for graphics ‘acceleration’ – again in raspi-config advanced iirc. I’ve never used this as I play with the cheaper Pi zeroes which lack this facility. It MIGHT make Blender more usable, but I think you would probably have to set up a small server farm to get anything out of it.

[D-Dan]

The graphics acceleration is enabled by default, and no, it doesn’t help 🙂

Arch Linux, on a Ryzen 7 1800X, 32 GB, 5 (yes -5) HDs inc 5 SSDs, 4 RPi 3Bs + 1 RPi 4B - one as an NFS server with two more drives, PiHole (shut yours), Plex server, cloud server, and other random Pi stuff. Nice CoolerMaster case, 2 x NV GTX 1070 8GB, and a whopping 32" AOC 1440P monitor.

[Ed P]

Overclocking is a possibility given fan+heatsink(s). Link

The only thing I have had to cool is my metal shrouded usb stick as my main application is r/w intensive and rapidly kills sd cards.

[Drezha]

Speaking on microSD cards, has anyone seen a good deal on some smaller ones? I ordered two 16GB cards from MyMemory this week for £6 each, but even that’s bigger than what I’m after. A 4 pack of 4GB or 8GB would be something along the lines of what I’m after (not just for use in a Pi – I’ve just got a Garmin eTrex for walking, and it currently seems like overkill to be using a 32GB microSD for map files that are currently under 1GB!)

"Everything looks interesting until you do it. Then you find it’s just another job" - Terry Pratchett

[Ed P]

It is a good idea to use the smaller size for the Pi as the bigger ones seem far more fragile. I try and use 8GB max as a ‘boot’ SD if I can find one.

[Drezha]

Yeah, that’s what I was looking for, but when it’s £6 for a 16GB or £6 for an 8GB, it sort of made sense to go for the larger one.

"Everything looks interesting until you do it. Then you find it’s just another job" - Terry Pratchett

[Author]

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