Pi4 solid red and green led

[lorddc89]

I have recently gotten a Pi4 4gb. I managed to have it boot once with buster lite. Today I have turned it on and all I am getting is a solid red and green light. I have tried the suggestions in the sticky. With no devices plugged in and no sd card I get the same. I have tried the recovery. Bin process and nothing also happens.

[timg236]

Do you get any output on the display ?

If you have a UART then that might help
https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentati ... on/uart.md

[lorddc89]

I don't have a uart. I don't get anything on the display. I had it booted twice, spotted I said once. First time I had libreelec running, before buster lite.
Not sure if it makes a difference but the USB c cable and adapter I'm using is my phone charger. (p20 Pro). I've not tried another USB c cable but have tried another adapter with the same results

[lorddc89]

I've tried another USB c cable and adapter to the same issue. I should point out the green led is dimmer than the red led.

[FloFra]

Hi there,

I'm facing exactly the same problem with the 4GB model
I think it booted once or twice (running headless) but then just stopped doing anything upon power on

I have not connected anything via the GPIOs, nor mounted the headsinks yet
The only thing ever connected was the power plug (official raspberry power source)

Upon powering up, the red and green leds came on immediately and stay on (the green LED seems dimmed, so I'm not sure if it
's not just blinking VERY fast)

I tried several SD Cards with Noobs/Buster (via Etcher) and the recovery bins - nothing changed the behaviour
Also without any SD Card the green led just goes into a "dimmed" on state after power on

As the docs suggest that it should blink 4 times, I suspect the EPROM to be corrupt or the startup process doesn't even come to a point where the "bios" is ran....

As it booted before and suddenly stopped I have no idea what could be the problem here (the PI has been in the case before the first start) and stayed there until the kproblem started [i removed it to see if there is something visible on the PCB)

The only thing changed from when it was booting and when it stopped is that I've taken the SD card out, changed the wpa_supplicant (had a wrong SSID) and put it back in...


Does anyone else face this problem or maybe has fixed it?

Thanks
Kind Regards
Florian

[lorddc89]

I have had to send mine back. The suppliers response to the RMA made it sound like there are many rpi4 4gb with this issue.

[FloFra]

Thanks for the reply
I'm going to test the remaining 3 this evening - let's hope for the best

Kind Regards
Florian

[mahjongg]

be sure to have read the boot problem sticky in trouble-shooting? https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/view ... 28&t=58151.
and note that non working boot code in the RPI4's EEPROM can be re-flashed if it doesn't work as expected, although I have not heard the failure rate of it is especially high, and RPI's are still factory tested!

[FloFra]

Hi,

done that and tried everything mentioned in there
The main issue is the constant "on" green led which shouldn't happen if the bootloader works correctly
However I can't even use the recovery files as nothing happens at all

My guess is that somehow the startup process doesn't even come to the point where the bootloader is invoked

Kind Regards
Florian

[lorddc89]

Nothing in the pi not booting thread helped. My supplier is shipping me a replacement when they get stock later this minth

[FloFra]

Hi,

just wanted to let you guys know that I've tried 2 other Pi4s
They work without an issue (also with the SD Cards used in the "defective" PI)

Let's hope my distributor will exchange the bad one

Kind Regards
Florian

[FloFra]

Hi,

a quick update:
I've activated 2 other Pi's
One works now since 2 Weeks without problems, BUT the other one died with the same symtoms 2 days ago...
I've replaced it with the last Pi I ordered and up to now it works

That a failure rate of 50%... not that impressive

Are there any statistics on RMAs available?
Maybe I just got mine from a bad batch or sth like this.....

Kind Regards
Florian

[hippy]

Are there any statistics on RMAs available?

I doubt there are any publicly available. The best one can really do is monitor the forum for reports of issues.

And in that respect I have noted 8 reports of "Green light of death" failures.

I believe it has been reported a million Pi 4B have been sold. So that makes the number of boards reported as exhibiting such a state quite small, less than one in every 125,000.

[bucker]

Mine has the exact same issue, always on red and green led, no matter if it's with or without SD card. Tried all EPROM reflashing solutions but it's not working, looks like i'll have to return as well.

[FloFra]

Hello all,

Now the next Pi4 died after 1 month (only HDMI and Network connected - original PSU)

This one is even from another supplier...

I really do not understand what could cause the issue

Does anyone know if the Pi4 outputs information on UART while booting...

So far i have 6 Pi4 4GB with 3 of them dead:/ one is not in use at the moment

Maybe someone has an idea what else i can Check...


Thanks

[krisz33]

Hello,
I have now the second Rpi4 which suffers from this issue. The first died after a month and the supplier replaced it after some discussion and it took a month. I received the new one and exactly the same happened. 3-4 weeks (rare usage) and the same symptoms. I asked the supplier to report it but until now no answer (about 2 weeks passed).
It seems to me that it 's a general problem and reading these posts no answers from the manufacturer.
My older RPi3 is still running after 3 years of usage that's why I trusted the brand and purchased the new one. Was it a mistake?
Here is my config if somebody points out any similarities:
Power supply is an original Raspberry Pi PSU (5.1V 3.0A) (Slave socket of the surge protector, so it turns on only when the TV is switched on)
OS: Libreelec OS 9.1.501
Micro SDHC card: Samsung EVO 32GB UHS-I U1
MicroHDMI cable is connected to My TVs ARC-HDMI port
Gigabit Ethernet port is plugged to use the network
Only one USB socket is in use: a dongle for Rii Mini i8+ mini keyboard
I went through all the workarounds found on the interrnet, but no success. I don't really know how long to wait for the answers but I'm afraid that confidence in RPis reliability was shaken from my side.
I'm really looking forward for any answers.
BR

[gormanpe]

Hi all on the forum, first post but not a good one.... +1 on the Green light of death.
Pi 4 ,4gb, correct power supply, new HDMI cable (and additional purchased), clean & not defective SD card connections on Pi, newbee to the pi! Formatted SD cards (Sandisk ultra 16gb and 64gb) using recommended "SD card formatter" (and Rufus later as alternative). Installed NOOBS (also Rasbian buster previously). All OS's worked fine for about a week (with game ROMS on external usb so limited removal of SD card).
After about a week, i have a constant green and red LED (HDMI has been checked on both Pi ports) after powering on and tv indicates that there is no signal (also checked HDMI ports on TV is working). Have tried formatting (fat32) SD cards and replacing EEPROM files (after unzip) but still get constant green / red light on Pi. (This is followed by attempting install of OS's through NOOBS and by disk .img of rasbian.
All SD cards are new and have searched the forum / sticky (https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/view ... 8#p1485558) but no joy on a resolution. What stands out is a (1 week old) working system one day and a brick the next. (For reference ive also tried multiple SD adaptors in case that could be the fault.)
Im hoping there is something ive overlooked?...





















2sd card formatter

[gormanpe]

Finally have found the problem for my instance.... Tried a second laptop that could read a micro SD card directly instead of using an SD adaptor. Noobs loaded no problem followed by Lakka.

[renice123]

Could you tell us in detail how you solved the problem of the “green deadly LED”?
As far as I understand, you had the problem described above: after turning on the Raspberries, the green and red LEDs constantly glowed and nothing happened further.
But after you created the Rasbian image on another computer without an SD adapter, did the problem of the constantly on green and red LEDs disappear?
If so, then this is a joyful message, and gives hope that the problem was in poor-quality Chinese readers for sd memory cards.

[gormanpe]

Thats correct, had solid red/green lights using a number of different SD cards from different manufacturers ranging from 16, 32 and 64GB. Purchased another Raspberry pi 4 from a different vendor along with another power supply. Same problem with the constant red/green light which would indicate that it wasnt likely a power supply or pi fault. As I had re-downloaded a fresh copy of NOOBS and tested it on a number of cards these also were unlikely to be at fault which only leaves corrupt files on the SD card as the reason.

PC 1 (windows 10) with micro SD card to USB adaptor. Format SD card with Sandisk format tool, copy unzipped NOOBS from External HDD to Formatted SD card - Result: Red / Green constant light (I did at some point of repeated trying get 4 green quick flashes).

PC 2 (Windows 10) with micro SD slot. Format same SD card with Sandisk format tool, copy unzipped NOOBS from External HDD to Formatted SD card - Result: Booted up NOOBS, installed Lakka. Powered off Pi and booted up again. Works fine / No more constant green light.

Repeated this with a second card (in case i got lucky), this time loading Kodi as the OS through NOOBS. Again works fine and no constant green light. When i get some spare time ill try the adaptor on PC 2 to see if its the PC or the adapter causing the problem.

So could a bad connection when formatting / writing to SD card cause the files to be corrupt?

[hippy]

Thats correct, had solid red/green lights using a number of different SD cards from different manufacturers ranging from 16, 32 and 64GB. Purchased another Raspberry pi 4 from a different vendor along with another power supply. Same problem with the constant red/green light which would indicate that it wasnt likely a power supply or pi fault.

That is good news as it seems the "green light of death" isn't quite so fatal as had been imagined, is more an undocumented boot failure condition.

[renice123]

Thanks for the comprehensive information! I believe in RPI and am very happy that another difficult chapter in the history of the new microcomputer is somehow starting to reveal its secrets!
I think that now some people affected by the "green death LED" can take advantage of your decisions. And we can help our community of Raspberry users!

[James007]

Do you get any output on the display ?

If you have a UART then that might help
https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentati ... on/uart.md

I have the same issue, the fist 2 rpi4 out of 8 is dead, red and green leds are solid with or without the card. The EEPROM solution was not working since the problem is behind the point of reading the card.

The rpis was working for three weeks running the Raspbian Buster Lite and after a reset both of them didn't started.

Now if the UART is not activated in with raspi-config it is possible to see the messages ? Just adding the enable_uart=1 in config.txt will not help since the problem is far behind this point.

I have all the raspbery Pi produced until now from the first model until the the latest but this is my first time to have any issue with rpi. I guess that the quality for the rpi4 is low compared with the previous versions. Too bad.

[James007]

I've connected a serial 2 usb convertor and as I've anticipated there is no serial output or any activity during the boot since the issue is behind the point where the eeprom is even read.

Any suggestions are welcome.

[James007]

I've checked the current and its 100mA so the RPi4 is dead. I've checked and there are more and more RPi4 with 4GB and 2GB that are having this issue.

Any other advice ?