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I've made a topic about not being able to boot earlier but that one's deprecated because of all of my tests and all so here goes nothing:

I've tried getting my new rPi to work for a whole day by now to no avail. I've tried using NOOBS which goes into panic kernel right away every time(Even after formatting and putting a new one on the SD card). So I've decided to give Raspbian(Wheezy) a try.

I got Raspbian to work once with only my HDMI cable connected to my TV. I got a BIOS-type window for which i needed a keyboard, obviously. So i plugged in my Apple keyboard and it went to the rainbow screen and froze.

After that I've tried a million reflashes of both NOOBS and Raspbian but I just can't get it to work. NOOBS still goes to kernel Panic and Raspbian freezes on rainbow screen. I have NOTHING connected except for my HDMI cable. And even without an HDMI cable my power LED is the only one lighting up(RED).

I've got a 5V adapter along with my rPi(It said it was suitable with model A and B) so I can only assume that that's settled. I've got a 4GB SD card from the same supplier(Which they even pre-installed for me with NOOBS which didn't work anyway).

I even went as far as buying a new keyboard and mouse from the verified peripherals list on elinux.org, but I haven't received those. Until than i figured I could just see if I could get my rPi to work with a newly installed Raspbian. And you've guess it: To no avail.

I'm on the verge of breakdown by now and am willing to either throw the rPi out the window or return it to the supplier(Which propably is the better deal).

Does any of you have any suggestions what I can still try now?

EDIT

Before more people start giving ideas:

It was an actual defect in the rPi, they took it back and it was refunded

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    Did you try to plug the keyboard through a powered usb hub?
    – M Noit
    Sep 5, 2013 at 7:41
  • I can't even get it to work without a keyboard and/or mouse anymore. So I'm still not sure if that's the problem. And no I haven't. I'm rather unclear to what a powered USB hub is to be honest.
    – CaptainCarl
    Sep 5, 2013 at 7:58
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    Can you give us a bit more details? First, what's the spec for the 5V adapter? (i.e. power (W) or current (A)) Second, what does the kernel panic say? Did you try a different power adapter? If this doesn't work still, I would return the Pi for a new one.
    – Arne
    Sep 5, 2013 at 9:45
  • Can you also tell us which steps you used to copy the raw Raspbian image over to the SD card? i.e. did you follow the instructions here? elinux.org/RPi_Easy_SD_Card_Setup
    – 3cheesewheel
    Sep 6, 2013 at 18:56
  • Worked for me on Raspberry PI 4: Solution
    – hmm
    Feb 4, 2020 at 18:52

5 Answers 5

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SanDisk SD cards are the best (based on my experience). The SD card must be formatted as FAT16. The NOOBS package must be unzipped and the files placed on the root of the SD card. Make sure you have 5v 1000mA (I recommend 1200mA; that is what I use). Active hubs are the best solution for USB power issues. Active/powered USB hubs have their own power cable or power supply. The RPi motherboard will not need to power the devices leaving more energy for the RPi. As Arne said, it is possible the board itself is damaged. One LED light is good. The first/top green light (ACT) displays read/write actions on the SD card. The second (PWR) light shows the RPi is getting power. The others are for Ethernet connections. Using NOOBS is the best option.

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You may also want to test your power supply to see if it's delivering the proper 5v. 1 amp is considered the safe minimum, and it should show 5 v +/-.1 on a multimeter. I also remember hearing of at least one case of a pi that was unreliable due to a bad usb cable that wasn't meant to carry that much power.

It's fairly finicky about non 5v power, but name brand tablet chargers and cables are pretty reliable. I've used a Nexus 7 charger and a Belkin 5 amp powered usb hub to power the pi (at different times) with no issues.

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The rPi is quite picky when it comes to SD cards. Have you checked that your SD card matches the supported ones here? I got a lot of strange errors when using a noname SD card. When switching to a Samsung MS8GBA/EU everything worked fine.

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  • I've heard this as well, though I've been lucky enough to have happened to pick SD cards that are compatible. Here's the full list of verified SD cards: elinux.org/RPi_SD_cards
    – 3cheesewheel
    Sep 6, 2013 at 18:53
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I got that, it's because the keyboard is drawing too much current from the pi itself. To resolve this, get a powered USB hub.

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NOOBS is best written to the SD card from a .img file using Win32DiskImager.

Just copying files generally will not set up the boot partition correctly.

Standard NOOBS is fairly tolerant of the kind of SD card you have, and you can later expand the file system if your card can hold it.

I don't know about Apple keyboards, but you might have some kind of hardware problem going on there, too.

I see others have mentioned the power supply. Rpi is very particular. Most standard USB chargers for other devices will work if they can supply more than an amp, but you will likely need more like 2.5 amps if you plan on using USB WiFi or USB flash memory, etc.

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