RaspberryPI Troubleshooting

Raspberry Pi (RP) Model B
Purchased from Alied Electronics
700Mhz;512 Mb RAM
85.6x53.98x17mm
Raspbian Preinstalled SD Card 4GB Sandisk SD Card
Purchased from The Pi Hut
USA Micro USB Power Supply for the RP, Model: LA-515, Input:100-240VAC).3A,
     Output: 5V--1500mA
HDMI to DVI Adapter Cable connects RP to at HP Compaq LA2205wg monitor

See photo below (red power light is on in lower left, sorry, not very visible!)


After disconnecting my VGA cable from my laptop to the monitor, I connected
the HDMI to DVI Adapter cable from the RP to the monitor's DVI port (position 3 in the
monitor user's manual:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/DocumentIndex.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&contentType=SupportManual&prodTypeId=382087&prodSeriesId=3955309

Plugging in the power cable, the ACT green light flickers once, then is off
Red power light is on
Nothing appears on the monitor

I followed the diagnostics in the Troubleshooting section:

"Red power LED is on, green LED does not flash, nothing on display"

"Note: A faintly glowing steady green LED means no boot code has ever been executed, as almost the first
thing the boot code does is to turn the faint glow off! When flashing/blinking the green LED should be as
bright as the red LED."

I don't see the steady gree LED, just a steady red LED

"The Raspberry Pi cannot find a valid image on the SD card. Turn the board over to
 check that the card is inserted correctly; the insertion force is much larger than for some laptops."

See photo below; seems this is the only way it can be inserted.

"Check that you have correctly written a Raspberry Pi image to the card by using a MAC or PC and browse for the
following files: bootcode.bin fixup.dat start.elf amongst others

"Did you have admin rights when you used
the SD-card writer software? Without it the software might go through the motions without actually doing
anything!"


"Older images do not load boot code for revB boards with the Hynix chip. Use release 2012-02-09
(?) or later. (I observe a single blip on the green activity LED) It is also possible that the image you
are writing to the card is corrupt, as downloads do occasionally end up corrupted or truncated. You can
check with a checksum utility to verify the integrity of the download."


This should be a pre-loaded image; is there anyway to check that the card is OK?  I believe I did take
it out once while the power was on (which is later read can corrupt the data on the card).

"The SD card may itself have an issue. See Known SD Cards."

I bought this from the Pi Hut, it appears to be a known card without issues.

"Try with no cables connected except the USB power lead, and SD card inserted.
You should see flashing of the OK light for ~20 seconds. If that helps, plug in cables one at a time to
identify which is interfering with boot."

Tried this, saw no flashing light, just one flicker from the green LED, then a steady red light.

"Confirm the USB cable is properly seated in the power slot. The
red power LED does not necessarily mean it is fully connected."

Disconnected and reconnected the power cable; same results as above.

"The voltage is too low (below 5 V), try a
different power supply and/or cable. The R-Pi needs a supply rated for 700 mA or more. Some supplies
labeled as such cannot actually provide their rated current while maintaining 5V. See also,
#Troubleshooting_power_problems."

As the power supply was purchased from The Pi Hut, this seems unlikely that the voltage is too low?

"There may be a bug in the distributed version of bootcode.bin which
causes problems with some sdcards. Try this version:
https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/blob/234c19de7cbaaf4997671d61df20a05759066295/boot/bootcode.bin.
Please let us know if it "fixes" your non-working SD card (or, more importantly, if it doesn't). This can
also manifest itself as intermittent booting, or only booting when cold."

Not relevant, given this is a pre-loaded image on the card?

"(unlikely) hardware abuse, for
example by connecting a 7 V supply to a 3v3 GPIO output pin[2] or powering up the board after a solder
splash shorts some traces[3]."

Not relevant, as it's a 5V power adapter ?  Don't know about solder splashes, there doesn't appear to
be any to me, though I'm unsure what one would look like...

"Look at the SD card holder on the Raspberry Pi carefully. At first glance it
may look fine but the contacts must be springy and they must protrude at least 2mm as measured from the
lower edge of the holder to the top of the contact bulge. This happens due to the solder process and the
type of holder used. Some of the solder residue falls into the contact cavity restricting the springiness
and the height that the contact protrudes. You can fix this yourself but remember you can void your
warranty. The contacts are delicate so be carefull. Insert a needle pin under the contact bulge and pull
lightly up until the one end of the contact unclips. Clean the cavity where the contact unclipped from of
any solder or other residue by blowing into the cavity. Clip the contact back into the cavity by lightly
pushing it into the cavity. Do this for all the contacts. Look at these photos. Media:SDcardHolder.JPG,
Media:UnclipContact.JPG, Media:UnclippedContact.JPG"

I know my limitations here, and would not attempt this, unless all other diagnostics fail to solve
the problem.

"If for whatever reason the main polyfuse F3 has been
overheated previously it may happen that it hasn't completely recovered, in which case, if you turn the PI
on, a considerable amount of energy from the power supply is lost in the fuse and doesn't reach the PI.
Try if the polyfuse seems hot. For this problem too read #Troubleshooting_power_problems."

Would you advise me doing this?

"Some problems
have been reported if the ambient temperature is low that might be related to micro-fractures, fissures in
solder or other issues. Try warming the Raspberry Pi with a hair dryer for just a few seconds (do not use
excessive heat or you may cause irreversible damage!) and reconnect the power. Check this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwF6v-4NFdg"

Not relevant, as the RP has been in a temperature-controlled office building?

Any other ideas for diagnosing this problem ?  Thank you so much!