My RPi 3B is working again. :-)

ssfc72 · October 07, 2020, 11:31:14 AM

So, one of my RPi's 3B quit working a few months ago. It would no longer boot up any of the SD cards that I have a RPi OS, on. The red power led would light but the activity led was not blinking.

I had done a Google search of the problem but did not find much.
Today, I thought of doing a search on Youtube and a number of video listings came up.

The second video that I watched was the charm.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S74EQ4Oz6E

The fix was to just pull up on the ribbon tab, on the opposite side of the circuit board above the SD card holder, and reset back in place. The RPi is now booting Rasbian, just fine. Yeah! :-)

fox · October 07, 2020, 07:15:19 PM

A happy ending. Glad to hear.

Jason · October 07, 2020, 09:33:04 PM

I had the same symptoms on my Raspberry Pi 3 so I'll have to give this a try, too, if there is a ribbon cable on it. I haven't checked. Thanks for the tip, Bill.

Jason · October 08, 2020, 07:08:59 PM

Your tip brought my Raspberry Pi back to life. At least it booted. The SD card I have is corrupted so I have to install a new version of the Raspberry Pi OS. Doing that now. I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks for the tip!

Jason · October 11, 2020, 03:30:18 AM

To continue, while it did boot after using the tip, it exited with a kernel panic which is what led me to believe it was a corrupted SD card now that was the problem. I wasn't able to get it to boot after that.

I had to switch SD cards and I got the same error, just a red light. So I wiped the SD card using GParted and started over. I performed the suggested tip. But I don't remember if that was what fixed this time or that I re-flashed the EEPROM, something the Raspberry Pi website recommended when only the red LED comes and the screen is blank.

Btw, you can re-flash it by using the EEPROM option in the menu that comes up after the SD card is imaged. But the website mentions it's for the Raspberry Pi 4. I was worried I had bricked it but it worked. Not sure if it actually re-flashed it or didn't do anything.

Either way, it booted the Raspberry OS and works fine, for now.

ssfc72 · October 11, 2020, 05:05:51 AM

Excellent. Nice to know that a RPi 3 can possibly be recovered, when it fails to boot. Thanks for your info, Jason.

Jason · October 11, 2020, 05:25:56 AM

No, thank you, you for giving me the tip. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the RPi 3 yet. Now that I'm using only a single monitor, off the laptop, perhaps I'll use it so I can look at tutorials and follow them on the laptop. Glad it's not a write-off.

ssfc72 · December 27, 2020, 10:22:30 PM

Well, my RPi 3b has quit working again. :-(
I was using the RPi as an internet radio using the volumio softawre and the RPi is again only showing the red Led lite and the green activity led does not blink on and off, to show activity/booting, when I plug the power into the RPi.
I have repeated the fix, noted at the start of this thread but it has not worked this time. I also tried another microSD card with Raspbian on it and it also fails to boot (no green activity lite on the RPi).

Maybe I will get some contact cleaner spray and apply it to the microSD card socket.

Jason · December 28, 2020, 03:10:55 AM

That sucks. I don't think I've played with mine since the summer but it was working the last time I used it, still. Although it was getting overly hot (thermometer kept popping up on screen) as it doesn't have a heatsink. Did you keep your receipt? Maybe you can get a refund.

Anyway, I hope cleaning the contacts works for you.