Raspberry Pi won't boot at all

ARM Technical Assistance
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#1

I recently acquired a Raspberry Pi 4b and wish to install Manjaro ARM (KDE) on it. However, upon writing the latest ARM image onto a 32gb SD card using the official Raspberry Pi imaging software, the Pi never escapes a completely blank screen.

  • My monitor is fine
  • Everything is connected
  • I can immediately boot with Raspbian off of the same SD card
  • I have attempted using other imaging/flashing software (Rufus specifically)

Any suggestions as to why this may not be working or any further troubleshooting methods?

#2

Can you see grub menu when shift pressed on boot?

#3

Pressing shift brings up no such dialogue on boot.

#4

Try connecting it to your network with Ethernet cable. Then try logging in over SSH. Might be a monitor/screen output issue…

#5

What are you using for a monitor. What is the screen resolution.

#6

I should specify that this is an initial boot: I have been unable to initiate any set up.

Will attempt to boot using an Ethernet cable.

I’m using a Samsung Syncmaster 173P LCD display and a DVI to HDMI adaptor (this monitor has no HDMI input. Screen resolution is 1280x1024. I can use the display just fine running Raspbian.

#7

@0_o Connecting the ethernet made no difference.

#8

That most likely mean that it never went past Grub. As you have no image at all, and it never booted as there is no Raspberry found in your network.
Does actually any LED on Pi or its Ethernet port show any activity?

#9

Yes. The fan is active and all lights are accounted for.

#10

I meant is LED activity the same like it is when Raspbian is booting? And Ethernet port LEDs are blinking and one is stable meaning link is established to your router?
By determining these details you will learn if your Raspberry is actually loaded with operating system or just idling in hanged state.

#11

I will get back to you tomorrow on that.

#12

There is no grub.

Try putting this in your boot partition config.txt file and make sure the hdmi adapter cable is plugged in the port next to the power supply port:

hdmi_mode:0=35
hdmi_group:0=2
hdmi_force_mode:0=1
hdmi_ignore_edid:0=0xa5000080
#13

Yep true, replace grub in my post with boot stage or whatever is appropriate for Raspberry :slight_smile:

#14

The behaviour of all lights is identical between Raspbian and Manjaro.

Adding these to the config.txt made no difference.

#15

Asking again if you will try to ssh to it.

Is the led onboard blinking in a sequence. If it is you have a bad image burn on your sdcard.

#16

Another thought is I have no clue if the official Raspberry Pi imaging software is compatible with writing .xz files. Try burning the manjaro image with etcher or extract the manjaro image so it is a .img file and use the official Raspberry Pi imaging software.

#17

ssh?

There is no sequence to the blinking of the onboard LEDs.

When flashing with both Rufus and the Raspberry Pi imaging software I was using an extracted .img file. I will attempt to re-flash it using Etcher.

#18

Thought I should update: I’ve given up on Manjaro and simply installed Ubuntu Server and will access it via ssh (which wasn’t my original plan).