Raspberry Pi 3 Fails to Boot

Support
1

I just purchased 3 RPi3 boards from Pimorini. It powers up but will not boot - hangs at colors screen. No console is ever displayed.

  1. I have created multiple new OS installs on new SD card (Type 10) - No luck
  2. I have used existing good SD cards with OS on them - Tested on Pi2 just before running on Pi3 - No Luck.
  3. I have changed power supply - Using one that has just successfully powered several other Pi2 units - No Luck
  4. The SD card holder type seems to have been changed from the spring lock type to simple slide. I might think it was faulty card holder but I have three brand new Pi3s and they all have the same problem.

This should be a no-brainer but so far I am not sure that the Pi3 is the success I have hoped it would be. Any thoughts will be greatly appreciated.

2

when you say you have created new imaged SD, using what? Be aware that any Raspbian image older than February 26 will simply not boot the Pi3, unless you sudo apt-get upgrade it first using another Pi.

3

I had a similar issue. I literally swapped my Pi3 into my Pi2 setup and it wouldn’t boot.

I notice you said you had swapped the power supply, but did you swap it to one with a higher power rating? I’d been using a decent quality one for my Pi2, but it was only rated at 500ma. As soon as I’d swapped it to a 1amp supply it booted no problem.

4

Thanks guys. I have managed to get a Raspbian image to run now. I think that the Pi3s will draw more with the wireless interfaces on board but it was not a power issue (I had both 1A and 2A supplies). The alternate images (Ubuntu Mate for one) appear to still have some challenges. I will have to spend some time learning the differences whatever they may be. Thanks for taking the time to offer some thoughts.

6

I have same trouble though I have successfully upgraded the Raspbian OS with apt-get update && apt-get upgrade command. TV monitor receives some signal from Raspi 3 as it changed to rainbow color from black screen. The board LED
blinks but booting is not successful. Power supply used has 2.3A output. Please help.

7

  • if it’s a Wheezy install you’re starting from, you’ll have to fully upgrade it to Jessie, which is possible, but not for the faint of heart.

  • if it’s an existing NOOBS base then you won’t go very far as it will likely lock from the get-go. You should swap the recovery content for that of NOOBS 1.8 and maybe all will be alright.

… in an ideal world you’d start from a SD freshly imaged with the latest Jessie, and leave behind NOOBS unless you need multi-OS boot.

In all cases, if there is any data on the existing SD, back it up, or use another SD and migrate the user data and rebuild your system to taste, which is not pleasant but may be necessary.

8

Now I succeeded to boot by making OS image in SD card for latest Raspbian OS.
So I would suggest anyone who have similar trouble might download the latest Raspbian OS and boot not just by updating older OS.