Booting Pi 4b

P

Paul Floyd

I've been putting up with using a Pi 5 for some time. Recently the fan stopped. I'm not sure if it was because the fan wore out (unlikely, I've tried a replacement and both work fine with Ubuntu and RPi OS) or because of a firmware update.

So I got a Pi 4b.

First impressions. Ugh. The case is far worse than the Pi 5 (both standard RPi cases). I'm not sure how the fan is supposed to get air in and out. Through the little cracks around the ethernet ports? The Pi doesn't sit flush in the bottom of the case which makes inserting a micro SD card almost impossible. Not wanting to force it I usually take the top off the case so that I can hold down the circuit board. No such problem with the Pi 5.

Now, booting. RPi OS (same SD card as for Pi 5) boots OK.

I've tied booting 14.2 and 15, both just give a rainbow screen and a bit of fan noise. Following this https://wiki.freebsd.org/arm/Raspberry Pi#RPI4_and_RPi400_Notes I tried switching HDMI port and setting the memory to 4015.

15 still fails to boot, I get these messages

XHCI timeout on event type 0 ...
and occasionally
efipart_readwrite: rw=1 blk=104640 size=4 status=7

I managed to boot 14.2. There was a message that the bootloader is too old. It's still fairly noisy. It's also slow (maybe because I booted off USB, fed up with trying to get the card into the microSD slot).

Any comments for how I could get a happier experience?
 
That's surprising. No issues with 14.3-RELEASE for me. I didn't even need to do the memory thing to get the 8GB showing. Only hiccup I had was that only one of the HDMI ports work, but other than that seems to work out of the box.
 
piizog said:
That's surprising. No issues with 14.3-RELEASE for me. I didn't even need to do the memory thing to get the 8GB showing. Only hiccup I had was that only one of the HDMI ports work, but other than that seems to work out of the box.
Click to expand...
I've upgraded to 14.3-RELEASE and updated the bootloader and the microSD card works now.

I had the same hdmi issue - had to use the one nearest the usb power port, which is a bit tight with the hdmi adapter that I'm using.

The main limitations now seem to be
- can't boot off USB3 (not so serious now that the microSD card is OK)
- fan noise
 
Yeah, I have the same issue with the ports being a but close, but fortunately had two, and the other one was slim enough to not have a problem. However because of this, I'm planning to move to another SBC for my cyberdeck build. One with a full sized HDMI port, because the micro ports are flimsy as all heck.
 
Paul Floyd said:
The main limitations now seem to be
- can't boot off USB3 (not so serious now that the microSD card is OK)
Click to expand...
Could it be the number of peripheral plugged in at the same time(monitor, keyboard and ssd) drawing too much power?
My RPI4 is headless, and it boots fine from a SSD only. I use this USB converter (not all are okay that's why I let the URL).

Paul Floyd said:
The main limitations now seem to be
- fan noise
Click to expand...
Personally I only use fanless cases for these type of devices, the job done is not intense though there are 7 jails (pastebin, fileserver, git server, etc ...) so temperatures are more than fine (something between 40 and 48°C depending on the weather).

This is the one I have if someone is interested, definitely not the prettiest case out there but it beats most of the other I tried at every level, and the funny part it's the cheapest.
 
Paul Floyd said:
So I got a Pi 4b.
Click to expand...
Paul Floyd said:
The Pi doesn't sit flush in the bottom of the case which makes inserting a micro SD card almost impossible. Not wanting to force it I usually take the top off the case so that I can hold down the circuit board.
Click to expand...
Paul Floyd said:
fed up with trying to get the card into the microSD slot
Click to expand...
On my Raspberry Pi4, the MicroSD card didn't fit with the case either. I scraped the hole in the case where the SD card goes to be wider with a multi-tool, so it would fit correctly, and so the lid would close.
rasp-hw-jpg.18781

Can't see the MicroSD slot in the image. For those who don't have a RPi4, it's on the underside of the board, on the center left; the slot is on the side near the bottom. The plastic is soft enough to chisel it. I also drilled holes in the top part of the case, for ventilation. It may not be enough, but at least air can flow somewhat.


As for the rainbow screen, on mine, it meant that my hardware broke. Not sure about yours.

My HDMI worked on it. It seems that it's made for lightweight operating systems or installs.
 
I changed the EEPROM vaue to boot from the USB flash drive stick first, then the microSD card 0xF41 ?? don't quote me , from my dull memory. could be wrong EEPROM value. Has anyone taken source code and recompiled to a binary to work under FreeBSD. I used the Raspberry Pi Linux OS microSD card to set the value to boot from USB. There after used USB flash drive sticks to boot. Then got a Ugreen Case for a USB 3.0 SSD enclosing a NVME M.2 stick of 500GB or 1 TB. Anybody with 4B use review D43399 to build a kernel to use the VCHIQ HDMI Audio subsystem to play audio out the TV Speakers? Use Devesas Marcos Decampos 3 patch files D37878, D37879, D 36431 to enable the VCHIQ HDMI Audio. Ugreen Case recommended. Step by Step instructions in the review F12xxxx

The Waveshare.com Ribbed Aluminum, passive cooling (without a fan) was a great choice for the Raspberry Pi 4B board. Ribbed Aluminum Case for Pi4B
 
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