DOA Pi Zero

[WOLF_24]

Received my Raspberry Pi Zero and its DOA. I used the included power adapter (plugged into the micro USB labeled PWR) and the 8gb card that came with it (with OSMC Image loaded). I do not get any lights at all. My Raspberry Pi 2 works fine using the same power adapter.

Order #-939972-5837229231

[Franklin97355]

Try downloading and installing the latest Raspbian. The pi zero does not work with older distros yet.

[WOLF_24]

Wouldn't I get some lights on the board?

[Franklin97355]

I heard that you don't.

[adafruit_support_mike]

Wouldn't I get some lights on the board?

No. We have several threads reporting the same thing: the Zero doesn't do anything unless it has an OS it can run.

[WOLF_24]

Thanks for the quick replies so far. I putt raspian on there and I get a light now It won't run the OS, but at least this shows the board isn't DOA like I thought.

[WOLF_24]

I wanted to post a follow up. I did get this up and running on Raspbian and also OSMC. For OSMC they released an update to the installer that fixed that issue, now everything seems to work fine! Thank you again for the help!!!

[adafruit_support_mike]

Glad to hear it's working for you. Happy hacking!

[thomasd538]

Folks,

I am a teacher and I have experienced none of zeros are running. I bought your SD operating system card with the zero. Now I have to install on a new operating system? Folks, this is not a good customer experience as my fifth graders are less than impressed.

Tom

[Franklin97355]

How many do you have and did you get an SD card for each? What happens when you power them up and what files are on the SD card?

[AdamElteto]

I used the SanDisk Ultra 8 GB card that came with the kit. I dcfldd-d the 2016-03-18 image onto it, and the Zero did not start. I simply grabbed the SanDisk Extreme Pro card out of my Pi 2 B that had stock Raspbian installed on it, and it started right up in the Zero. I will experiment with different cards and image writing methods, but it does appear that unless the right image is on the card, the Zero will appear dead; not even lights will show. For the Extreme Pro card (90 MB/s write speed, by the way, pretty handy for Pis and other similar devices), I had used dd on vanilla Debian Jessie on my laptop to write the 2015-11-21 image from the command line, with just the input file and the output device specified, no block size or any other parameters. That seemed to create a combination both the Pi 2 B and the Zero accepted.

Maybe the newer image and using dcfldd created a bootup combination the Zero did not like. I will experiment, and I recommend Zero owners try a few variations as well before giving up. I can confirm a working combo with the 2015-11-21 image using dd to write the card.