Pi 4 Not Booting - SDRAM failure

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Skyhorse
 
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Joined: Mon Nov 23, 2020 9:42 pm

Pi 4 Not Booting - SDRAM failure

Post by Skyhorse »

Hello- I purchased a RaPi 4 along with an official 5v power supply from Adafruit last week. I've encountered a problem that seems others have fallen into as well. I've spent about 10 hours total in troubleshooting and reviewing threads online with no success. Here is the sequence I took originally:

1) Used Rpi-imager to load the latest Debian img file onto a class 1 Sandisk 32 GB SD card
2) Placed that in RaPi 4, plugged into official power supply, booted successfully on HDMI monitor
3) Went through all the standard init steps (e.g. set timezone, new password, update, etc)
4) On final prompt, it asked if I wanted to reboot, I clicked on 'Yes' and it did so. However, upon rebooting it went into the dreaded 8 blink (green LED) non-booting scenario.

I've been using RaPi 3 for years on many projects so this wrinkle was news to me. However, after digging further I do see this can happen occasionally to new RaPi 4's.

Here are some of the steps I've taken in troubleshooting:

1) Found the 8 blinks of green LED is 'SDRAM failure'
2) Confirmed on GPIO 5v and ground pins with multimeter that it is receiving over 5v
3) Went through the EEPROM bootloader update process using both Rpi-imager and balenaEtcher on separate SD cards including a 16, 32 and 64 GB (all using FAT32). In this process I'm receiving the green LED blinking continuously and a green screen on the HDMI monitor indicating successful update of EEPROM.
4) Attempted to load a new RaPi OS using RPi-imager and Etcher, using full, lite/headless versions, all result in the 8 blinks of green LED and no output to HDMI monitor. These cards all load successfully on a RaPi 3B+.
5) Attempted to load old EEPROM bootloaders from RaPi GitHub site, no luck there
6) As noted in some threads they say to plug in the RaPi 4 without an SD card to see if the EEPROM is working as expected. When I do this, I still get the 8 green LED blinks, which I have not seen in other threads online, usually people get no blinks or 4 blinks.
7) Attempted to use the Rpi-imager utility to boot from USB. Loaded that to EEPROM. Loaded Debian to 3.0 USB stick. Attempted to boot that way, through USB and without SD card but received the 8 green LED blinks as well.

Not sure what else to do, thinking this may be a defective unit. I don't blame Adafruit at all, it seems like it is a problem that occurs with some of the RaPi 4 units.

Thank you in advance for any advice or recommendation that you can offer!

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mikeysklar
 
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Joined: Mon Aug 01, 2016 8:10 pm

Re: Pi 4 Not Booting - SDRAM failure

Post by mikeysklar »

Wow, thank you for doing such extensive troubleshooting.

We can swap this out for you.

Please e-mail [email protected] requesting a replacement Pi 4. Please provide support with your order# and a link to this forum thread.

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Skyhorse
 
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Nov 23, 2020 9:42 pm

Re: Pi 4 Not Booting - SDRAM failure

Post by Skyhorse »

Thank you for your response, I will work on getting a replacement with customer support. Have a great day.

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andykernpi
 
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Joined: Mon Aug 09, 2021 1:33 pm

Re: Pi 4 Not Booting - SDRAM failure

Post by andykernpi »

Hi I'm having the same issue as the user below. I have followed similar steps and only get eight green led flashes with power and no accessories connected. I tried two different sd cards both of which boot fine on a rpi3. I've edited the hdmi settings in the config file as well with no change. I get no video output on the hdmi connector or the multipin display connector on the board. My order number is 2617133-3751766422. I've already emailed support who said to post on the forums.
Thanks,
Andy

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mikeysklar
 
Posts: 13936
Joined: Mon Aug 01, 2016 8:10 pm

Re: Pi 4 Not Booting - SDRAM failure

Post by mikeysklar »

@andykernpi,

You need to start a fresh thread for yourself so we can review your setup. Please include your order date as we cannot look up order numbers in the forums.

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