PI not connecting with my board at boot time

Munnecke · April 9, 2022, 10:11pm

My system quit working about 6 months ago, and I’m just now getting around to troubleshooting it. What I thought was a protected waterproof location wasn’t as protected as I thought, and I found some water marks on the board. I tried cleaning it off with contact cleaner, but I haven’t been able to get it to work. I did manage to get the D3 light to come on, and have a 5.1v at the board.

I had hoped to donate this system to a local school for a real time “our world” kiosk in their lobby, but I’m worried now about the board.

Any suggestions on how to proceed?

RSH.R0FA6.2022-04-09T21_59_23.logs.tar (3.7 MB)

PhilipPeake · April 10, 2022, 1:06am

Did you try removing the RS board and cleaning the GPIO pins, then re-assembling?

Munnecke · April 10, 2022, 1:46am

Thanks for the suggestion. I tried cleaning them, but it didn’t fix the problem.

Stormchaser · April 11, 2022, 10:51am

Hello Munnecke,

Thank you for the pictures, and the logs from the Shake. It seems that yes, the system starts, but then something prevents it from proceeding forward. These strange characters in the boot log itself are a good proof of the problem:

set-dns: †Àüp0‹J“}!Z
x·Wé¦Ë!·*Í@
ŠÜ÷é¢Ë¤Sñë0–ðñ„w8´ëz4Õ:àECJß9ƒ×bTøÁ@6²ÄI	Wþ ›t!Äàp:ê/

I would advise to try to re-burn the microSD card, and see if the Shake manages to successfully start and connect again.

I will post the burning instructions here for your convenience:

Please take the microSD card you have and format it before burning the new Shake OS image
Make sure, when you format it, that the shown capacity is the maximum (i.e. if the SD card is 32GB like yours, then the capacity should be near or equal to that value). This is to check that no partitions have been involuntarily and erroneously created. They could be the cause of the error we see now
Take care to format the SD card in a FAT32 File System (or exFAT if the SD card is 64GB or larger)
Download the new Shake OS image from here: https://gitlab.com/raspberryShake-public/raspshake-sd-img/-/raw/main/raspishake-release.zip
And follow the microSD burning instructions from here: raspishake-microSD-card-software-Instructions.txt · main · raspberryShake-public / Raspshake Sd Img · GitLab

I followed the numbered list points to burn the files on my SD cards, and I have not used Etcher or similar software.

It seems, to me, that there is some kind of corruption on the microSD card going on, so this should solve the problem. If it doesn’t, please try again with a different microSD card, or with a different Pi board, to check out all the possible components on the Shake.

Munnecke · April 11, 2022, 6:43pm

thanks for the advice. I tried to format my old sd card, and it failed to format with some message about blocks. I then tried a new install on a new card, and got the same stuck in booting mode. I then tried a new install on a new Pi 4 computer, and got the same result…

RSH…2022-04-11T18_38_35.logs.tar (27 KB)

Stormchaser · April 13, 2022, 9:35am

Hello Munnecke,

Thank you for all the further tests, the new logs, and also the Pi board change.

Unfortunately, considering your test results, I fear that the Shake board doesn’t seem to respond anymore to the Shake OS, which starts fine, even finds a stable internet and timing servers connection, but cannot communicate with the blue board on top of the Pi.

Due to your description, I think that the water has damaged some components on it, making the board unusable. My only advice, at this point, would be to buy a new DIY kit (since you already have a Pi board and power supply) for the Boom, and then re-build everything with the new pieces.

Munnecke · April 13, 2022, 3:51pm

thanks for your help in troubleshooting. My suspicion is that it was just the board, and the sensors are in tact.

Stormchaser · April 14, 2022, 1:42pm

No problem at all. I agree, it is likely that the fault is in the board since that is where you found the water marks.