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x1 Crystal malfunctioning

Former Member

I purchased a Pi last november at the Makre Faire in NY, provided by Element14.  The usb and ethernet randomly stopped working one day, and after a bit of research, I found that the x1 crystal had stopped oscillating.  I dont have access to an oscilloscope, so should I just buy a new Pi, or send it back to get a new one?

  • Hi Chris,

    I would suggest trying to return it first, and if that doesn't work then you have

    nothing to lose in trying to get it to work using heat, cold, mechanical shock,

    electrical shock, or whatever.  There is 24-hour vendor support here:

    http://www.newark.com/jsp/support/support.jsp?&formpage=newark/en_US/support/technical.jsp

  • Chris Cuccia wrote:

     

    I purchased a Pi last november at the Makre Faire in NY, provided by Element14.  The usb and ethernet randomly stopped working one day, and after a bit of research, I found that the X1 crystal had stopped oscillating.  I dont have access to an oscilloscope, so should I just buy a new Pi, or send it back to get a new one?

    Just curious, how did you determine that X1 had stopped oscillating without a 'scope?  It does sound like the X1 symptom, but it could be something else like a failed solder connection or PCB trace elsewhere.  The latter can sometime be caused by thermal cycling -- every time the chips warm up and cool down it puts stresses on the solder joints, so if any are iffy they may fail at some point.

     

    If you can't get element14 to replace it and have a soldering iron with a very small tip, you might try reflowing the X1 pins.  Depending on who manufactured your RasPi, it may be that X1 was hand-soldered rather than wave soldered with the rest of the back-side components.  I think the Sony process in Wales automatically solders them which would make X1 problems even rarer.

  • You should be very carefull with that conclusion.

    Unless you take special precausitons, any probe on the crystal will make it stop running.

    Even a normal 1M-ohm scope probe is likely to stop it.

    You need at least a 10x Scope probe (~10Mohm impedance, low capacitance) to see it oscillating.