Raspberry Pi 3 Boots But LEDs Don't Light

I recently bought my third Raspberry Pi 3 with the intention of setting it up for my nephew as a retro gaming system.

The Pi seems to work perfectly fine and is running RetroPie. However, I have no power or activity LED. They simply don't light up at all, at any time. I haven't found any other instances of this happening or suggestions to try. It has been running fine for about two hours total, but I'm concerned that this Pi is having a hardware issue and won't last very long.

Visually, I see no damage or anything different than the LED areas on my other Pis.

Any suggestions, or should I look to replace it?

0 rew over 8 years ago

The power led won't light if your power supply is not providing more than 4.65V measured at the pi itself. In that case you'd see a yellow lightning bolt in the upper right corner of your screen. Check that!

If that's the case, I suggest you look for a better power supply. And you still have something wrong with the other led.

If your power supply is OK, then you have two bad leds. It would seem that either both leds or both series resistors were forgotten or something like that. On the one hand, something that shouldn't happen, but in itself it won't cause the pi to have a short lifespan. But on the other hand, if your pi has these kinds of problems you don't know what is lurking below the surface right now..... If say in a years time you start using the I2C pins for the first time, then finding out that they forgot those resistors too, that would be annoying. So... My recommendation would be to double check that neither led works, that your power is sufficient, and then aim for a replacement pi (from whereever you ordered it).
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0 royleith over 8 years ago

The LEDs on the Pi 3 seem to shine sideways at the end of the board that has the microSD card holder. Could you have a good look all around the Pi while it is running to make sure you have not just missed the new locations?
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0 deaconfrost over 8 years ago in reply to royleith

I used the Pi 3 without a case, so the LEDs should have been visible. I also have two other Pi 3 devices that I was able to compare with, just to see if the LED area had any damage.
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0 clem57 over 8 years ago

Try https://projects.drogon.net/raspberry-pi/gpio-examples/tux-crossing/gpio-examples-1-a-single-led/ to see that power is actually there. A meter would be better to check voltage. The amperes will be small under 16mA with total less than 50mA for all GPIO pins.
Clem
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0 rew over 8 years ago in reply to clem57

The pi is said to boot. That proves to me that it has power..... Seeing with a led that the power is available is not useful. Measuring it with a multimeter is.
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0 royleith over 8 years ago in reply to deaconfrost

Hi Scott,

OK, it's not a problem of the case blocking the LEDS. You really need to address Roger Wolff's point about the minimum voltage of 4.65V at the Pi and the appearance, or not, of the 'lightning bolt' warning. What voltage are you measuring at the Raspi?

Have you run RetroPi on another Pi 3 using the same power supply? If not, try plugging the microSD card in another Raspberry Pi 3 with proven LEDs using the same power supply as you use with the problem device and confirm that the LEDs light correctly and you don't get the 'lightning bolt'.
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