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No MAC address on a new Raspberry Pi ?

Former Member

Hello,

 

I an new to the Raspberry Pi. I have just received an new Raspberry Pi in a case, with wireless keyboard and Wi-Pi adapter.

 

I am using  a cell phone charger rated at 5V 1A to power the system.

When I boot the Pi with either Ethernet cable or the Wi-Pi adapter I cannot connect to the internet. I've tested the Ethernet cable on another computer and it works.

In the Raspberry Pi settings it shows a MAC address of 00-00-00-00-00-00 (with Ethernet or Wi-Pi adapter). Is this to be expected? I would have expected the adapter (Ethernet or Wi-Pi) to have a MAC address.


Could it be the power supply not supplying enough power to power the network adapter?

 

How do I start a shell window on the Raspberry Pi?


Thanks in advance.

Mark

 

  • 0

    RasPi (I assume you have a Model B with Ethernet jack) should have a non-zero MAC address.  From a terminal window, the "ifconfig" command should list the MAC address.

     

    Which operating system are you running?  I'm still running Debian "Squeeze", and it starts with a login shell and I have to start X windows explicitly with the "startx" command, so I can do "ifconfig" before starting X.  If you already have a GUI, look through the menus to see if there's a program with "terminal" or "term" in the name.  This should give you a terminal session from which you can give the "ifconfig" command.

     

    I've never run XBMC, so if that's your OS I can't help much.

     

    Hope this helps!

  • 0 in reply to johnbeetem

    Thanks for a quick response.

     

    It is the model B with the Ethernet port.

     

    I bought the preloaded XMBC SD Card to boot from.

     

    After it boots the Raspberry Pi Settings - Networks Settings show the MAC address is 00-00-00-00-00-00 with the Ethernet cable attached or the Wi-Pi card inserted.

     

    I don't see a menu to find the terminal window - I sound like a complete noob.

  • 0 in reply to Former Member

    Hi Mark,

     

    What I would do is install the Raspbian OS first and try and get the Ethernet working in that. Then at least you would know weather you are having some Hardware issue or there is a problem with the XBMC image you have. You can download the NOOB OS form the Raspberry Pi foundations website and take it form there. Let us know how you get on image

  • 0 in reply to Former Member

    Mark Alexander wrote:

     

    It is the model B with the Ethernet port.

     

    I bought the preloaded XMBC SD Card to boot from.

     

    After it boots the Raspberry Pi Settings - Networks Settings show the MAC address is 00-00-00-00-00-00 with the Ethernet cable attached or the Wi-Pi card inserted.

     

    I don't see a menu to find the terminal window - I sound like a complete noob.

    It's very possible that XBMC doesn't have a terminal window -- I've never used XBMC.  So at this point IMO either the Network Settings software isn't working correctly and reports a zero MAC address, or the RasPi wasn't manufactured correctly, i.e., nobody assigned it a MAC address (which I believe is stored in the SoC's non-volatile memory).  In the latter case, it should have failed factory test when they tried the Ethernet, but who knows?  If it doesn't have a valid MAC address it's time to exchange it IMO.

     

    Edit: the best way to tell for sure is to boot using a GNU/Linux distro such as Rasbian.  That way you have the full set of GNU/Linux commands like "ifconfig".  Unfortunately, preparing a new SD card isn't trivial -- you might see if there's a hackerspace nearby which might have someone with a RasPi who would let you boot with a known working SD card.  I did some searching at raspberrypi.org, and it may be that the only way to get a terminal under XBMC is to use SSH over the Ethernet, which of course doesn't work if you're having Ethernet problems.

  • 0 in reply to johnbeetem

    John Beetem wrote:

     

    It's very possible that XBMC doesn't have a terminal window -- I've never used XBMC. 

    I've not used XBMC on the RPi, but the more normal x86 version just sits on top of one of the usual linux distros. So for example, the XBMC Live CD I use is based on top of Ubuntu.

    That being the case, Ctrl-Alt-F1 gets you to a text console, and Alt-F8 takes you back to the XBMC screen. It's likely that something very similar will work for XBMC-on-RPi

  • 0

    Thanks everyone for your helpful suggestions.

     

    I did two things. I bought another charger, this new one rated at 5 volts & 2 Amps and I downloaded and created a Pidora SD card for the Pi.

     

    Initially the Pidora boot wouldn't connect the internet - but in the Ethernet settings for the connection (cabled connection) I cloned the MAC address it found into the settings.

     

    At that point we had a thunderstorm and the nearest broadband cabinent - believe or not - was hit by lightning!! Dead for 24 hours while most of its insides were replaced. Better that than my computers.

     

    After the internet was restored I restarted the Pi-Pidora system, told the router about the MAC address and the Pi was on the net!!!

     

    Conclusion - probably the original power supply wasn't 1 Amp even though  it claimed so, and they system wasn't powering the Ethernet port.

     

    Thanks again.