RPi board power supply problem

[ahochan2]

Hi,

I'm having a lot of problems with my RPi lately, and I suspect there is an issue with the power supply of the board.

It will intermittently start emitting a high-pitched whine, and if I tap the usb micro cable, even very gently, it will loose power and reset.

It currently refuses to boot because the micro sd card is corrupt. It is the second card I try, and both have ended up corrupted after a couple of weeks' use.

PS: I use the 5V 1A power adapter and micro sd card adafruit sells for the RPi.

[ahochan2]

Some more information:

I just flashed occidentals to a brand new sandisk microsd card (using win32diskimager), and now it boots, but
shortly after I get this in the console:

pi@raspberrypi:~$ [ 344.442178] EXT4-fs error (device mmcblk0p2) in ext4_reserve_inode_write:4126: Journal has aborted
[ 344.451573] EXT4-fs error (device mmcblk0p2) in ext4_reserve_inode_write:4126: Journal has aborted
[ 344.464647] EXT4-fs error (device mmcblk0p2) in ext4_dirty_inode:4253: Journal has aborted
[ 344.481540] EXT4-fs error (device mmcblk0p2) in ext4_dirty_inode:4253: Journal has aborted
[ 344.493254] EXT4-fs error (device mmcblk0p2) in ext4_da_writepages:2169: Journal has aborted
[ 344.508616] EXT4-fs error (device mmcblk0p2): ext4_journal_start_sb:326: Detected aborted journal
[ 344.520875] EXT4-fs error (device mmcblk0p2): ext4_journal_start_sb:326:
[ 344.528338] EXT4-fs (mmcblk0p2): Remounting filesystem read-only
[ 344.534908] EXT4-fs (mmcblk0p2): ext4_da_writepages: jbd2_start: 1024 pages, ino 54696; err -30

When I try to reboot after this, the FS is corrupt again:

[ 2.085446] mmc0: problem reading SD Status register.
[ 2.108584] mmc0: new high speed SDHC card at address e624
[ 2.128555] mmcblk0: mmc0:e624 SU08G 7.40 GiB
[ 2.143207] mmcblk0: p1 p2
[ 2.258532] usb 1-1: new high speed USB device number 2 using dwc_otg
[ 2.283770] EXT4-fs error (device mmcblk0p2): ext4_map_blocks:445: inode #8: block 196688: comm swapper: lblock 80 mapped to illegal pblock (length 1)
[ 2.328484] jbd2_journal_bmap: journal block not found at offset 80 on mmcblk0p2-8
[ 2.348402] JBD: bad block at offset 80
[ 2.354720] JBD: IO error -5 recovering block 80 in log
[ 2.383117] EXT4-fs error (device mmcblk0p2): ext4_map_blocks:445: inode #8: block 196689: comm swapper: lblock 81 mapped to illegal pblock (length 1)
[ 2.405313] jbd2_journal_bmap: journal block not found at offset 81 on mmcblk0p2-8
[ 2.418232] JBD: bad block at offset 81
[ 2.424906] JBD: IO error -5 recovering block 81 in log
[ 2.435907] EXT4-fs error (device mmcblk0p2): ext4_map_blocks:445: inode #8: block 196690: comm swapper: lblock 82 mapped to illegal pblock (length 1)

[adafruit_support_bill]

if I tap the usb micro cable, even very gently, it will loose power and reset.

That sounds like it could be a cable connection problem. It could be either on the cable end or the socket on the Pi. Do you have another cable to test with?

A marginal supply could also account for the card corruption. SD cards require a lot more current to write than they do to read. Insufficient write current could cause bad blocks to be written.

[ahochan2]

I tried a few different cables, and was able to find one that worked much better.

I've re-flashed the sd card and it boots now, and has been running for a few hours. Time will show
Now to figure out if I can rescue any files from the other corrupt card.

[ahochan2]

It looks like the unstable power supply was just one of the problems:

I let the RPi run doing basically nothing for a couple of days, and then did "sudo reboot"

It does not come up again:

[ 17.288377] mmc0: Timeout waiting for hardware interrupt - cmd25.
[ 17.297137] mmc0: resetting ongoing cmd 25DMA before 4096/4096 [31]/[63] complete
[ 17.314057] mmcblk0: error -110 transferring data, sector 1695752, nr 504, cmd response 0x900, card status 0xc00
[ 17.331102] mmc0: DMA IRQ 6 ignored - results were reset
[ 17.339581] end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 1695991
[ 17.348332] end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 1695992
[ 17.357010] end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 1696000
[ 17.365570] end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 1696008
etc.

I've done this twice now on two different sd cards... always with the same result.
There must be some other error with my RPi.

[ahochan2]

For reference:

Of the two cards I've tried with, one card is a micro sd, with the adafruit micro sd adapter, and the other a normal sd card, so I don't think the adapter is to blame.

[adafruit_support_rick]

What else have you got connected to the Pi? Any peripherals - WiFi, keyboard, mouse, Pi Plates, etc?

Here's a good place to start for troubleshooting. Pay particular attention to the discussions of power.
http://elinux.org/R-Pi_Troubleshooting

You should also check the following for any peripherals you might be using:
http://elinux.org/RPi_VerifiedPeripherals

[ahochan2]

Just the wifi adapter I got from Adafruit: http://adafruit.com/products/814
It is powered by this 5V 1A adapter: http://adafruit.com/products/501

Voltage on the GPIO header is 5.1V, which I assume is fine.

[adafruit_support_rick]

The thing with the Pi is that it does a lot of power management, so it's hard to just take a reading on the GPIO header. You want to monitor the voltage between TP1 and TP2. See here for details: http://elinux.org/R-Pi_Troubleshooting# ... r_problems

Realistically, you're not going to be able to run the WiFi dongle off the USB port. The Pi just can't give it enough juice. You've going to have to connect it through a powered hub.

[ahochan2]

TP1-TP2 is 4.91V, with the wifi adapter plugged in.
The power supply is not running especially hot, but I haven't measured the current draw.

How much current can the RPi deliver to it's built in USB port?
You would think that if both the USB port and the wifi adapter are built to spec, they should work fine together.

[adafruit_support_rick]

The Pi limits output power to USB devices to 140mA. The reading on TP1 and TP2 will not constant - the Pi does a lot of on-board power management. The dongle will draw more when transmitting. The SD card will draw more when writing. If you run a GUI, the GPU will be powered up, etc.

Try running with wired ethernet and no wifi dongle. See if your power woes go away. I suspect they will.

Bottom line: you're going to have to use a powered hub for the dongle. I've offered this same solution to several customers over the last month or so and it's worked for them. I've had to do it myself.

[ahochan2]

I will try to run for a few days without the wifi dongle attached and see if that helps.

Doesn't this mean that the power management you refer to is broken? It seems strange that I can't connect various USB peripherals without running a risk that the boot partition becomes corrupt.

[adafruit_support_rick]

Not broken. It's just that they're running very close to the edge on their power budgets. That's why they need the power management.

And it really is a good idea to check all of your peripherals against the Verified Peripherals list. It's not just Wifi that's a problem - they identify quite a few keyboards and mice which draw too much juice.

This Wifi issue seems to have ballooned on us over the last few weeks. We've updated our product pages and tutorials to recommend connecting WiFi dongles only through powered hubs.

[ahochan2]

I've tried again without the wifi module attached, and the same thing happens.

I now have the following attached:
* network cable
* serial cable (GND, RX and TX only connected)
* micro usb cable connected to 5V 1A adapter

[adafruit_support_rick]

Alright. Sounds like the Pi has a problem. Please contact support@adafruit.com with a link to this thread to arrange a replacement.