Hey all,
The only RPi5 I own was running fine for the few dozen hours of uptime since I got it, but now it refuses to boot after I tried to reflash the SD card for a clean install.
When connected to power supply, the bootloader displays normally, seems to detect the SD card, then... black screen. The green LED blinks randomly, like to show a disk activity, then a little bot steadily (no recognizable error pattern) for seconds before going solid. I may also say the active cooling fan is running at full speed for a few seconds just after the bootloader did his job, which I don't remember on my previous installations...
What I've ruled out so far:
- Tried DietPi, Raspbian Lite and Full, flashed via both Balena Etcher and Pi Imager
- Tested with a brand new SD card + reformatted the old one multiple times
- Reflashed the EEPROM via Pi Imager - no change
- Tested with both a 5V/2A USB charger and my usual PoE setup (802.3at/af injector + PoE HAT) which never had issues before
- Stripped down to bare minimum: just PSU (USB then PoE) + HDMI
The weird part is I've reflashed this exact board before without any problem, without any hardware modification. I also checked the board for hardware issues, but it seems to look fine.
At this point I'm wondering if something died on the board. Anyone seen this behavior before? Any other ideas before I call it and my wallet dead?
Cheers,
Ratibus11
The only RPi5 I own was running fine for the few dozen hours of uptime since I got it, but now it refuses to boot after I tried to reflash the SD card for a clean install.
When connected to power supply, the bootloader displays normally, seems to detect the SD card, then... black screen. The green LED blinks randomly, like to show a disk activity, then a little bot steadily (no recognizable error pattern) for seconds before going solid. I may also say the active cooling fan is running at full speed for a few seconds just after the bootloader did his job, which I don't remember on my previous installations...
What I've ruled out so far:
- Tried DietPi, Raspbian Lite and Full, flashed via both Balena Etcher and Pi Imager
- Tested with a brand new SD card + reformatted the old one multiple times
- Reflashed the EEPROM via Pi Imager - no change
- Tested with both a 5V/2A USB charger and my usual PoE setup (802.3at/af injector + PoE HAT) which never had issues before
- Stripped down to bare minimum: just PSU (USB then PoE) + HDMI
The weird part is I've reflashed this exact board before without any problem, without any hardware modification. I also checked the board for hardware issues, but it seems to look fine.
At this point I'm wondering if something died on the board. Anyone seen this behavior before? Any other ideas before I call it and my wallet dead?
Cheers,
Ratibus11
Statistics: Posted by Ratibus11 — Thu Jan 22, 2026 11:01 pm