interface an lcd panel with raspberry pi factory

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. It appears that the upgrade package overwrites the FBTFT drivers, in particular, the Raspberry Pi bootloader. This seems to solve the problem:

I just tested this, and it looks like the difference is how SPI is enabled. In the RPi 2 it’s enabled in raspi-config, not commented out in the blacklist file. I just updated the post so it should work now!

Looks like the only difference is in how SPI is enabled. In the new release of Raspbian, SPI is enabled in the raspi-config menu under advanced settings. In older versions of Raspbian, it is enabled by commenting out the line in the blacklist file

dwc_otg.lpm_enable=0 console=ttyAMA0,115200 console=tty1 root=/dev/mmcblk0p6 rootfstype=ext4 elevator=deadline rootwait fbtft_device.custom fbtft_device.name=waveshare32b fbtft_device.gpios=dc:22,reset:27 fbtft_device.bgr=1 fbtft_device.speed=48000000 fbcon=map:10 fbcon=font:ProFont6x11 logo.nologo dma.dmachans=0x7f35 console=tty1 consoleblank=0 fbtft_device.fps=50 fbtft_device.rotate=0

Unfortunately, their “driver” is an SD card image containing a complete installation of Raspbian which has been preconfigured to use their display. Which is fine if you’re setting up a brand new system that doesn’t need to be a specific distro, but if you’re trying to add the display to an existing Raspberry Pi, already configured the way you want it, with software installed and data present, or if you want to use a specific distro such as Octopi, then it’s not terribly helpful.

Hello..I tired to interface this lcd “https://www.crazypi.com/raspberry-pi-products/Raspberry-Pi-Accessories/32-TOUCH-DISPLAY-RASPBERRY-PI” to my Raspberry pi model B+.I got a DVD containing image for LCD in the package.I burned it to the SD card and plugged in the display.But my lcd is completly blank.But green inidcation led (ACT LED) in board is blinking.Why my LCD is Blank ?

If you have tried using the manufacturers image and the screen doesn’t work, it could be that the screen has a hardware malfunction. If the process above doesn’t work either, I would contact the manufacturer

Is your RED (POWER) LED on? I had the same problem. Green Led was blinking and screen was white. Then I noticed RED Led is off, indicating there’s something wrong with the power. I plugged into different port and it started

My Touchscreen is now working fine.The problem was for the ribbon cable on the back side of LCD.It was not connected properly.I just tighted the cable and it worked fine.Hope it will be useful tip.

Thank you for this great tutorial. I looked everywhere for this information. I have an eleduino 3.5 version A. I was able to get it working on my Pi 2 by following your tutorial and using flexfb as the screen type. I got the other settings from the image that came with the product. I did find that the ts_calibrate didn’t recognize the screen so I installed xinput-calibrator and it worked fine.

What other settings are you speaking of? Where are they on the image? I’m also using the Eleduino 3.5, but I’m not sure which letter version it is. It says version 141226 on the back, and it’s a black PCB.

Just got my Pi2 running Wheezy, working with the Eleduino 3.5 LCD without running the OEMs image… kinda. I didn’t want to rebuild the application environment again, so was avoiding flashing the SD.

I tried the steps in this tutorial. It’s very clear and easy to follow, thank you. But it didn’t work for me, I tried setting my device to flexfb. Only got white screen.

Unzipped it and looked around. From a shell script inside i kinda figured out what it was doing. I didn’t like what I saw, so I manually made changes omitting the parts I didn’t like (it rm -r my /lib/modules directory… omitted that part) and copied 2 files and 1 directory from the OEMs archive to the file system of my Pi2.

[ 0.000000] Kernel command line: dma.dmachans=0x7f35 bcm2708_fb.fbwidth=656 bcm2708_fb.fbheight=416 bcm2709.boardrev=0xa21041 bcm2709.serial=0x631a4eae smsc95xx.macaddr=B8:27:EB:1A:4E:AE bcm2708_fb.fbswap=1 bcm2709.disk_led_gpio=47 bcm2709.disk_led_active_low=0 sdhci-bcm2708.emmc_clock_freq=250000000 vc_mem.mem_base=0x3dc00000 vc_mem.mem_size=0x3f000000 dwc_otg.lpm_enable=0 console=ttyAMA0,115200 console=tty1 root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rootfstype=ext4 elevator=deadline rootwait fbtft_device.custom fbtft_device.name=flexfb fbtft_device.gpios=dc:22,reset:27 fbtft_device.bgr=1 fbtft_device.speed=48000000 fbcon=map:10 fbcon=font:ProFont6x11 logo.nologo dma.dmachans=0x7f35 console=tty1 consoleblank=0 fbtft_device.fps=50 fbtft_device.rotate=0

thank you for your great tutorial, it got me on the right way. unfortunataly i only see some boot messages on the lcd and then it turns black. maybe you could give me a hint on how to get it working entirely.

i have a watterott display (https://github.com/watterott/RPi-Display) and changed the device-name to “rpi-display”. i use a rsapberrypi 2 and hae the latest raspian image installed.

I too have a raspberry pi 2, and a waveshare spotpear 3.2 RPi lcd (v3) and I just can’t get it to work! I suspect I have a faulty LCD, but thought I’ll try this forum for help before I sent it back.

Soon as the pi is powered, the LCD lights up all white, with a few vertical pixels coloured at one of the edges, and nothing else. I don’t think that should happen – not at least before the BOIS has started up.

Anyway, point 1, says to change to dev/fb1 – I don’t have fb1. Only fb0 appears to be there. is that a clue what could be wrong? I have enabled SPI (is there a command to tell if its enabled?) I have also ran spidev to troubleshot (though I haven’t a clue what I means)

Any ideas what going wrong? I am using the latest “2015-02-16-raspbian-wheezy_zip”. Enabled SPI. done all the steps. Even changed mmcblk0p2 to mmcblk0p6 as suggested by Dabomber60 (but that freezes for me)

[ 0.000000] Linux version 3.18.5-v7+ (pi@raspi2) (gcc version 4.8.3 20140106 (prerelease) (crosstool-NG linaro-1.13.1-4.8-2014.01 – Linaro GCC 2013.11) ) #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri Feb 6 23:06:57 CET 2015

It seems all appears to be working – just the LCD is still all white with a single line of coloured pixels on edge) and nothing else. Is there a way to output, like jeff G script, of touch points?

I had the same one, I finally found a driver for it here: http://www.waveshare.net/wiki/3.2inch_RPi_LCD_(B) you will need to translate the page, but unpack the driver then run sudo ./LCD-show/LCD32-show. It should reboot and all will be good with the screen :)

Can anyone let me know if the default OS image sent with the screen works with pi2 or just Pi B/B+ as i think my screen maybe broken but can’t confirm it yet as i have not had it working at all

My system: Raspberry Pi 2 Model B with Raspian Wheezy from Febuary 2015. LCD display of Sainsmart 3.2 http://www.conrad.de/ce/de/product/1283498/Raspberry-Pi-Display-Modul-Touch-Display-81-cm-32/?ref=home&rt=home&rb=1

dwc_otg.lpm_enable=0 console=ttyAMA0,115200 console=tty1 root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rootfstype=ext4 cgroup_enable=memory elevator=deadline rootwait fbtft_device.custom fbtft_device.name=sainsmart32_spi fbtft_device.gpios=dc:24,reset:25 fbtft_device.bgr=1 fbtft_device.speed=48000000 fbcon=map:10 fbcon=font:ProFont6x11 logo.nologo dma.dmachans=0x7f35 console=tty1 consoleblank=0 fbtft_device.fps=50 fbtft_device.rotate=90

sainsmart32_spi width=320 height=240 buswidth=8 init=-1,0xCB,0x39,0x2C,0x00,0x34,0x02,-1,0xCF,0x00,0XC1,0X30,-1,0xE8,0x85,0x00,0x78,-1,0xEA,0x00,0x00,-1,0xED,0x64,0x03,0X12,0X81,-1,0xF7,0x20,-1,0xC0,0x23,-1,0xC1,0x10,-1,0xC5,0x3e,0x28,-1,0xC7,0x86,-1,0×36,0x28,-1,0x3A,0x55,-1,0xB1,0x00,0x18,-1,0xB6,0x08,0x82,0x27,-1,0xF2,0x00,-1,0×26,0x01,-1,0xE0,0x0F,0x31,0x2B,0x0C,0x0E,0x08,0x4E,0xF1,0x37,0x07,0x10,0x03,0x0E,0x09,0x00,-1,0XE1,0x00,0x0E,0x14,0x03,0x11,0x07,0x31,0xC1,0x48,0x08,0x0F,0x0C,0x31,0x36,0x0F,-1,0×11,-2,120,-1,0×29,-1,0x2c,-3

ads7846_device model=7846 cs=1 gpio_pendown=23 speed=2000000 keep_vref_on=1 swap_xy=1 pressure_max=255 x_plate_ohms=60 x_min=300 x_max=3800 y_min=700 y_max=3400

The LCD display shows the raspberry correctly. However, the touch screen input does not work. The mouse pointer can I move correctly with your finger, but I can not select things (function of the left mouse button).

Thank you so much for this great tutorial. I have my WaveShare SpotPear 3.2″ V4 working fine on my Raspberry Pi 2. If you are having problems with this specific hardware, skip step 5.

Can someone upload SD card image that works with RBP2 ? My idea is to use Eleduino TFT as additional screen and play movies via HDMI.. is it possible?

Do not follow this article when you don’t know what kind of LCD module. In my case, I follow all of this and my raspberry pi cannot boot anymore. I will try to recover, but I think I should format my SD card and reinstall OS.

Expecting this would builtin driver module within kernel and help with avoiding mistakenly overwriting anything. But with this is cause LCD screen to go blank white and no boot activity. Also noticed on HDMI it get stuck on Initial rainbow screen and stuck on that.

Also can you someone explain what exactly happen when do rpi-update? Want to understand what this step actualy doing and help me to debug any such situation and able to help others.

Does anyone tried splash boot screen with waveshare v4 LCD and Rpi2? I tried to follow some example from https://github.com/notro/fbtft/wiki/Bootsplash but no success.

Great tutorial thanks; got an X session working great 1st time. Has anybody managed to get Kodi/XMBC working on the LCD either Kodi standalone, Raspbmc or Xbian?

in the video you say to change the existing line to “snd-bcm2836” for the rasppi2 which isn’t listed in the written part of the instructions (part 4).. this should be added (I believe it caused me to have to re-image the OS again, the Pi wouldn’t boot to anything just using the written steps)

fbtft_device name=waveshare32b gpios=dc:22,reset:27 speed=48000000 width=320 height=240 buswidth=8 init=-1,0xCB,0x39,0x2C,0x00,0x34,0x02,-1,0xCF,0x00,0XC1,0X30,-1,0xE8,0x85,0x00,0x78,-1,0xEA,0x00,0x00,-1,0xED,0x64,0x03,0X12,0X81,-1,0xF7,0x20,-1,0xC0,0x23,-1,0xC1,0x10,-1,0xC5,0x3e,0x28,-1,0xC7,0x86,-1,0×36,0x28,-1,0x3A,0x55,-1,0xB1,0x00,0x18,-1,0xB6,0x08,0x82,0x27,-1,0xF2,0x00,-1,0×26,0x01,-1,0xE0,0x0F,0x31,0x2B,0x0C,0x0E,0x08,0x4E,0xF1,0x37,0x07,0x10,0x03,0x0E,0x09,0x00,-1,0XE1,0x00,0x0E,0x14,0x03,0x11,0x07,0x31,0xC1,0x48,0x08,0x0F,0x0C,0x31,0x36,0x0F,-1,0×11,-2,120,-1,0×29,-1,0x2c,-3

ads7846_device model=7846 cs=1 gpio_pendown=17 speed=1000000 keep_vref_on=1 swap_xy=0 pressure_max=255 x_plate_ohms=60 x_min=200 x_max=3900 y_min=200 y_max=3900

After following this tut to the letter on a brand new image of Raspian, I find that the touch driver does not function. Anyone experience the same? Basically all I did was image a current copy of rasping, did a apt-get upgrade, and then did this tutorial. Then the touch driver does not work, meaning the pointer does not respond.

The reason I did this was because on a production version of my system I added the 3.2 screen and it worked great except for the x-axis. So I wanted to see if there was something in my system that was interfering or if this is another error. Now with a raw rasping the driver does not work at all. I wonder if the touch pin has changed since the kernel is using BCM pins instead of GPIO pin numbers?

I have exactly the same problem. I also installed a new version of Raspbian, and the LCD part works fine (except all the windows are way too large), but the touch part doesn’t work at all… I’m using Waveshare Spotpear 3.2″ V4.

I remember that I plugged in the screen wrongly one time, before configuring any of the GPIO pins. Can this have damaged the screen? Still it’s weird that the display part works well and the touch part not at all.

I do not think that has anything to do with it. Other than power pins, the rest are communication. If it still works then you are good. No, there is something else. I do suspect it us related to the BCM pin numbering. The real question is… Why isnt the eeveloper responding? I have since abandoned this TFT because of his lack of response.

Touch actually goes through one of the SPI pins I think. Either the driver is toast with the required kernel update or the driver is using the wrong pin. It is very likely the this works well with previous raspian versions, but not with the new B+ and with the new kernel.

I am trying to use the sainsmart 2.8″ lcd sold through microcenter, using the sainsmart32_spi … seems to have the same pinouts, should I be able to get this to work? I am stuck at the white out screen on the lcd, doesn’t seem to recognize the module either.

Unfortunately I’ve tried that ( a few times actually) but the file still doesn’t exist. Thanks very much for the assistance anyway. I must be doing something wrong. My Raspian came from a Noobs installation, I’m wondering if I should try installing the OS from somewhere else. My LCD screen didn’t come with a CD or any docs so I’m completely in the dark here.

I have just found a way to get this file on my system! Apparently its part of the fbturbo installation. I found it here http://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=45746&start=75 (under experimental enhanced x driver (rpifb).. Sorry if this is obvious to everyone but I am SUCH a noob at this!!

I have the waveshare 3.5 and what to use it only as a secondary screen by putting measurement data with a c program on the screen. Is there any solution?

Ok, what am I doing wrong. I am using a fresh install of the newest raspbian, on a Pi 2. After doing the first two steps and rebooting I get the rainbow screen, then the boot up process, and then my screen just goes black with a flashing cursor in the top left. I am not able to enter any commands or anything…like the pi is halting just after boot up. Any thoughts/suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Well figured out that step 1 was causing my problems. I’m guessing it is shutting off my hdmi feed and trying to switch it over to the SPI, am I guessing right? If so, not sure how I’m suppose to complete the rest of the steps if my hdmi output gets turned off before the LCD is actually set up to work…that sounds kind of smartass-like, which is not my intention, just looking for some clarification on what is going on in that first step as I am fairly new to this stuff. Thanks.

Anyway, I was able to do the rest of the steps with no problem. LCD didn’t work, but I am using a Waveshare 3.5, which doesn’t look to be supported yet. Mostly I am trying to play around and see if I can get it working somehow. Anyone found a way to do this yet?

Here is a link to an updated image from waveshare. Upon install it got the display up and running, but I still do not have touch functionality. I’ve been playing around with it, but it has been to no avail…hopefully someone better at this stuff from me can get the touch working.

I am having an issue with getting the GUI back. Every time I use startx my pi just sits there for about two minutes saying “No protocol specified”, and then it just gives up. I went through this tutorial about four times now and am not certain why it is doing this. I have the exact same LCD as is in the tutotial (WaveShare 3.2b). any help would be great.

Hi I am making a project for school,using the raspberry pi b+ and waveshare spotpare 3.2b. Everything works except the touch input doesn’t work. Any help would be appreciated very much.

So complicated (and especially the line with myriad of hexadecimal values) that if you succed you’re a very Lucky person. Don’t do that except if you have time to kill.

Great write up – worked first time for me. The only difference is by modules blacklist file was empty so there was no change needed there. Maybe to do with me being on a newer rasbian?

Thanks for the tutorial. It works, but I get the boot/command line stuff on the HDMI monitor and the LCD only comes on when I do startx. Is there a way to get everything to appear on the LCD screen?

I am trying to get this same screen to work with the image of RetroPie 2.6 and it won’t work. I have followed all the steps and nothing, please help I an kinda a noob.

I have a Tontec 7 inch touchscreen with a Raspberry Pi 2 B. After following the instructions the touch screen is functioning but not properly… The only are that works is the upper left (and only a small area of that). I tried changing the width and height in the modules but it didnt change anything. Also the xy seems to be reversed, I changed the swap_xy to 1 but again no change on the screen.

Now the OS freezes at the emulation station loading screen, and if I connect my lcd it gives me a lot of error messages which I can only see on the 3.2 inch screen.

hi i have the same screen with a raspberry pi 2 im trying to run retro pie but it wont show ..however it shows all the commands …but i cant get it to show the gui …if u guys can make an image or something please i have been in this pain for two weeks already thank you

well ,,i follow all instructions and still kernel panic ,,,,may i request from mr. Circuitbasics@Gmail.Com that have a contact with manufacture and just ask for 2-3 links for image files for different versions of pi till all this f discussions are finished,,i cant understand 10 guys said we run it and 40 guys said kernel panic ,,as an expert i did 50 times imaging and follow all changes fro this forum and other forums and still cant run it ,,,so sth is wrong …..just asking the manufacture for simple f image ,,that`s it ,,,,simpleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

well i did it at last on pi 2,,after reading 100 pages and reimaging 50 times ,,i finally find the solution ,,,,there is a simple line forgotten to be attached in setup instruction,,,well i give u clue for prodigies ,,there is a step left between step 3 and 4,,,,and a simple change in step 5 according to your pi version ,,,that`s it ,,nothing else,,,,

Damn.. I thought I was kickin ass haha. I am using the SainSmart 3.2″.. the backlight is lit up and the pi was booting and everything just fine but on the final reboot it gets hung and says “nonblocking pool is initialized” ?? No idea what that means. But it’s def just frozen at this point.. on my main screen, and just the backlight is on the SainSmart.

This was an excellent tutorial. I have gotten an output to the screen, but no touchscreen usage . I have the Waveshare SpotPear 3.2 Inch LCD V4 screen, but using Raspberry PI 2 with wheezy. Any ideas?

Thanks a lot for this article. Very clear and easy . I am new in pi’s world and my 3.2″ screen is working fine. I rotate 90 º and works. I can use mouse and so on.Not problems.

I filed the steps to calibrate the screen but it did not work.I think because it did not find the TFT pin, because I think the touch problem is the assigned pin to control it changed.

I actually used the driver from here http://www.waveshare.com/wiki/3.2inch_RPi_LCD_(B) , from a new wheezy build, did nothing except enable SPI in config, install driver, and change mmcblk0p2 to mmcblk0p6 in cmdline.txt and it all worked, no drama.

Hi I managed to set up my touch screen ok but I now have the issue that everything desktop fits fine but the windows I open are all huge and I can’t remember how to change the size and cannot see the option in desktop preferences any idea what I have to do and is it at all possible to install kodi to run through the raspbian is as this would be a lot my useful than having to keep swapping os on every boot up many thanks in advanced hope you can help me

Hi, sorry I’m a REAL noob… I can’t manage changing 99-fbturbo.conf at the first step (fb0 to fb1), because the file is in read only mode (Raspbian july 2015). I can’t manage getting rights to change… Any idea? Thanks.

Advice to all who have the drivers from the (touch)screen manufacturer and cannot obtain those otherwise: you can skip everything and go to the update steps skipping the kernel and kernel modules update (as mentioned by the author) so that you don’t override the preinstalled drivers. I have a Waveshare 3.5″ RPi v3 (not the 3.2″ supported by notro’s drivers) and actually managed without any problems to get notro’s drivers make it work. However I am still reading about the xinput and xinput-calibrator to figure out how to include it as a kernel module so that I can compile my own kernel and add it there.

i have raspberry pi 2 with 3.2 inch rpi lcd v4 waveshare spotpear.i have done as per your instructions.the display is working but touch screen not working.error shows waveshare32b module not found as well as touch screen module not found messages.

Hey! i did this and rotated it… It loads console perfectly, but when it goes into startx, i get a black background with only the wastebin/trashcan… how do i get the taskbar(or whatever that bar is called)? and the raspberry background?

Unfortunately I have lost the Touch facility on my Waveshare 3.5″ LCD Touchscreen? Can you offer any reasons as to why? I copied the Raspbian image to my Raspberry Pi from the Waveshare website first of all. The Touchscreen displays but is not reactive with any touch

I have purchased a raspberry pi B+ total kit and waveshare 3.2 TFT display online. In the package i have been given a pre-loaded NOOBS installed SD card. I did not even start anything yet. What should i do what r the things needed and how to connect the display i really want to know. I need help as i don’t know anything. Does the above solution help or will u suggest something………………..

Hi great article thanks. I am trying to get a waveshare 7 inch LCD with capacitive touch running it works with the suppled image but if you upgrade it breaks the capacitive touch. I have a sense-hat and GPS which require the latest kernel and RASPIAN image and the install program for the screen replaces the /lib/modules directory and the kernel with older ones. I need to be able to install the touch drivers into a new clean OS can anyone give me some pointers? Thanks

I should add that the screen is plugged into the HDMI port and always works. The capacitive touch is driven from the USB port which also supplies power.

For anyone who have those unbranded cheap TFT touch modules and cannot get it to work with this guide, I had success on my 3.5″ with the following steps: http://pastebin.com/89qmFbPB

I have the WaveShare 3.5 (A) and cannot get it to work with the Kali Linux with TFT for Raspberry Pi. Have anybody gotten the A to work? (Not the B, theres instructions for the B already and dont work with A)

So I have the original image that came with my screen and it works fine with the LCD but my problem is that I want to use my LCD screen with other distros (at this time I am trying to use it with Kali Linux with TFT support by default https://www.offensive-security.com/kali-linux-vmware-arm-image-download/) What do I have to do to transfer the needed files from the original image that WORKS with the screen and use them with another image?

I originally bought this bundle http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013E0IJUK?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00 with an RPi LCD V3 and no extra documentation on the specifics on the chipset. I tried with the bftft drivers but since I have no idea what to call this screen I just suppose it isn’t supported.

After 4 lost days I just decided to get another screen, a Waveshare 3.2 (just like the one on this tutorial), I’ll follow these steps and see if it work for me.

I’ve followed your instructions and am only getting a white screen stil. I am using the Osoyoo 3.5 inch touchscreen from Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013E0IJVE?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00

I’m not sure if the Jessie kernel is compatible – can anyone please confirm or not ?? Adafruit states that their setup for TFT screens are Wheezy only ; is this a different setup ??

I am using the same LCD and followed your tutorial. Have your tested the guide lately? Are you certain that it works? I see the boot messages on console but I get white screen as GUI starts.

Oct 16 17:38:48 spare kernel: [ 12.544859] graphics fb1: fb_ili9340 frame buffer, 320×240, 150 KiB video memory, 4 KiB DMA buffer memory, fps=50, spi0.0 at 48 MHz

After I rebooted in step 3, my raspberry pi won’t boot up again. It goes thru the process of booting and the text scrolls down and every thing says “ok”. Then instead of going to GUI it just guys to a black screen on my monitor with a blinking underscore in the top left corner. Anyway to get around this? or should I start over with a fresh disk image??

That is what happens to mine also.. So long story short —> THIS SITE NEEDS TO BE UPDATED OR SHUT DOWN <— There are a hundred people on here that have all lost everything on the pi drive, and spent all day (or more) working thru this tutorial 4 or 5 (dozen) times and nothing. Just have to reinstall the os over again and again.

Please check out my answer, it may help you if it works. I’m not in that case but I’m assuming that the desktop environment simply doesn’t automatically start running anymore… This can be changed in the raspi-setup

Try typing ‘startx’ if you problem isn’t solved (assuming you’re using Raspbian and LXDE), it should start the desktop environment you’re used to see. What you’re seeing is the Command Line Input interface (CLI), the most basic way to interact with a computer. Hope I helped you a little

I have tried to set up waveshare 32b on my Pi B using the latest Raspian download. I learned a lot in the process using Windows Putty, Nano etc. I have repeated the setup process several times from scratch and included the corrections for possible overwriting. My Waveshare SpotPear 3.2 inch RPi LCD V4 just shows a white screen. Any suggestions?

I’d suggest that you use the included installation disk to make a clean install on another SD card to see if the screen itself works fine or not, then try to repeat the process of installation after upgrading

There was no disk included. I asked for drivers and was given a download link to the image file. After down loading this I tried it and still got just a white screen. The HDMI monitor locks partway though the boot. I can still log in to pi using putty from my PC.

This process worked for me except for two things. The screen only shows 25* of any page so the most important buttons are inaccessible, and now the Wifi does not work and cannot be activated where it worked fine before the reboot. Any suggestions?

Hi, I am using raspberry pi 2 with raspbian jessie installed. I the waveshare spotpear 3.2 v4. The above instructions are not working. and after completing the steps there was no display from hdmi or lcd. One things to notify is.: the etc/modules files only had i2c-dev and not snd-bcm2835.

I am trying to get this to work with Retro Pie 3.3.1 and the Waveshare3.2″ v4 but I only get the terminal on the lcd and emulation station starts on hdmi. to get it working with retro pie i just replaced startx with emulationstation. how do i get this to work?

Sir, Your post has very useful to me. i am using Tinylcd. but i cant get display. i am performing all the steps in your post. i cant get touch controller information from the product website and also i am using RASPberryPi B+ model. could u please give me best solution to my work. Than you.

Hi, what if you dont know the make of your screen, i purchased via Ebay, and it is unbranded, the contact speaks barely any English and keeps linking me to a custom kernal download.

what if OS is not Raspbian, any other distro like Yocto project, etc.? Could you please specify process without “rpi-update” that makes driver installation process more generic, not dedicated to Raspbian.

I completed all steps except for the last one (I want it to boot to console). However, when I reboot, it never completes the boot process. I start in recovery mode and check the cmdline.txt file and it is exactly how it appears on this page. I copied the kernel info as well, but I am not sure if it correct as I cannot get to it to check. Any suggestions? I might just reinstall the OS and start over…

i installed android OS in raspberry pi 2. can i use same LCD touch screen set up for android installed raspberry pi 2 which you are used for raspbian.

Is it normal the white back light during the whole process of initializing (I suspect that during the transportation trere is a deffect)? The problem is that I missed the step #1 and I performed it at the end. Unfortunately I don’t have any monitor available right now – neither “normal”, neither LCD :))))). Is it possible turning back the system or the only option is reinstallation of the Raspbian?

I have KeDei 3.5 inch TFT version 4.0 by Osoyoo. (released after January 1 2016) how do i get it working with vanilla Raspbian Jessie (do not want to install the image sent by the seller)

I’m trying to use an original Raspberry Pi model B with a cheap 3.5 inch 320×480 LCD which allegedly was manufactured to work with the Pi and has the correct fittings to fit over the GPIO pins. The operating system is the latest, downloaded yesterday and installed with NOOBS. I can’t get past step 2 of this guidance. When I reboot after using raspi-config I can see text generated as the Pi boots, then the HDMI fed screen goes blank apart from a flashing cursor in the top left hand corner. The LCD just remains white with nothing else on it. I have missed out step 1 and rebooted after step 2 and the screen functions as I would expect. Does anyone have any ideas please?

now when it seem WaveShare release their own custom image or sources, same thing happens kernel panic. unfortunately this time around doing the same trick doesn’t save the day !

Thanks for the great tutorial. I do have a question. Once you install the drivers for the lcd are you effectively disabiling the hdmi port or is it still available to use and will the pi function with both displays. I have a pi 3

once you install the drivers it replaces the kernel by disabling hdmi output and enables it for LCD. i don’t think we have a solution to get em both working at the same time. ( you are encouraged to search for it )

Thanks for the guide, have been doing this with my son but once we leave raspi config and reboot all we get is a black screen with a flashing white horizontal line (dash). Can you help? I have looked in the comments at the end of the article but no one else appears to have this issue.

I have a raspberry pi 2 with waveshare screenn 3.5 inches. Isn’t it the same instructions. But it isnt working, all i get is a white screen, and the red led on the pi is on. The green LED isnot working.

i am sorry, but i am a naive , and i have this question, can we upload any file into it for the display? like have a software in which if i tap it gives back a feedback to the code?

My Rpi3 gets “ERROR: could not insert ‘spi_bcm2708’: No such device” after I enable SPI in the raspi-config.My Rpi3 is freezing on the rainbow screen after I reboot at the end of step 3. I’ve tried adding boot_delay=1 to config.txt.

if any interested, now i have a raspian image working on raspberry 3 with Waveshare 3.5, also with sdr support for dongles and FreqShow working perfectly on touch

I’m a proper novice, have no coding experience. A these tutorials and walk throughs are invaluable. So thank you in advance for all the help and support.

I tried following your tutorial but I got stuck right at the first step… I enter sudo nano /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/99-fbturbo.conf the whole screen is blank except for the command list at the bottom…

ads7846_device model=7846 cs=1 gpio_pendown=17 speed=1000000 keep_vref_on=1 swap_xy=0 pressure_max=255 x_plate_ohms=60 x_min=200 x_max=3900 y_min=200 y_max=3900

No matter what I do, I can’t get this to work. It works perfectly fine on my Pi2, but when I follow and use the guide on my Zero, I always end up with the activity LED blinking 8 times (corrupt SD/filesystem error).

I’d like to find the driver software for my 7″ LCD with touch (official Pi unit) so that I can use it in buildroot. I wanted to make sure this kernel is the one before I started digging further.

Every time I reboot after step 3 I get the rainbow screen of death (lost the kernel) and have to reimage my card and start over. Anybody had this happen and have a solution?

I started through your tutorial and completed step 3 and rebooted. After the Raspberry screen and some of the boot text on my HDMI monitor, I now have a black HDMI monitor and a white screen on my LCD. Does this mean that the bootloader was overwritten or something else is wrong? How am I supposed to enter in the proposed fixes to the bootloader, when I can’t get the RPi to boot? Do I have to interrupt the boot process at some point to reinstall the bootloader or what?

Its a script. Download and instead of running sudo ./LCD4-show run cat ./LCD4-show to simply display what it does without actually running it. The commands are fairly simple modifying a few files. I actually saved the LCD-show.tar.gz on my own server for faster future download but also for backup as it saved me tons of hours (if that’s a measuring unit for time :) )

I used this link though (smaller file ~ 50 KB, fast download) http://www.waveshare.com/w/upload/4/4b/LCD-show-161112.tar.gz and replaced LCD4-show with LCD32-show in the last line.

I’m using RasPi Zero with latest (as of last week) Jessie Raspbian. Did you run the script? If it didn’t work and you have modified other files in the process of making it work, I would recommend installing a fresh installed image on a new card and running the script. Can you suspect the screen being faulty or got “burned” in the process?

i bought a 3.5 inch tft lcd screen from banggood. and i have installed raspian jessie, the latest version, in my sd card. but when i power on my Pi, only a white backlit screen comes. there are no images or graphics whatsoever.

Of course. Raspbian Jessie does not come with the drivers needed to talk to the screen. See my previous comment (September 22, 2016 at 11:54 am) and follow it.

The owner of this article should including a WARNING in the header that if someone follows the steps, they will install a deprecated driver (which is only visible as tiny text on its gethub page here https://github.com/notro/rpi-firmware). This driver after install will break Raspberry Pi and the SD card will need to be reimaged, for some less experienced users, this could also mean lost work if they failed to backup their code or resources. On windows, it requires installing Linux reader software and it takes a long time to fix this f**kup which could easily have been avoided if the author had and sense of responsibility.

I am shocked to read the latest comments and see so many people fall for it, me included, and nothing is being done. I’ve list 3 days back tracking to where i suddenly lost everything…

PLEASE DELETE this article. You have great power with this article showing up for so many people in their search results, and you display ZERO responsibility. This is terrible!

I have done every thing right but the only major problem is that the screen is still white and my raspberrypi freezes after a line of code when booting up and I cant get in with SSH

Will your system work with my SainSmart 2.8″ 2.8 inch TFT LCD 240×320 Arduino DUE MEGA2560 R3 Raspberry Pi ? I would like to know before not be able to back out. Thanks, Lee

I know I will end up regretting this, but how do I change fb0 to fb1? I’m on the screen that has all the info, but no way to change it. Am I looking for a file? I have had my screen for MONTHS and I can’t do anything with my pi or the screen. I am >< close to smashing both. COMPLETE WASTE OF MONEY so far!!

so you have to use your computer’s arrow keys. then you overwrite the 0 with a 1 then you have to move your arrow so it’s on top of the ” and then delete the 0 that was there.

hello. I really appreciate your blog post. I have a raspberry pi 3 B. I have been unable to get my waveshare 3.2 screen to work.I am at a complete loss for what to do. I do step 2 I change fb0 to fb1 and then follow your directions I don’t get the prompt to reboot; however, I do it manually with sudo reboot. that works fine then I complete step three and that works just fine; however once I reboot from getting those drivers and when I attempt to reboot it is unsuccessful and then my whole raspberry pi will not restart. then when I power it back on it will just shut back off. I then have to redo noobs onto a new SD card I would GREATLY appreciate anyones help

I ‘m actually using a LCD Waveshare3.2” , I followed your steps to setup the lcd touchscreen for my rpi and it work but I have a problem with the resolution because if I open a repertory I do not see the whole contents on the screen .

hi! thank you for this post…. I was wondering if all the raspberry pi’s gpio are being held by this screen or do we have any of those availables for use??

it worked. but the resolution is for bigger screens. i got the menubar small, but the rest appears too big , and out of screen. the wastebasket icon is 1/6 of my 3.2″ screen. wich HAS the resolution capability too display the whole desktop. But i’m a PI newby and dunno how to adjust the screen resolution on this display. anybody?

hey Thanks for this good post …I have capacitive touchscreen which i brought from the link below..can you guide how i can configure the kernel modules…It will be very helpful for me…Thanks

hey Thanks for this good post …I have capacitive touchscreen which i brought from the link below..can you guide how i can configure the kernel modules…It will be very helpful for me…Thanks

I did a 5inch LCD for my raspberry pi. I dont use the touchscreen so i didnt have to install any drivers. It works out of the box but doesnt cover the whole screen unless you open the terminal and do:

HI I have my RPI running Pi Presents on a view sonic TD2230 Touchscreen. It all works fine, touching the click areas can navigate you thru my presentation, The problem arises when you use multitouch gestures like you would on a iPhone. Pinch or expand etc… and then all touch ability goes away. I can still control the presentation via a mouse, but I don’t get touch control back until I either relaunch Pi Presents, or if I unplug and plug the usb cable going to the touchscreen.

Could you provide me with a os image of open elec that you already built for the waveshare spotpear v4 3.2 inch touchscreen,because I cannot make sense of your website’s instructions?

Much of this is outdated on Raspbian Stretch where device tree overlays (see https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/device-tree.md) provide for most of the configuration automatically.

In the case of the WaveShare driver, their setup script from their “LCD_show” repository will copy a device-tree overlay to /boot/overlays/ that provides most of the module config etc via boot-time device-tree patch.

You still have to add a “dtoverlay” directive in config.txt to enable it, copy it in place, and make some cmdline changes, then configure X. so it’s not trivial. But it doesn’t need to be this in depth either.

After I did the step that “INSTALL THE FBTFT DRIVERS” and then reboot, my raspberry pi couldn’t boot successfully and the green light is always on, could you help me solve this problem? Thank you.

Purplewave India Pvt Ltd. is an AV equipment manufacturing Company. We offer a range of high-quality products such as Active LED displays, video wall displays, digital kiosks, speaker phones, conference video cameras, interactive displays, and much more!

interface an lcd panel with raspberry pi factory

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interface an lcd panel with raspberry pi factory

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interface an lcd panel with raspberry pi factory

-The 5 lcd touch screen raspberry pi USES industrial grade chip CYPRESS IC, which has strong anti-interference performance and can be used in a variety of complex application environments. Such as work well with 3-10mm thickness tempered glass, water, gloves, seawater, 5% saline and PC onside.

-The 5 lcd touch screen raspberry pi is a 10 points PCAP touch screen equipped with 720*1280 lcd display which is available to show the picture or video clearly with the comfortable and wonderful using experience.

-The 5 lcd touch screen raspberry pi: touch screen interface is I2C interface, but we can convert I2C interface into USB interface through USB converter; LCD screen interface is MIPI interface, and we can convert MIPI interface into H DMI interface through H DMI converter.

A: We have some mature projects cases and the best way is to connect the touch screen directly through USB interface to the Raspberry Pi or the orange Pi, and the display can be directly connected through HDMI interface, this way the whole solution can be implemented through plug and play.

Large size touch screen will be designed directly with USB interface, small size is general designed with IIC interface, so we will do is to provide the board which changes the IIC into USB. however, customers need to contact our technicians to check the configuration and software system.

For display, we can provide RGB to HDMI, LVDS to HDMI, MPI to HDMI, EDP to HDMI and other driver boards to realize the connection with Raspberry Pi and orange pi;

interface an lcd panel with raspberry pi factory

-7 inch touch screen display for raspberry pi : support operation with gloves, water , and thick tempered glass or PC on top of the cover glass, mainly used in medical, industrial, security, home appliances and other fields; Custom processing such as surface treatment --AG,AR,AF available, resolution and brightness optional, etc.

-This 7 inch touch screen display for raspberry pi : adopts the air bonding process, the capacitive touch screen is GG structure, the IC solution adopts the Cypress touch solution, the display resolution is 1024*600, and the LCD glass is TN material and not suitable for the optical bonding process, it is more suitable for the product design of the embedded installation structure of resistance touch solution upgraded to capacitance touch screen. It has a wide range of applications.

■ Technical support :We have more than 10 years of experience in touch screen industry, with a professional technical team, can always provide technical support for you.

A: We have some mature projects cases and the best way is to connect the touch screen directly through USB interface to the Raspberry Pi or the orange Pi, and the display can be directly connected through HDMI interface, this way the whole solution can be implemented through plug and play.

Large size touch screen will be designed directly with USB interface, small size is general designed with IIC interface, so we will do is to provide the board which changes the IIC into USB. however, customers need to contact our technicians to check the configuration and software system.

For display, we can provide RGB to HDMI, LVDS to HDMI, MPI to HDMI, EDP to HDMI and other driver boards to realize the connection with Raspberry Pi and orange pi;

A: As for the cover of capacitive touch screen made by PMMA material, we must consider the material of sensor, the impact of high and low temperature shock and warpage. As for the specific details, we have some mature application cases. Customers can contact with our technicians for the detailed solution and parameters according to the actual needs of specific products.

interface an lcd panel with raspberry pi factory

A powerful feature of the Raspberry Pi is the row of GPIO (general-purpose input/output) pins along the top edge of the board. A 40-pin GPIO header is found on all current Raspberry Pi boards (unpopulated on Raspberry Pi Zero, Raspberry Pi Zero W and Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W). Prior to the Raspberry Pi 1 Model B+ (2014), boards comprised a shorter 26-pin header. The GPIO header on all boards (including the Raspberry Pi 400) have a 0.1" (2.54mm) pin pitch.

The numbering of the GPIO pins is not in numerical order; GPIO pins 0 and 1 are present on the board (physical pins 27 and 28) but are reserved for advanced use (see below).

Two 5V pins and two 3.3V pins are present on the board, as well as a number of ground pins (0V), which are unconfigurable. The remaining pins are all general purpose 3.3V pins, meaning outputs are set to 3.3V and inputs are 3.3V-tolerant.

A GPIO pin designated as an input pin can be read as high (3.3V) or low (0V). This is made easier with the use of internal pull-up or pull-down resistors. Pins GPIO2 and GPIO3 have fixed pull-up resistors, but for other pins this can be configured in software.

As well as simple input and output devices, the GPIO pins can be used with a variety of alternative functions, some are available on all pins, others on specific pins.

A handy reference can be accessed on the Raspberry Pi by opening a terminal window and running the command pinout. This tool is provided by the GPIO Zero Python library, which is installed by default on the Raspberry Pi OS desktop image, but not on Raspberry Pi OS Lite.

While connecting up simple components to the GPIO pins is perfectly safe, it’s important to be careful how you wire things up. LEDs should have resistors to limit the current passing through them. Do not use 5V for 3.3V components. Do not connect motors directly to the GPIO pins, instead use an H-bridge circuit or a motor controller board.

In order to use the GPIO ports your user must be a member of the gpio group. The pi user is a member by default, other users need to be added manually.

Using the GPIO Zero library makes it easy to get started with controlling GPIO devices with Python. The library is comprehensively documented at gpiozero.readthedocs.io.

Button functionality includes the properties is_pressed and is_held; callbacks when_pressed, when_released, and when_held; and methods wait_for_press() and wait_for_release.

The Compliance Support programme is designed to eliminate the burden of navigating compliance issues and make it easier for companies to bring new products to consumers. It provides access to the same test engineers who worked on our Raspberry Pis during their compliance testing, connecting the user to a dedicated team at UL who assess and test the user’s product, facilitated by their in-depth knowledge of Raspberry Pi.

The Powered by Raspberry Pi progamme provides a process for companies wanting to use a form of the Raspberry Pi logo, and covers products with Raspberry Pi computers or silicon inside, and services provided by a Raspberry Pi. If you wish to start the process to apply you can do so online.

Our list of approved design partners provide a set of consultancies that we work closely with and support so they can provide paid for design services across hardware, software, and mechanical.

All Raspberry Pi models perform a degree of thermal management to avoid overheating under heavy load. The SoCs have an internal temperature sensor, which software on the GPU polls to ensure that temperatures do not exceed a predefined limit; this is 85°C on all models. It is possible to set this to a lower value, but not to a higher one. As the device approaches the limit, various frequencies and sometimes voltages used on the chip (ARM, GPU) are reduced. This reduces the amount of heat generated, keeping the temperature under control.

When the core temperature is between 80°C and 85°C, a warning icon showing a red half-filled thermometer will be displayed, and the ARM cores will be progressively throttled back. If the temperature reaches 85°C, an icon showing a fully filled thermometer will be displayed, and both the ARM cores and the GPU will be throttled back. See the page on warning icons for images of the icons.

For Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+, the PCB technology has been changed to provide better heat dissipation and increased thermal mass. In addition, a soft temperature limit has been introduced, with the goal of maximising the time for which a device can "sprint" before reaching the hard limit at 85°C. When the soft limit is reached, the clock speed is reduced from 1.4GHz to 1.2GHz, and the operating voltage is reduced slightly. This reduces the rate of temperature increase: we trade a short period at 1.4GHz for a longer period at 1.2GHz. By default, the soft limit is 60°C, and this can be changed via the temp_soft_limit setting in config.txt.

The Raspberry Pi 4 Model B, continues with the same PCB technology as the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+, to help dissipate excess heat. There is currently no soft limit defined.

Raspberry Pi 4 devices implement Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS). This technique allows Raspberry Pi 4 devices to run at lower temperatures whilst still providing the same performance.

Various clocks (e.g. ARM, Core, V3D, ISP, H264, HEVC) inside the SoC are monitored by the firmware, and whenever they are not running at full speed, the voltage supplied to the particular part of the chip driven by the clock is reduced relative to the reduction from full speed. In effect, only enough voltage is supplied to keep the block running correctly at the specific speed at which it is running. This can result in significant reductions in power used by the SoC, and therefore in the overall heat being produced.

Due to possible system stability problems involved with running an undervoltage, especially when using undervoltaged fixed clock peripherals (eg. PCIe), three DVFS modes are available and can be configured in /boot/config.txt with the below properties. Most systems should use dvfs=3, headless systems may benefit from a small power reduction with dvfs=1 at the risk of PCIe stability issues.

scale voltage up on demand for over clocking (default). If over_voltage is specified in config.txt then dynamic voltage scaling is disabled causing the system to revert to dvfs=2.

In addition, a more stepped CPU governor is also used to produce finer-grained control of ARM core frequencies, which means the DVFS is more effective. The steps are now 1500MHz, 1000MHz, 750MHz, and 600MHz. These steps can also help when the SoC is being throttled, and mean that throttling all the way back to 600MHz is much less likely, giving an overall increase in fully loaded performance.

The default CPU governor is ondemand, the governor can be manually changed with the cpufreq-set command (from the cpufrequtils package) to reduce idle power consumption:

Due to the architecture of the SoCs used on the Raspberry Pi range, and the use of the upstream temperature monitoring code in the Raspberry Pi OS distribution, Linux-based temperature measurements can be inaccurate. However, the vcgencmd command provides an accurate and instantaneous reading of the current SoC temperature as it communicates with the GPU directly:

Whilst heatsinks are not necessary to prevent overheating damage to the SoC — the thermal throttling mechanism handles that — a heatsink or small fan will help if you wish to reduce the amount of thermal throttling that takes place. Depending on the exact circumstances, mounting the Raspberry Pi vertically can also help with heat dissipation, as doing so can improve air flow.

Raspberry Pi 4, 400 and Compute Module 4 computers use an EEPROM to boot the system. All other models of Raspberry Pi computer use the bootcode.bin file located in the boot filesystem.

The scripts and pre-compiled binaries used to create the rpi-eeprom package which is used to update the Raspberry Pi 4 bootloader and VLI USB controller EEPROMs is available on Github.

If an error occurs during boot then an error code will be displayed via the green LED. Newer versions of the bootloader will display a diagnostic message which will be shown on both HDMI displays.

Raspberry Pi OS automatically updates the bootloader for critical bug fixes. The recommended methods for manually updating the bootloader or changing the boot modes are Raspberry Pi Imager and raspi-config

The boot behaviour (e.g. SD or USB boot) is controlled by a configuration file embedded in the EEPROM image and can be modified via the rpi-eeprom-config tool.

The following command loads the current EEPROM configuration into a text editor. When the editor is closed, rpi-eeprom-config applies the updated configuration to latest available EEPROM release and uses rpi-eeprom-update to schedule an update when the system is rebooted:

The following command applies boot.conf to the latest available EEPROM image and uses rpi-eeprom-update to schedule an update when the system is rebooted.

The rpi-eeprom-update systemd service runs at startup and applies an update if a new image is available, automatically migrating the current bootloader configuration.

If the FREEZE_VERSION bootloader EEPROM config is set then the EEPROM update service will skip any automatic updates. This removes the need to individually disable the EEPROM update service if there are multiple operating systems installed or when swapping SD-cards.

Raspberry Pi OS uses the rpi-eeprom-update script to implement an automatic update service. The script can also be run interactively or wrapped to create a custom bootloader update service.

The -d flag instructs rpi-eeprom-update to use the configuration in the specified image file instead of automatically migrating the current configuration.

The firmware release status corresponds to a particular subdirectory of bootloader firmware images (/lib/firmware/raspberrypi/bootloader/...), and can be changed to select a different release stream.

Since the release status string is just a subdirectory name, then it is possible to create your own release streams e.g. a pinned release or custom network boot configuration.

You can change which release stream is to be used during an update by editing the /etc/default/rpi-eeprom-update file and changing the FIRMWARE_RELEASE_STATUS entry to the appropriate stream.

At power on, the BCM2711 ROM looks for a file called recovery.bin in the root directory of the boot partition on the SD card. If a valid recovery.bin is found then the ROM executes this instead of the contents of the EEPROM. This mechanism ensures that the bootloader EEPROM can always be reset to a valid image with factory default settings.

If the bootloader update image is called pieeprom.upd then recovery.bin is renamed to recovery.000 once the update has completed, then the system is rebooted. Since recovery.bin is no longer present the ROM loads the newly updated bootloader from EEPROM and the OS is booted as normal.

If the bootloader update image is called pieeprom.bin then recovery.bin will stop after the update has completed. On success the HDMI output will be green and the green activity LED is flashed rapidly. If the update fails, the HDMI output will be red and an error code will be displayed via the activity LED.

The BCM2711 ROM does not support loading recovery.bin from USB mass storage or TFTP. Instead, newer versions of the bootloader support a self-update mechanism where the bootloader is able to reflash the EEPROM itself. See ENABLE_SELF_UPDATE on the bootloader configuration page.

Both the bootloader and VLI EEPROMs support hardware write protection. See the eeprom_write_protect option for more information about how to enable this when flashing the EEPROMs.

Starting with version 2020-04-16 of the Raspberry Pi 4 bootloader, diagnostic information can be displayed at boot time on an HDMI display. To see this diagnostic information, power down the Raspberry Pi 4, remove the SD card, then power back up. A diagnostic display similar to below should appear on the attached display.

This diagnostics page will also appear if the bootloader is unable to boot from an inserted SD card, or is unable to network boot; for example, if there is no bootable image on the card, or it is defective, or the network boot parameters are incorrect.

The timestamp corresponding to when the EEPROM configuration was updated. This timestamp is checked in self-update mode to avoid updating to an old configuration.

mode (current boot mode name and number) order (the BOOT ORDER configuration) retry (retry count in the current boot mode) restart (number of cycles through the list of boot modes).

This is purely for diagnosing boot failures; it is not an interactive bootloader. If you require an interactive bootloader, consider using a tool such as U-Boot.

The Raspberry Pi has a number of different stages of booting. This document explains how the boot modes work, and which ones are supported for Linux booting.

USB host and Ethernet boot can be performed by BCM2837-based Raspberry Pis - that is, Raspberry Pi 2B version 1.2, Raspberry Pi 3B, and Raspberry Pi 3B+ (Raspberry Pi 3A+ cannot net boot since it does not have a built-in Ethernet interface). In addition, all Raspberry Pi models except Raspberry Pi 4B can use a new bootcode.bin-only method to enable USB host boot.

The Raspberry Pi 4B does not use the bootcode.bin file - instead the bootloader is located in an on-board EEPROM chip. See Raspberry Pi 4 Bootflow and SPI Boot EEPROM.

Format an SD card as FAT32 and copy on the latest bootcode.bin. The SD card must be present in the Raspberry Pi for it to boot. Once bootcode.bin is loaded from the SD card, the Raspberry Pi continues booting using USB host mode.

This is useful for the Raspberry Pi 1, 2, and Zero models, which are based on the BCM2835 and BCM2836 chips, and in situations where a Raspberry Pi 3 fails to boot (the latest bootcode.bin includes additional bugfixes for the Raspberry Pi 3B, compared to the boot code burned into the BCM2837A0).

If you have a problem with a mass storage device still not working, even with this bootcode.bin, then please add a new file "timeout" to the SD card. This will extend to six seconds the time for which it waits for the mass storage device to initialise.

It is possible to enable an early stage UART to debug booting issues (useful with the above bootcode.bin only boot mode). To do this, make sure you’ve got a recent version of the firmware (including bootcode.bin). To check if UART is supported in your current firmware:

Next, connect a suitable USB serial cable to your host computer (a Raspberry Pi will work, although I find the easiest path is to use a USB serial cable since it’ll work out the box without any pesky config.txt settings). Use the standard pins 6, 8 and 10 (GND, GPIO14, GPIO15) on a Raspberry Pi or Compute Module board.

Setup your serial to receive at 115200-8-N-1, and then boot your Raspberry Pi / Compute Module. You should get an immediate serial output from the device as bootcode.bin runs.

The following boot sequence applies to the BCM2837 and BCM2837B0 based models of Raspberry Pi only. On models prior to this, the Raspberry Pi will try SD card boot, followed by USB device mode boot. For the Raspberry Pi 4 boot sequence please see the Raspberry Pi 4 boot flow section.

USB boot defaults on the Raspberry Pi 3 will depend on which version is being used. See this page for information on enabling USB boot modes when not enabled by default.

When the BCM2837 boots, it uses two different sources to determine which boot modes to enable. Firstly, the OTP (one-time programmable) memory block is checked to see which boot modes are enabled. If the GPIO boot mode setting is enabled, then the relevant GPIO lines are tested to select which of the OTP-enabled boot modes should be attempted. Note that GPIO boot mode can only be used to select boot modes that are already enabled in the OTP. See GPIO boot mode for details on configuring GPIO boot mode. GPIO boot mode is disabled by default.

Next, the boot ROM checks each of the boot sources for a file called bootcode.bin; if it is successful it will load the code into the local 128K cache and jump to it. The overall boot mode process is as follows:

If there is no SD card inserted, the SD boot mode takes five seconds to fail. To reduce this and fall back to USB more quickly, you can either insert an SD card with nothing on it or use the GPIO bootmode OTP setting described above to only enable USB.

The default pull for the GPIOs is defined on page 102 of the ARM Peripherals datasheet. If the value at boot time does not equal the default pull, then that boot mode is enabled.

USB enumeration is a means of enabling power to the downstream devices on a hub, then waiting for the device to pull the D+ and D- lines to indicate if it is either USB 1 or USB 2. This can take time: on some devices it can take up to three seconds for a hard disk drive to spin up and start the enumeration process. Because this is the only way of detecting that the hardware is attached, we have to wait for a minimum amount of time (two seconds). If the device fails to respond after this maximum timeout, it is possible to increase the timeout to five seconds using program_usb_boot_timeout=1 in config.txt.

The LAN951x is detected using the Vendor ID 0x0424 and Product ID 0xec00: this is different to the standalone LAN9500 device, which has a product ID of 0x9500 or 0x9e00. To use the standalone LAN9500, an I2C EEPROM would need to be added to change these IDs to match the LAN951x.

The primary SD card boot mode is, as standard, set to be GPIOs 49-53. It is possible to boot from the secondary SD card on a second set of pins, i.e. to add a secondary SD card to the GPIO pins. However, we have not yet enabled this ability.

The USB device boot mode is enabled by default at the time of manufacture, but the USB host boot mode is only enabled with program_usb_boot_mode=1. Once enabled, the processor will use the value of the OTGID pin on the processor to decide between the two modes. On any Raspberry Pi Model B / B+, the OTGID pin is driven to "0" and therefore will only boot via host mode once enabled (it is not possible to boot through device mode because the LAN951x device is in the way).

The USB will boot as a USB device on the Raspberry Pi Zero or Compute Module if the OTGID pin is left floating (when plugged into a PC for example), so you can "squirt" the bootcode.bin into the device. The usbboot code for doing this is available on Github.

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