Boot Issue

[ssbaker]

I'm having a strange issue where when powering up; the screen will start white like normal then begin booting and reach either just a black screen or sometimes the RetroPie loading splash before cutting out back to white and freezing there. How far it gets into the boot varies but won't usually get further than a second on the RetroPie loading screen.

To see if this was a connection issue I've opened up the mintypi and removed the battery and put it back in, both times that I've done this the boot problems have gone away for a day but then come back. Powering the mintypi via USB does not correct the problem either. At first I though maybe I should reflash the OS but considering the battery removal seems to temporarily fix it I'm not sure if that's the heart of the problem (plus I'd rather not lose any game progress). I should also mention that when I have gotten it to fully boot, there haven't been any issues with it crashing during use.

Has anyone else run into this issue or know of what might be causing this? Thanks.

[Helder]

Might be the overclock might be a faulty Raspberry Pi Zero, not common but has happened. SSH into the pi or put the SD card into the pc and open the directory on the SD Card. You need to modify the config.txt and to the end where it says arm=1000 or something like that change it to 950 and see if that helps.

[isayacorn]

I have a similar problem where my screen only shows white. It was working before. There is no arm= line in my config.txt.

[Helder]

I have a similar problem where my screen only shows white. It was working before. There is no arm= line in my config.txt.

White as in it turns white or constantly is white from boot up? A white screen means a bad connection on the LCD pins or a bad SD card which can happen if you don't shut down properly.

Shutting down properly requires you to go to the Start menu and choosing Quit then Shutdown and once the text is stopped you flip the switch off.

[isayacorn]

It is constantly white from boot up. I can still ssh in though.

[Helder]

Then you have bad soldering even though you want to assume it's the hardware like maybe it's the ribbon as you think but I can guarantee it's your soldering. Check continuity on the test points and also to the GPIO next to the one you are testing continuity on, the ribbon is not going to be an issue unless you have extreme bends on it or maybe you damaged it while removing/inserting it into the connector and damaged it somehow.

Another issue could be that the ribbon connector needs to be reflowed with some fresh solder but you can figure that out if you do a continuity test on the ribbon itself and see if it's good. If it's good then plug it into the LCD and PCB then test continuity from the connector pins on the pcb to the LCD board, if that's good it's a soldering issue on your Pi to PCB.