Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
Nothing happens when I apply power
In this particular instance, try out the following things:
• Make sure the power supply is rated for 5 V with at least 1 A (1000 mA). It would
help if you can get up to 2.1 A (2100 mA).
• Check whether the power lights are illuminated on the board.
• Ensure that the monitor is on and plugged into the Raspberry Pi.
• Check that the SD card is formatted properly.
Most of the time, a Raspberry Pi will fail to boot, or experience problems during use, be-
cause of an inadequate power supply. Many Micro USB chargers are manufactured with
minimal quality assurance, so if you do experience issues, the first thing to do would be to
try a different brand of charger. Most branded cell phone chargers will properly power a
Raspberry Pi.
If this doesn't fix the issue, the next step is to test out the SD card. A properly formatted SD
card will have a small boot drive that is readable by Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux oper-
ating systems. If you cannot see the boot drive, or any files inside it, then it is most likely
that your SD card hasn't been properly imaged.
You can also try using the NOOBS software that the Raspberry Pi Foundation offers. This
is a set of files that you can drag and drop to any freshly formatted SD card. When you
boot up the Raspberry Pi with that SD card, it will attempt to install an operating system
onto itself. To get the NOOBS package, visit:
For more information on using NOOBS checkout:
