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Hello, I’m looking for freepers with Raspberry Pi’s.

Received my Model B Pi about a week ago. I’ve plugged it into 2 HDTVs. Each of them have a port that is HDIM/DVI and a port the that is marked just HDMI. I get nothing on the screen. I have plugged an RCA cable from the Pi into each of the RCA video ports on each and still nothing on the screen. I tried an old analog TV on channel 3 with the RCA cable and still nothing on the screen. I purchased an adapter to plug my RGB computer monitor into the HDMI port on the Pi and still nothing on the screen.

Next, the Pi came with an 8 gig Noobs SD card from Allied so I’m thinking it must be the card. I format a new PNY card using the recommended SD Association formatting tool and the Noob image from Raspberry Pi org. Still no joy.

Am I in possession of a bad Pi or am I completely inept at anything that involves technology? In my defense, I have taught Microsoft application classes at the college level. I have replaced HDs in computer. I have added RAM to computers. I’ve written HTAs and vbscripts.

The activity lights on the Pi:
ACT = 8 green blinks then a 2 second pause
PWR = continuous red

Since my Pi flashes 8 times. I’m pretty confident that the 8 flashes are associated with:

SDRAM not recognized. You need newer bootcode.bin/start.elf firmware.

I’ve tried three different SD cards. When I purchased the Pi B model I purchased a pre-installed version of Noobs with the Pi B. That one does not work.

I purchased a new 16 gig PNY SD and used the recommended SD card formatter tool and installed Noobs on it. That did not work.

I re-formatted the 16 gig PNY SD and installed Raspbian using the recommended Win32 Disk Image tool. That did not work.

I found a 2 gig SD and reformatted it and installed Noobs on it. That did not work.

HOW CAN I DO A FIRMWARE UPGRADE IF I CAN’T SEE WHAT IS ON THE SCREEN AND I CAN’T GET THE PI TO RECOGNIZE MY PI?

Does putting a fresh OS image on an SD the equivalent of getting the latest bootcode.bin/start.elf firmware update?

Doesn’t the Pi itself have firmware that has to be updated?

Can you confirm my suspicions? Do I have a bad Pi?

Sorry to hear you are having a problem. Sounds like you either have a bad card or it's a firmware issue. Take a look at this link and see if it offers you any ideas. I've had no such issues with my Pi and have used it with several OSs.

If you've purchased the card through Amazon, they have an excellent return policy.

One other thing, how many watts does your power supply output???

One thing I discovered, the device must have at least .850 amps or you’ll have issues. At 1 amp @ 5 volts through the micro USB, not a problem driving a mouse, keyboard, VGA adapter and a small set of speakers.