Raspberry Pi 5 – Solid Red LED, No Boot (EEPROM suspected)
Board: Raspberry Pi 5 (4GB/8GB, not sure which SKU – purchased some time ago, seller details not available)
Symptoms:
Solid red power LED only.
No green activity LED when booting from SD card or USB SSD.
Never boots Raspberry Pi OS.
What I have tried
Verified Power
Using official Raspberry Pi 27W USB-C PSU.
Tested same PSU on a Pi 400 → works perfectly.
Tested Media
Known-good micro-SD card with Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit (boots fine on Pi 400).
Known-good USB SSD with Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit (boots fine on Pi 400).
Neither produces any green LED activity on the Pi 5 (only solid red).
EEPROM Recovery
Used Raspberry Pi Imager (latest version) → Misc utility images → Bootloader → Pi 5 → Default boot.
Flashed to fresh micro-SD card, inserted into Pi 5 (nothing else connected).
Powered on → no green LED activity at all.
Left powered for over 1 minute. No change.
USB Boot via rpiboot
Connected Pi 5 to a host PC via USB in recovery mode.
Green LED flashes 4 long + 4 short repeatedly (pattern not listed in official documentation).
Confirms SoC is alive and responding, but EEPROM/boot process is not functioning normally.
Tried forcing boot logs
Created boot.conf with LOG_LEVEL=0x2 on the boot partition.
Pi 5 never generated bootloader.log → indicates EEPROM not executing.
Conclusion
Power supply, SD cards, SSD, and OS images are all verified good (tested on Pi 400).
Pi 5 never boots or blinks green except under rpiboot (where it shows an undocumented 4-long/4-short pattern).
Strongly suggests EEPROM is corrupted or non-functional, preventing normal boot or self-reflash.
Request
Can anyone confirm if the 4-long + 4-short blink pattern under rpiboot is known?
Is there a deeper recovery procedure for Pi 5 EEPROM (e.g. force-flash via rpiboot)?
Or should this board be considered a hardware failure (dead EEPROM)?
Board: Raspberry Pi 5 (4GB/8GB, not sure which SKU – purchased some time ago, seller details not available)
Symptoms:
Solid red power LED only.
No green activity LED when booting from SD card or USB SSD.
Never boots Raspberry Pi OS.
What I have tried
Verified Power
Using official Raspberry Pi 27W USB-C PSU.
Tested same PSU on a Pi 400 → works perfectly.
Tested Media
Known-good micro-SD card with Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit (boots fine on Pi 400).
Known-good USB SSD with Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit (boots fine on Pi 400).
Neither produces any green LED activity on the Pi 5 (only solid red).
EEPROM Recovery
Used Raspberry Pi Imager (latest version) → Misc utility images → Bootloader → Pi 5 → Default boot.
Flashed to fresh micro-SD card, inserted into Pi 5 (nothing else connected).
Powered on → no green LED activity at all.
Left powered for over 1 minute. No change.
USB Boot via rpiboot
Connected Pi 5 to a host PC via USB in recovery mode.
Green LED flashes 4 long + 4 short repeatedly (pattern not listed in official documentation).
Confirms SoC is alive and responding, but EEPROM/boot process is not functioning normally.
Tried forcing boot logs
Created boot.conf with LOG_LEVEL=0x2 on the boot partition.
Pi 5 never generated bootloader.log → indicates EEPROM not executing.
Conclusion
Power supply, SD cards, SSD, and OS images are all verified good (tested on Pi 400).
Pi 5 never boots or blinks green except under rpiboot (where it shows an undocumented 4-long/4-short pattern).
Strongly suggests EEPROM is corrupted or non-functional, preventing normal boot or self-reflash.
Request
Can anyone confirm if the 4-long + 4-short blink pattern under rpiboot is known?
Is there a deeper recovery procedure for Pi 5 EEPROM (e.g. force-flash via rpiboot)?
Or should this board be considered a hardware failure (dead EEPROM)?
Statistics: Posted by Fishingthumper — Mon Sep 29, 2025 7:49 pm — Replies 0 — Views 20