Here to rant. Hallowe'en is tomorrow and the shiny Pi 4 I'm using to run Putty for an Arduino build is garbage. Just stopped working. I didn't do anything I wasn't supposed to and if I did, there certainly isn't any decent, accessible documentation anywhere that can even tell me if I did. USB ports don't even work, on a newly flashed card using all the official hardware and software.
I really thought this small Pi computer could be a great solution so I don't have to run a laptop or something for this build. Boy was I wrong.
I guess the only use I have for Pi is retro gaming now. If you're thinking of using Pi for your next project, word of advice: don't.
Did you re-flash the sd card and try again...?
I've got a couple of them and the only problems I had was with a thunderstorm getting the 'B' model wet... it didn't survive that... didn't know they weren't water proof.. 
I've use my 4 a number of times with good results... the current one is out were the B was sacrificed...
Are you just using in for a terminal interface?
That should work fine...
1 Like
I created a few hundred digital signs with RPIs. They are all over my nation's capital and have been working now for about 7 years without issue. Now, I'm not doing anything fancy with them, just running Windows IoT and there's an RPI server for each owner to push updates with.
Recently though, I've switched to Le Potato because of the cost difference, and I love them too.
Never really compared them to Arduino though SBC to uC is apples to oranges, IMHO.
1 Like
That's a shame. Did you have to pay a premium price for it from a third party seller?
I have >15 of them including the original from 2012 and the only one I have had problems with was a PRC manufactured one.
1 Like
I have a large number of Pis of various generations and only one has been problematic. Even then, it was just that it couldn’t reconnect to WiFi after a power outage without another reboot.
My RPi4 has been flawlessly suppressing browser ads on my home network for a couple of years now (running Pihole), and in the meantime, looking for binary pulsars for Einstein@home.
Here is how it stacks up against my office and home computer on the latter project: (disclaimer, the office computer has a nice GPU).
Computers
Name Avg credit Total credit
JR-office 586,984.95 144,820,793
Dell-9010 18,917.76 7,211,393
pihole 783.36 298,125
1 Like
Are you sure? Unless the water caused some leakage to a sensitive part, water should not be a damaging issue. During mfg these boards are washed in water.
I would wash it good in hot water and dishwashing detergent. Dry with some paper towels.
Repeat with 91% alcohol doing the same.
Allow the board to dry. I use my compressor to blow out any water in the connectors, but if I suggest that some folks will have a coronary imagining the ESD created will blow the board up.
Though I realize its not recommended I've never lost a board yet. And I wash all my boards to get any flux off the boards. I know folks say the solder rosin is "no clean" however there is no such thing as no clean there are only varying degrees of activity. No clean solder is pretty good in not absorbing water and creating leak paths, however NO Flux on the board is better.
Yes. USB ports reporting overcurrent condition with nothing attached. Worked well for a month or so. Changed nothing. Then this. Can't use a mouse or keyboard, nothing. That's after a new card, did all the things, tried all the common steps, name it I tried it. Garbage. 8GB model is in the bin, $200 whatever it was down the drain. Thanks for the reply.
Yeah, no. If that's a needed step, then they should be doing this at the manufacturing level. These aren't archival quality vinyl records.
Hi,
That should have signaled red flashing lights in your mind.
"overcurrent", this means the 5V supply through the Pi is overloaded and is having trouble supplying the Arduino.
You should power the Arduino from a separate 5V supply.
Can you please tell us what hardware/peripherals you had using the Pi's 5V supply?
Do you have a DMM?
Did you measure the 5V current when that warning appeared?
Tom.. 
I bought off Canakit on Amazon, one of the only option here in Other Russia (Canada). Supposedly all legit, official and stuff. I should have known it was a weak product when it wouldn't power up with an Arduino plugged in to USB. Raspberry Pi is the Lada of the computer world. No wonder I was laughed out of Parent Council at my kid's school a couple years ago when they had some money to spend on tech and I put forward the idea that Raspberry Pi could be a great learning tool for students.
- Far too steep a learning curve for students (ALL students need to be able to gain from the tech, not just a few tech savvy keeners)
- Far too steep a learning curve for teachers to teach it (they already have more than enough to deal with day to day)
- Poor support from dealers, if any.
- Poor documentation that's free and readily accessible.
- OS that nobody uses with apps that are already bested by the competition (Libre Office looks cool until you look at Google Docs)
Parent Council ended up buying a few hundred Chromebooks instead. Egg on my face.
End of rant.
We used to wash our products that came in for problems from being used offshore in a salty environment on the top rack in the dishwasher. It seemed no amount of conformal coating would prevent problems from the salty air.
I do!
Hardware: Typical keyboard and wireless mouse. Don't care what they need in terms of current; they are typical mass market USB keyboard and wireless mouse (Logitech). If Pi can't handle it, Pi has no business making computers, not the other way round. Logitech is the much bigger fish here.
And no, I didn't measure anything since it's all installed in a custom build Fallout terminal (from the video games). Pi supplies four USB ports. If Pi can't deliver on those four USB ports (of which I'm using three) then Pi has no business selling the moon and delivering cheese.
If it's that particular, thanks I'll just buy used laptops next time for 50 or 100 and use those.
As far as I'm concerned, if a manufacturer is building something with x number of USB, y number of HDMI, whatever it is, then they are making money with the ooh la la of what the thing can do: "need to plug in extra peripherals? No problem! The Whiz-o-matic 9000 has you covered! We have 16000 USB ports and 500 HDMI outs, use what you need!"
Promising four USB and then "oh did you measure the USB device whatever it is, with a DMM prior to use? No. Why would I? It's USB. Not Sometimes-SB.
Thanks for your words and thoughts nothing against you at all, I'm just livid that the Rasp Pi FAILED and I do mean FAILED at the worst possible juncture. It totally ruined the flow of my scavenger hunt game. There's literally no reason to quest after the loot in the safe at the back of the laser maze because this breaks the safe.
Some here say "oh well my Pi has suppressed ads in my browser" or "worked for me for years" and stuff like that. My browser has a free extension that suppresses ads and the only other use I know people use it for is video game piracy.
Speaking of video game piracy: if you do play old console games on Pi, it sucks too. It's far too slow for Mario type platformers. Get an old console and CRT, the difference is massive. There really is no substitute for the instant response time of the old gen consoles on CRT.
Wow! That's a big rant! 
You clearly are not a Raspberry Pi fan.
From working with STEM groups in my town, I can say that 1 - 3 are not a problem here. Not sure what #4 means.
As to Linux being an OS that nobody uses, well that's just absurd and Google Docs is web based as opposed to Libre Office which is native. Google Docs runs just fine in the browser of a Pi 4 if you prefer it.
BTW i typed this entire response through a Pi 4. Just for fun.
1 Like
The irony here, Emily, is that one of the prizes kids were standing to win for completing my Hallowe'en quest this year was one of three Pi 4 kits. Gotta go swap one of the prizes out now that my 13 year old son reconfigured yesterday for the dead Pi and hope the new one lasts for three hours tonight. Took him all day to figure out how to copy over a simple font file without the Pi telling him he's not allowed to do that without admin access or whatever is literally says: he's the only user on it and nope, can't just pop the file in the fonts folder, no that would be too easy.
I hope Nintendo sues Raspberry Pi into oblivion.
Well, I hope everything goes smoothly tonight and the kids have a good time.
Oh, and that was why Parent Council and the school turned away. They don't want native. No good for schools (at least in Ontario and especially during covid).
Couldn't easily submit work paperlessly to teachers to feedback and marking, can't collaborate with work groups easily. The latter is critical. It's all collaborative in the Ontario curriculum these days, it seems.
Why not rant about RPi on the RPi forum?
1 Like
What kind of power supply are you using with your Pis?
You either have the worst luck in the world, an operator problem, or some other contributing factor.
The products are nowhere near as bad as you describe them to be, neither in capability nor quality.
Official. For any given product, if there's an officially supported thing for the thing, I always buy official, unless they are deliberately open source like Arduino and even then, 90% of my boards are Genuino/official from the Arduino store or official dealers.