Just got my uConsole, black screen

Hi! I just got my uConsole and the screen remains blank. I’m on a CM4 model.

The power LED is green. Screen turns off and on a few times like you’d expect when the system is booting, but remains black. I get no signal over HDMI. I tried re-seating the screen ribbon cable, no dice. The CM4 appears to be running, the CPU gets warm.
I just re-flashed the SD card with uConsole_CM4_v1.3g_64bit.img, no change.

[edit]
…having re-assembled the machine for the third time trying to figure out what was wrong, the machine decides to display an image and provide HDMI out. I have absolutely zero idea why it is working now, but it does work.

[edit 2]
The screen went black on me once more on me, fading out oddly, and squeezing the unit brought it back. It seems like either the cable is somehow poorly seated (and it’s in there as far as it wants to go, but I could go check for the fourth time), or the cable is shorting out. Bleh.

You did open the latch where the ribbon cable meets the Mainboard right?

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Yeah. Everything seems quite snug, the cable is latched in.

I’ve been having similar issues. Reassembled everything twice, LED is green, screen stays black and no HDMI output. I tried reflashing the SD card however it failed validation every time. A new SD card flashed fine, however it did not help the blank screen issue.

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Just because I did the first time… you do have the CM4 card in the right way?.. It can be seated upside down.

If you are looking down on the card, the printing “Pi Compute Module 4” should be at the battery end not the top of the Uconsole

Yep, it’s oriented right and fully seated. From my observations, the green LED will not stay lit if the CM4 is not correctly attached.

What version cm4 are you using?

I’m using the lite version which is bundled with the UConsole

I just got my uConsole the RPI-CM4 version, too. I met the black screen at the beginnin.
I re-seat the core card again, press the two boards together tightly. And the re-seat cable of the screen.
Now it’s worked.

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Hi,

I have received the Uconsole.
Black screen. I have no HDMI output. I have reimaged the card.
I have reinserted the core module, the screen ribbon.

Still black screen, and green power led is lit.

Ideas ?

Cordially

Hi,

Solved, after many trials. The core (CM4) was not rightly inserted.

Cordially

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I had the same issue, however I had failed to notice the tiny strip of semi-transparent orange plastic protecting the gold contacts on the rpi mounting card…

#failfriday

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Opened my case to swap the cellular expansion board for the regular one. When I reassembled everything, the screen was blank, obviously powered but no image. When I had opened it, the CM4 had stuck to the heat transfer putty. I thought that I had reattached it as it snapped in place but it was not complete.

I used some 2mm screws and nuts to securely attach it. --no more issues.

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Assembled the uConsole, turned it on, and the screen was blank.

I checked all of the connections, swapped out the HackerGadgets battery/NVMe module with the stock ClockworkPi battery module, and unplugged/plugged in the USB-C power cable.

It turned out that the 18650 batteries had enough juice to turn on the uConsole but not enough to finish booting. I thought I had been charging them for over 30 minutes, but I originally had the USB-C cable plugged into a non-charging USB-C port. It appears that the batteries needed a charge to boot even with the uConsole connected to a power source, and even though it would boot when plugged in with the batteries removed. I charged the batteries and the uConsole successfully boots to the desktop.

tl;dr Make sure the batteries are charged.

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Yes the two main common reasons for black screen on boot is check your battery put it on charge and boot again. If this fails reseat the CM4 cm5 module and boot should be all good.

Update you can add this to the list to check as I just had this issue check the pins on the CM4 or CM5 that they ain’t bent flat I just noticed on mine were bent flat. I pulled pins back up and now it boots fine no blank screen. If you don’t position the cm4_5 device properly the pins will bend be careful.