So I have a pidrive, set up with my Pi2 running OSMC. The problem I have is that I’m almost constantly getting a rainbow in the corner of my screen indicating an issue with not enough power being supplied to the pi. I thought the whole point of the pidrive was that it was designed to supply the right amount of power.
just wondering what’s what?
what sort of psu have you got ? minimum recommended is good quality 5V 2A
I’m using the power supply supplied with the pidrive as part of the kit, I would assume that this would be fit for purpose!
theboyrossy wrote:
I’m using the power supply supplied with the pidrive as part of the kit, I would assume that this would be fit for purpose!
doh ! you’re right 
personally, i’m running OpenELEC on the RPi2 and using a standard 1TB WD Elements SE Portable USB HDD
added the following 2 lines to the config.txt on the SD Card
safe_mode_gpio=4
max_usb_current=1
and everything works fine … powers up the 1TB WD Elements no problem
Youtube video demo
I personally run a pi set up with a standard 2TB portable drive, I use the same max_usb_current=1 and all is good.
I’ve set up this new pi for a friend using this new pidrive as I was taking advantage of a special offer and i needed to buy a power supply and hd and this fit the bill. I haven’t tried the gpio line in the configure but I will try that when I get the chance to go see them.
But surely if I’m purchasing this piece of kit for a very specific purpose, the fact that it’s not actually doing it is not a good sign.
If you just connect the power supply up directly to the Pi (without connecting the PiDrive to it) using a suitable OS directly on the uSD card, does it boot correctly without any coloured squares? Just to see if the power supply is actually giving out what it should, or if it’s defective.
The tweaks Joey mentions are for raising the current limit from the USB ports of the Pi, so if anything doing that would make the situation possibly worse, as the drive will draw more current, leaving even less to power the Pi itself (they are sometimes required to ensure that the drive or whatever is connected to the USB port(s) have enough current to operate properly). It’s 600mA by default, but can be raised up to 1200mA using the tweaks.
The two entries are actually doing the same job if I remember correctly, the gpio one is for earlier versions of Raspbian and the max_usb_current one is for newer updates.
Personally I would wonder more if you have a dodgy PSU supplied with your kit, that maybe needs to be tested and/or returned.
maybe try using OpenELEC and see if the results are the same
i’m running 5.95.4 without any issues …
@Joey - 5.95.5 is out, so maybe worth a quick update. It (finally) resolves the MCE remote issue, the one that’s stopping the full release of 6.0.0 stable.
That said Kodi 15.2 is due out quite soon, and the full OE 6.0.0 release will follow shortly afterwards based on it (they are waiting for it so they don’t have to do two releases in quick succession, but basically 5.95.5 is the current Kodi 15.1 stable).
Works a treat on my turbo-overclocked Pi2 with boosted GPU memory settings (320MB).
DarrenHill wrote:
@Joey - 5.95.5 is out, so maybe worth a quick update
yes, i know … but everything is working fine, so gonna stay with 5.95.4 for a little while … using CEC Remote (works perfect)
(if it aint broke…)
Downloaded 16.0 “Jarvis” for Windows … corrupted graphics everywhere ! (un-usable)
went back to 15.1 “Isengard” … everthing fine
15.2 isn’t Jarvis, it will be the final stable Isengard. If 5.95.4 works, then 5.95.5 should as well.
16.0 is Jarvis (as are Milhouse’s builds), currently in Alpha and as you say probably not something to be looking at yet for actual usage.
But I take your point about not fixing things that aren’t broken 
“If you just connect the power supply up directly to the Pi (without connecting the PiDrive to it) using a suitable OS directly on the uSD card, does it boot correctly without any coloured squares? Just to see if the power supply is actually giving out what it should, or if it’s defective.”
I don’t know why I didn’t think of doing that, I’ll give it a try when I next see my friend.
also, plug it directly into a wall socket…
(to eliminate powerbricks aka powerboards … like below etc )
theboyrossy wrote:
So I have a pidrive, set up with my Pi2 running OSMC. The problem I have is that I’m almost constantly getting a rainbow in the corner of my screen indicating an issue with not enough power being supplied to the pi. I thought the whole point of the pidrive was that it was designed to supply the right amount of power.
just wondering what’s what?
We ran some measurements, and it looks like that an unloaded RPi2 will start displaying the rainbow when the voltage across the board drops to 4.68V. Most internet literature seems to say this happens at about 4.65V, which is consistent. With that in mind, the provided power supply and cable should be enough to power both the drive and RPi2 in most cases, and should still leave you with enough power for other peripherals without showing any undervolting rainbows.
Let me know if your friend still experiences power issues!
This evening I’ve been able to perform a number of tests on the problem pi, cannibalising parts from a system I know works fine.
Below are my results, each time I only replaced the specified object.
Replace WD supplied power supply with iPad power supply = no rainbows
Replace WD supplied USB cable with known working cable = no rainbows
Remove Official Raspberry Pi wifi dongle = no rainbows
Remove WD supplied HD and special cable = no rainbows
I don’t know exactly what’s going on but if I use all the WD supplied equipment I get low power issues, replace any of them with something else and the issue goes away.
Obviously the cheapest and simplest fix for me is to use a different USB cable.
UPDATE:: I borrowed decent multimeter and the voltage from my Pi2 measurement between pp1 and ethshield is : no disk - 4,96V, usual load - 4,88-4,86, lowest recorded is 4,85V so far away from 4,65V for rainbow.
Slighty overspeced charger with integrated cable (5.2-5,25v at the pi) get the job done. So i can confirm that charger WD supply with kit should be compensated for loss on cable.
Pi display from time to time a rainbow voltage warning for few seconds. Mostly during bootup or when starting a movie but also in totally random moments.
Probably the power adapter have no voltage compensation for cable or/and it’s not stable enough under load.
Configuration:
rasp 2, pi drive 1tb ,bt nano dongle, osmc
I just went and tried half a dozen usb cables to find one that got me all the way through boot before showing the square. It did come up when I attached a power hungry keyboard, but I’m calling that ok for now.
I have a raspberry pi 3 and just installed the piDrive 1tb and I get a constant rainbow square when I have the piDrive plugged in. WD’s power supply looked like a piece of junk. I have tried 4 different power supplies (5v 2.5a) but still get it. Would it be safe to try powering the drive with one power supply and using a separate power supply to power the board instead of the two together?
Well, I tried the suggestion below and no more rainbows. Thanks!!
safe_mode_gpio=4
max_usb_current=1
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