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Help please. Gearbest screen not doing anything
Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2016 4:12 am
by pjmills81
Hello.
I have the gearbest screen. When I turn the pi on nothing is displayed on screen. Seems completely dead.
I have the red power wire and ground going to the power strip and the white cable going to the tv port on the pi. I have also tried the yellow wire but same outcome.
The ribbon cable looks crooked when its plugged in but when its not in there is more of the black bit on one side..
Please see pics below.
Is this screen destined for the bin now?
Thanks
Re: Help please. Gearbest screen not doing anything
Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2016 7:00 am
by RetroGamingNow
pjmills81 wrote:Hello.
I have the gearbest screen. When I turn the pi on nothing is displayed on screen. Seems completely dead.
I have the red power wire and ground going to the power strip and the white cable going to the tv port on the pi. I have also tried the yellow wire but same outcome.
The ribbon cable looks crooked when its plugged in but when its not in there is more of the black bit on one side..
Please see pics below.
Is this screen destined for the bin now?
Thanks
That controller board doesn't look like the ones i've received from them. Similar but not the ones ive used. I'm guessing you have your jumper wire hooked up to the wrong pin just by looking at it. Visually your ribbon cable looks fine. Can you get a close up pic of the chip you ran your jumper wire too for us to take a look at.
Re: Help please. Gearbest screen not doing anything
Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2016 8:08 am
by Mischief
Here's mine and it works fine, I haven't patched into the JST though I took the 5V feed direct from the power strip to the chip, it does look like your ribbon cable may not be in all the way so try that. The other thing is do you have your SD card in the Pi Zero? nothing will work if it's not present.

- Screen Wiring 1.JPG (1.66 MiB) Viewed 8162 times
Re: Help please. Gearbest screen not doing anything
Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2016 2:03 pm
by pjmills81
Mischief wrote:Here's mine and it works fine, I haven't patched into the JST though I took the 5V feed direct from the power strip to the chip, it does look like your ribbon cable may not be in all the way so try that. The other thing is do you have your SD card in the Pi Zero? nothing will work if it's not present.
Screen Wiring 1.JPG
Hi again Mischief, Yes I have the SD card in. I even thought maybe I should put a fresh copy of retro pie on which I have done. It all works fine though the HDMI port just not the display.
I have used a multimeter on the to screen board and there is power going to it. just no indication of life.
Re: Help please. Gearbest screen not doing anything
Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2016 2:45 pm
by Mischief
It seems you may have a dead screen then, the thing is the one I got isn't the one I ordered the picture in the eBay ad was completely different.
Re: Help please. Gearbest screen not doing anything
Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2016 11:50 pm
by Lpoolm
One last obvious thing to suggest as I have done this. Make sure your ribbon is connected to the board the right way, ie not up side down?
Hope this helps.
Re: Help please. Gearbest screen not doing anything
Posted: Sat Feb 11, 2017 12:18 am
by 6PATHS
Sorry to bring up a dead thread but have you figured out your problem yet? I have the same display board and I have everything hooked up right. Have done it like 10 times over and still no display. The screen is getting power definitely but no image showing up.