Issues with Pironman 5: USB-C Power Behaviour & NVMe Drive Not Detected

General
1

Hi everyone,

Apologies beforehand for a noob post. I realize this might be OS and/or hardware problem, but I thought this forum would be the closest “anchor” to reach out to.

I recently bought a Pironman 5 case from Amazon (link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0D5CTRSQK) and overall the setup works great, but I’m running into two problems I can’t figure out.

Power via USB-C → Fans/Lights Stay On Even When Pi Is Off

When I connect the Pironman 5 to power via USB-C, the fans and RGB lights keep running even when the Raspberry Pi 5 is shut down. Is this expected behaviour for the case, or is there a configuration I’m missing?

NVMe (Lexar EQ790 1TB) Not Detected

I installed a 1TB Lexar EQ790 (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DNMCJHJP) in the NVMe slot, but LibreELEC doesn’t detect it at all.
Currently the only storage visible is the SD card — the NVMe drive doesn’t show up in the OS or in lsblk.

My Setup

  • Raspberry Pi 5 (16GB)

  • OS: LibreELEC

  • Case: Pironman 5

  • NVMe SSD: Lexar EQ790 1TB

Has anyone seen similar issues?
Do I need specific drivers, firmware updates, or a different OS for NVMe support in Pironman 5?

Any help is appreciated, thank you!

2

I don’t have that brand but the board has a green led in the lower left corner with an amber (tiny) led above it. The green light comes on when power is applied and the little amber led blinks when the drive is reading/writing. Do you see these? Also, my drives show up when I run “sudo fdisk -l” in the terminal.

/dev/nvme0n1p1 8192 1056767 1048576 512M c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/nvme0n1p2 1056768 181194751 180137984 85.9G 83 Linux
/dev/nvme0n1p3 283592704 488396799 204804096 97.7G 83 Linux

The tutorial will give you settings for the fan/light settings to turn off. Also give you a config.txt setting for running the nvme at gen3. One of my drives won’t work unless I use that setting, but I don’t remember if the green light came on. For the gen 3 and fan control, I add the following to my /boot/firmware/config.txt:
[all]
dtparam=pciex1_gen=3
dtparam=fan_temp0=35000
dtparam=fan_temp0_hyst=5000
dtparam=fan_temp0_speed=175
(you may not to run the fans that much).

3

Librelec is compatible with the pi5, but not with pironman5

As that post was quite old, i did also check Sunfounders recent compatibility list, and librelec is still not listed

4

i would presume that you need to boot on a sd card with the raspberry pi o/s and perform the ‘Configuring Shutdown to Deactivate GPIO Power’ step on the Setting Up on Raspberry Pi OS/Ubuntu/Kali Linux/Homebridge — SunFounder Pironman 5 documentation page to get the case to power off.

for the nvme drive, is the pcie cable connected properly?

there doesn’t seem to be any way to get the other case functionality working in libreelec. the post quoted in the post previous to this one is mine.

5

  1. The Raspberry Pi shuts down, but the fan/indicator light remains on?
    This indicates that you likely have not configured the shutdown process to deactivate GPIO power.
    https://docs.sunfounder.com/projects/pironman5/en/latest/pironman5/set_up/set_up_rpi_os.html#configuring-shutdown-to-deactivate-gpio-power
    In our tutorial, we use the Raspberry Pi OS as an example and guide you through executing the sudo raspi-config command to configure a complete shutdown on the setup page.
    However, based on your description, you are using the LibreELEC system. Our Pironman5 case is not adapted for LibreELEC, so the Pironman5 software may be incompatible with LibreELEC. This could also be the cause of the issue.
    We recommend that you choose a compatible system to install the Pironman5 software.
    https://docs.sunfounder.com/projects/pironman5/en/latest/pironman5/install/install_the_os.html

  2. SSD not recognized?
    Please verify according to our FAQ solutions:
    https://docs.sunfounder.com/projects/pironman5/en/latest/pironman5/faq.html#nvme-pip-module-not-working

    1. Ensure the FPC cable connecting the NVMe PIP module to the Raspberry Pi 5 is securely attached.

    2. Confirm your SSD is properly fixed to the NVMe PIP module.

    3. Check the status of the LEDs on the NVMe PIP module:
      After confirming all connections, power on the Pironman 5 MAX and observe the two indicator lights on the NVMe PIP module:
      PWR LED: Should be lit.
      STA LED: Blinking indicates normal operation.
      If the PWR LED is on but the STA LED is not blinking, it means the Raspberry Pi cannot recognize the NVMe SSD.
      If the PWR LED is off, short the “Force Enable” pins on the module. If the PWR LED lights up, it may indicate a loose FPC cable or system configuration that does not support NVMe.

    4. Confirm your NVMe SSD has the operating system correctly installed.

    5. If the wiring is correct and the operating system is installed, but the NVMe SSD still fails to boot, try booting from a Micro SD card to verify the functionality of other components. Once confirmed, configure booting from the SSD:
      https://docs.sunfounder.com/projects/pironman5/en/latest/pironman5/install/install_to_nvme_rpi.html#update-the-bootloader