Raspberry Pi5 – undervoltage error

Disclaimer

Reproduction is at your own risk. I accept no liability for the correctness of the information or damage that may occur.

Background information

During my project pihlSDR-Enclosure I encountered the problem that my Raspberry Pi5 sporadically switched itself off. After a few attempts and research, I realised that it was an undervoltage problem. I had set the power supply to 5.1 volts, but this did not reach the Raspberry Pi5. Under load, the voltage then dropped below the critical value, which led to the shutdown. The method described below was the solution for me. Since then, the undervoltage error has no longer occurred.

My HW-Setup

• Raspberry Pi5 8 GByte
• Raspberry Pi 5 Official Active Cooler
• Raspberry Pi NVMe M.2 2230 SSD Kit 512GB
• WaveShare 10.1 PCAD display
• Buck power converter 5V / 5A

Adjustment procedure

1. Start the first connection with Putty and enter the command stress --cpu 4.This performs a stress test and generates approx. 2.4 amps of power consumption. Note: You can quit the command any time with Cntrl + C.
2. Start the second connection with Putty and start the command watch -n 1 vcgencmd pmic_read_adc EXT5V_V in the CLI. The actual supply voltage at the Raspberry Pi5 is now displayed.Note: You can quit the command any time with Cntrl + C.
3. Now set the voltage on the buck converter so that the voltage output in the CLI is 5.1 volts under load. Please note: Carry out the setting slowly and carefully. If the voltage is set higher than 5.1 volts, the Raspberry Pi5 and the devices connected to it may be damaged.
4. Now the undervoltage problem should no longer occur.