CM3 White screen

[Somanbra]

Hey

So just built my cm3 when I power it on the screen is white,  I get a green LED but the screen doesn't change,  also I can't power the CM3 down after powering on I have to remove the battery to power it down. 

Has anyone experienced this I don't think it's a bad connector since it's like the OS is locked up.

If it is the LCD screen can I confirm the ribbon goes over the black lock and not under it.  And how locked in should it be bedbugs I can pull it out if I try. 

[StonyYodelers]

Sounds like your problem is the ribbon.
It does go over the black piece, but if you can pull it out it isn't locked good enough. The black flags on either side should be pushed all the way back against the connector. If they're not flush with it they're not locked.

As for needing to power off by unplugging the battery, I think it could be a couple things, but the most likely (to me) is that it isn't due to OS lock up (there's not much there to get locked up in the first place unless your installation went goofy), it seems more likely to me that you're trying to turn it off before it's fully booted up. I don't think you can use the power button to turn it off until you're in retropie itself, and it takes a bit to get in there. When it's all working good, it doesn't seem to take very long, but I know if the screen is just staying white the whole time, it could seem like it takes a while. Once in retropie though, holding the power for like 5 sec should do it.

An easy test would be to plug it into an external monitor. If it's working on the monitor, you know the OS is fine and it's a problem with your screen. If there's a problem with the screen, it's likely the ribbon isn't connected well enough (you shouldn't be able to pull it out)

If it isn't working on the monitor, reflash your sd card and make sure you are using the CM3 file rather than the Zero file, and make sure that you are using something like Etcher to write it (you can't just copy/paste the image to the sd, it has to be written to it with an app like that)

[Flavor]

StonyYodelers basically said what you need to know, but I'll re-iterate and expand on some stuff.

There is a "white screen" section here. Please make sure you've looked at everything there, first.
https://www.freeplaytech.com/troubleshooting

One thing that CAN happen is that the SD card can get corrupted if the initial bootup doesn't properly happen. Here's a rundown of how it works.

After you burn the SD image to the SD card and boot it up for the FIRST time, the operating system will resize itself to fill the entire SD card (because people use different size SD cards). When it's done, the machine should shut itself off. Sometimes this is quite alarming for people that aren't expecting their system to turn itself off, but it's normal and should only happen once.

After that, all subsequent bootups should work normally.
Press and hold the power button. The screen turns white.
Hold the power button until the green light turns on.
Let go of the power button.
The screen goes black and the system shows RetroPie and all that.

BUT, if that FIRST bootup (that shuts itself down automatically when it's done resizing) gets interrupted, the SD card may become corrupt. Then, basically, nothing will work correctly, and you have to start over. Who knows what the system is doing, then, unless you connect to HDMI (like Stony mentioned).

So, if you want to inspect things further, connect the system to a TV/Monitor via HDMI. Otherwise, I'd check all the stuff that StonyYodelers mentioned and all the stuff in that troubleshooting link. Then, I'd start over with burning the SD card image to the SD card.

But, anyway, if the green LED is coming on after you hold the power button for a few seconds, then that's a good sign that the operating system is booting up. Then we just need to figure out why there isn't info getting from the Pi to the LCD.

Oh, also, you can detach/reattach the Pi itself. There has been a couple rare instances where that's fixed random connection issues like this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hn_pFBwEQxA

[Somanbra]

Sorted,  had to end up reseating the CM3 to get it working. 

Now I just need to figure out button and screen configuration as it's slightly different than Ed video for a pre configured boxel pixel version.  But I am guessing I'll need to read retro pie documentation for that but problem for when I get back from work just happy it's booted now.

[Flavor]

What's different about your screen config?

Which glass are you using? Which shell are you using?

Sorry in advance, but I probably can't help much over the weekend.

[Somanbra]

Using the CM3 screen that it comes with and a Boxel Pixel case and screen lens.

I saw this video and thought why these settings need to be configured possibly it's old.

https://youtu.be/Ja8-R3GveD4

[Somanbra]

    So, I am guessing this means dead screen.

[StonyYodelers]

Nah you're good! It does that resolution by default because most people just throw it in a normal gba. From the RetroPie menu go Freeplay Options>Freeplay Display Driver. In the menu that loads, select the "FastFilled" option. It'll resize and shut itself off. If you turn it back on, the whole screen will now be used.

Unless you're referring to something else, in which case you're gonna have to mention what's wrong because it looks good to me lol

[Flavor]

So, did you apply the settings from https://youtu.be/Ja8-R3GveD4 ?

Like StonyYodelers asked, what part are you asking about being dead?

[Somanbra]

So, I applied the settings and changed the screen to FastFilled, which was option 3 off the top of my head.

And the bit I was referring to on the image is the white bar on the left hand side of the screen, it's still there even after changing settings which is odd.