Turn off the LEDs of the Raspberry Pi

General Discussions
1

Not everyone likes lights, so here’s the option to leave the Raspberry Pi completely in the dark, disabling the power, activity and ethernet LEDs.

Power off your Umbrel under Settings > Shutdown, and remove the SD card.

Then, put the SD card into your computer, you should see it show up in your file manager with the name boot.

Open a file named config.txt, where you must add these lines at the end:

# Disable the ACT LED.
dtparam=act_led_trigger=none
dtparam=act_led_activelow=off
# Disable the PWR LED.
dtparam=pwr_led_trigger=none
dtparam=pwr_led_activelow=off
# Disable ethernet port LEDs
dtparam=eth_led0=4
dtparam=eth_led1=4
6 Likes
2

There’s no need to shutdown the Pi and insert the SD card in your PC. It can be done over SSH and configuring config.txt

sudo nano /boot/config.txt

enter the lines above then save
Ctrl+X, Y, return
then restart umbrel through the web UI.

9 Likes
3

Very useful @Aydo, thanks!

1 Like
4

Had to sudo reboot, but this worked! Sweet. Stealth mode!

5

/necropost on

Yes, thanks very much @Aydo and @ibertario - this is a very neat trick…but I can’t get mine to work.

I’ve edited the config.txt file several times now with nano, and I can see the successive changes I’ve made, but after several software- and hardware reboots, I still have the blinking Christmas tree Umbrel with all of the LEDs lit up / flashing strong.

Any ideas why it’s not working? Here is the relevant section of the config.txt file with the new additions:

> # Disable the ACT LED.
> dtparam=act_led_trigger=none
> dtparam=act_led_activelow=off
> 
> # Disable the PWR LED.
> # dtparam=pwr_led_trigger=none
> # dtparam=pwr_led_activelow=off
> 
> # Disable ethernet port LEDs
> dtparam=eth_led0=4
> dtparam=eth_led1=4
> 
> # Disable WiFi
> # dtoverlay=disable-wifi
> 
> # Disable Bluetooth
> dtoverlay=disable-bt
6

Hello,

Do you have a Pi 4? I tried your settings on my Pi 4 (uncommented both PWR LED as well) and they work. All lights were off. My settings were:

[pi4]
#Disable the ACT LED.
dtparam=act_led_trigger=none
dtparam=act_led_activelow=off

#Disable the PWR LED.
dtparam=pwr_led_trigger=none
dtparam=pwr_led_activelow=off

#Disable ethernet port LEDs
dtparam=eth_led0=4
dtparam=eth_led1=4

1 Like
7

Sorry - yes - Pi 4 B with 8GB RAM, 1TB drive all in a Geekworm NASPI enclosure that uses their two boards. https://geekworm.com/products/geekworm-naspi-2-5-sata-hdd-ssd-kit-for-raspberry-pi-4-model-b

Perhaps that’s the problem - the LEDs are being powered by the Geekworm auxiliary boards? Apologies - this is my first ever RPi, and I’ve pretty much only ever had it in this enclosure

8

fixed using a small piece of tape to hide them.

1 Like
10

I recently tried to do this after upgrading to version 1.0.4. However, I get the warning that “File ‘/boot/config.txt’ is unwritable” when I try to edit with nano. What do I need to edit this file so that I can turn off the LEDs?

11

Der „sudo make me a sandwich“ robot | Linux und Ich

Tried with sudo ?

12

Yes I tried with sudo. Same result.