Turn off LED status lights on a Raspberry Pi

Here is a way to disable the power, activity and ethernet LEDs on a Raspberry Pi with just a few additional lines in the /boot/config.txt file.

The config.txt file can be ether edited via another computer by inserting the SD card, or directly on the Pi via SSH.

When using another computer there should appear a device called boot which contains the config.txt file.

When editing directly on the Pi, log in via SSH and executing sudo vim /boot/config.txt (vim can be replaced by any other text editor like nano).

Update 2023-01-09: With the latest kernel update (Kernel 5.15.70) there was an update regarding the led logic. I've updated the config below, which should work with all kernel versions.

You can determine your kernel version by using the uname -a command:

pi@raspberry:~ $ uname -a
Linux neon 5.15.76-v8+ #1597 SMP PREEMPT Fri Nov 4 12:16:41 GMT 2022 aarch64 GNU/Linux

You can edit the file for example with the preinstalled nano text editor:

pi@raspberry:~ $ sudo nano /boot/config.txt

Add the following lines at the end of your /boot/config.txt file. You can copy the complete config regardless of your Raspberry Pi model. Only the parameters with match your device will be executed.

# Disable the Activity LED
[all]
dtparam=act_led_trigger=none
dtparam=act_led_activelow=off

# Disable the Power LED on a Raspberry Pi 3 (and 3B+)
[pi3]
dtparam=pwr_led_trigger=none
dtparam=pwr_led_activelow=off

# Disable the Power LED on a Raspberry Pi 4
[pi4]
dtparam=pwr_led_trigger=default-on
dtparam=pwr_led_activelow=off

# Disable both ethernet LAN LEDs on a Raspberry Pi 3B+ (If you use a Raspberry Pi 3B Rev 1.2 this don't work. It seems like, that the LAN LEDs since the 3B+ model)
[pi3]
dtparam=eth_led0=14
dtparam=eth_led1=14

# Disable both ethernet LAN LEDs on a Raspberry Pi 4
[pi4]
dtparam=eth_led0=14
dtparam=eth_led1=14

After a reboot no more LEDs should be active. If you only want to disable the LEDs partially, just copy the config lines you need :)