Hi everyone, I am fairly new to this forum as I was apprehensive about spending so much on a drone.

Before my first flight i had total FPV loss, after researching and finding nothing viable, I took my own steps and managed to get it back. As for when the quad boots up, how many times should that Gimbal beep? and what exactly will the lights at the back of the quad do upon start up?

I am asking because I had my initial flight earlier today, all went well, video looks fantastic, landing is much easier than some quads ive dealt with before. However, a couple of things I noticed upon booting back up to collect some data from the drone were, it would beep repeatedly for about a min, and the lights would flash regardless of having GPS red/yellow on and off for roughly 45 seconds before flashing normal red/green then just going to a green flash. this was just upon startup, everything was connected, had FPV,full gimbal control, etc..

As I am new to DJI, I am just looking for some insight as to what is, and is not normal.

before anyone asks, i was flying in an open field, no trees, no crashes, no hard landings.

The startup of the P3 includes the ESCs reporting, so you hear 1,2,3,4 beeps as each ESC initializes.  The status lights are included in your P3 user manual which should be required reading. If you can't find your documentation, it's available HERE. If reading isn't your style, tutorial videos are available HERE.

terrylewis Posted at 2016-2-7 22:00
The startup of the P3 includes the ESCs reporting, so you hear 1,2,3,4 beeps as each ESC initializes ...

Thanks for the link. Much appreciated. My daughter got to my envelope containing my manual, stickers, etc... So now im sol on that. Ill be sure to print this out.  
EDIT:  I see the LED flashing Im seeing is normal, sweet... going to keep looking through this.

Welcome to the club! If you're losing FPV, there are a couple of great videos you might find interesting (although it sounds like you've had quadcopters before).

The first is about the DJI antennas: http://youtu.be/P7M9JtfVwQE

The second is about setting the fail-safes to make sure your bird always comes home if you lose signal: http://youtu.be/te07MiNkUSM

Happy flying!

Anderjon Posted at 2016-2-8 18:33
Welcome to the club! If you're losing FPV, there are a couple of great videos you might find interes ...

Thank you. I have a short video here I'd like you guys to take a look at. Dont worry about the noise, its the vision positioning system. Listen to the gimbal.

Sliquid Posted at 2016-2-9 08:07
Thank you. I have a short video here I'd like you guys to take a look at. Dont worry about the noi ...

So, I'm definately not an expert on this one, but when you switch the drone on but don't already have the controller on, the P3 goes through the firmware update process. That is to say it looks at the SD card installed and checks to see whether it contains a newer FW version.  While its doing this, it makes that funny, intermittent scratchy sound you posted.

If it does have a newer version on the SD, it updates (25 minutes of scratchy noises, beeping and flashing) but you can tell when it's done because the very small LED on the front of the camera gimbal shows solid green (instead of flashing a green, red pattern). The gimbal noise also goes "daaaah, dah dah" repeatedly (I think that's the pattern).

If it detects no newer FW version, the noise you're hearing should stop after about 10 seconds, which yours doesn't seem to.

Which leads me to ask:

1. Do you have the latest FW version installed?
2. When you switch the drone on (with controller off) what color / color pattern is the small LED on the front of the gimbal?

Anderjon Posted at 2016-2-9 09:07
So, I'm definately not an expert on this one, but when you switch the drone on but don't already h ...

Btw, the manual has a decode for the lights flashing. That should tell you what's it's trying to say.

The lights flashing are normal but the gimbal problem is bothersome, it does have the latest firmware, this started after updating. The update finished on its own, I set it and left it alone for about 25 mins, came back and the update was finished, now when it boots it does this. That's not normal. I'll check with the other SD cards as well but this is my main concern.

Sliquid Posted at 2016-2-9 10:43
The lights flashing are normal but the gimbal problem is bothersome, it does have the latest firmwar ...

Try calibrating the gimbal.

nrgwise Posted at 2016-2-9 10:51
Try calibrating the gimbal.

I had done that this morning, still same issue. Is it possible to overwrite current FW with the same FW?

EDIT: So I fixed my issue. I downgraded to the previous firmware using a highend micro SDcard, then after that I power cycled and let it sit for a minute, then upgraded to the latest firmware using the same sd card with a complete standard format between FWs, and it seems to have stopped. To me there are too many things that can go wrong when it comes to a bad flash, the lights were flashing as they should, just a bit longer than normal, the gimbal was basically screaming at me the entire time with no true indicator that this could be a bad flash, DJI needs to setup a contingency for something like this. The first upgrade that flashed, which caused this issue, completed normally and its been doing that beeping ever since, until now.

Edit 2: Gimbal beeping came back, I find this really odd.
Edit 3: Swapped SD out for high end, and it stopped beeping. Formatting primary SD while checking disk to ensure there are no errors.

Edit4: Contacted Amazon, from what the rep said, they had a few returns because of a similar issue. interesting they had not contacted the seller to pull their stock yet.