meymarce

I can understand that you are disappointed.
 
But I think that Kobol had to pull the plug, in the context of the current chip shortage - with limited (sometimes even no) availability of components and SOCs and rising prices. That is not the right environment for a small start-up to grow. - it is a rather toxic environemnt that will lead to insolvency, as profitable growth is impossible to achieve. Without growth (no new/further products to offer) you are just faced with fixed costs and without income. Not sustainable at all.
 
All three of the founding members of Kobol deserve our full respect. They only drew a logical conclusion. Hopefully it can be reversed some time.

It probably would too but I forgot that it has one built in

Hi everyone, thank you for all of your support.
I'll be still around but not in full time as before.
 
I saw Helios64 has several issues in this new release. I will start looking into it.

I am still sad about the news. However I wish the team the best and some more free time and hopefully you will regain some of that passion. You have come a long way from an originally failed Kickstarter campaign for the helios4 (which still came to life) to the helios64. The work you have done for the open source community is impressive.
A personal thank you to @gprovost @aprayoga and also Dmitriy Sidorovich (which I have not seen on the forums).
 
I would be very much interested in how everything worked behind the scenes. Like, how do find a factory, how does sourcing the parts work, how many prototypes were there?. This is something that I guess few think about and may have as little clue as I have. It'd be super cool if you could share some of that, obv. just if you don't mind and as far as maybe NDAs allow for.
 

For step 3 there is a way out of tweaking Jumper 10 if you want to boot force boot on SD.
From the serial console press a key on the keyboard while u-boot start. You will get the u-boot prompt.
from this prompt write:
run bootcmd_mmc1 and press enter. Helios64 will boot from SD.
To force boot from eMMC instead of SD, do the opposite:
run bootcmd_mmc0  
This saved me from opening the box.

I replaced the stock fans with Noctua NF-A8-PWM fans. These have slightly lower CFM (airflow) at 32.5 vs 35 (stock) however they have a high static pressure rating at 2.37 mm H₂O. For me they produce better cooling than the stock fans. Their noise level is also rated at 17.1 dB(A) so you will barely hear them even at full speed.
 
I also had a pair of NF-R8-PWM (discontinued model) from the old days which I tried. They are very close in CFM at 31.4 but have worse static pressure at 1.41 mm H₂O. These fans produced worse cooling than the stock fans.
 
One additional change I did was place the metal fan grills (finger protectors) on the outside because then the fan is allowed to produce a seal against the case. I thought it was a small design miss to leave a gap between the case and the fan because it might allow air to move back inside. Aesthetically it's nicer to have the grill on the inside (IMO), so as an alternative fix one could design a 3D printed piece to fill the gaps.
 
It's also possible to adjust speed by modifying the `/etc/fancontrol` configuration and restarting the service (`systemctl restart fancontrol`), but I would not recommend this unless you're using better than stock fans. If the CPU is working full throttle you will want the fans running at full speed to sufficiently extract the heat from the CPU area.

Hi @Seneca, @SR-G
 
Could you add following lines to the beginning of /boot/boot.cmd
regulator dev vdd_log regulator value 930000 regulator dev vdd_center regulator value 950000 run
mkimage -C none -A arm -T script -d /boot/boot.cmd /boot/boot.scr and reboot. Verify whether it can improve stability.
 
 
 
You could also use the attached boot.scr
boot.scr

@usefulnoise
@ShadowDance
Maybe this is interesting for you: As I had the same issue but did not wanna mess around too much and some where successful with 3rd party sata cables, I was looking for a way to get this done w/o loosing the HDD slides into the SATA slot option.
I found this (hope this does not count as advertisement):
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002595620272.html
which seems to be the general harness of a Lenovo X3100 M5 Server. I was also looking to get some screw-able SATA mounts, but could not find any that would not require me doing the cable works and soldering too.
However the Lenovo cables looked promising and as it turns out, you just use this as a drop in replacement. The screws fit. However you have to mount them from the front side instead the back, but the case has enough space to do that.

 
You do however need to push very hard, to get the screws to grip, but even the threads match.
I did a bit of grinding on the metal frame though to reduce the tension on the plastic of the connector cause it is a bit thicker. Not sure that is required though (I think not).
For the fifth slot some grinding will be inevitable though. Since that slot is not populated for me right now (and has to wait a bit on current pricing unless I find a bargain) and one cable set has 4 cables, this was no issue. Another two cable sets are on the way though (have another Helios64).
I do not know how you cut the connectors of the original harness to get power only, but I used a separation disk on a Dremel like tool. Worked like a charm.
The cables are all similar length so you need to do try a bit until you find a position that works and does not twist the cable too much but gets it to the ports on the board.
Here what I ended up with (sorry for the sub-optimal quality but only saw this now on the PC and I do not want to disassemble the case again)

 
Hope that is helpful for anyone. I am super happy with this solution
I have not had any issues with my ZFS setup anymore since.
 
Cheers
 

@usefulnoise
@ShadowDance
Maybe this is interesting for you: As I had the same issue but did not wanna mess around too much and some where successful with 3rd party sata cables, I was looking for a way to get this done w/o loosing the HDD slides into the SATA slot option.
I found this (hope this does not count as advertisement):
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002595620272.html
which seems to be the general harness of a Lenovo X3100 M5 Server. I was also looking to get some screw-able SATA mounts, but could not find any that would not require me doing the cable works and soldering too.
However the Lenovo cables looked promising and as it turns out, you just use this as a drop in replacement. The screws fit. However you have to mount them from the front side instead the back, but the case has enough space to do that.

 
You do however need to push very hard, to get the screws to grip, but even the threads match.
I did a bit of grinding on the metal frame though to reduce the tension on the plastic of the connector cause it is a bit thicker. Not sure that is required though (I think not).
For the fifth slot some grinding will be inevitable though. Since that slot is not populated for me right now (and has to wait a bit on current pricing unless I find a bargain) and one cable set has 4 cables, this was no issue. Another two cable sets are on the way though (have another Helios64).
I do not know how you cut the connectors of the original harness to get power only, but I used a separation disk on a Dremel like tool. Worked like a charm.
The cables are all similar length so you need to do try a bit until you find a position that works and does not twist the cable too much but gets it to the ports on the board.
Here what I ended up with (sorry for the sub-optimal quality but only saw this now on the PC and I do not want to disassemble the case again)

 
Hope that is helpful for anyone. I am super happy with this solution
I have not had any issues with my ZFS setup anymore since.
 
Cheers
 

@usefulnoise
@ShadowDance
Maybe this is interesting for you: As I had the same issue but did not wanna mess around too much and some where successful with 3rd party sata cables, I was looking for a way to get this done w/o loosing the HDD slides into the SATA slot option.
I found this (hope this does not count as advertisement):
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002595620272.html
which seems to be the general harness of a Lenovo X3100 M5 Server. I was also looking to get some screw-able SATA mounts, but could not find any that would not require me doing the cable works and soldering too.
However the Lenovo cables looked promising and as it turns out, you just use this as a drop in replacement. The screws fit. However you have to mount them from the front side instead the back, but the case has enough space to do that.

 
You do however need to push very hard, to get the screws to grip, but even the threads match.
I did a bit of grinding on the metal frame though to reduce the tension on the plastic of the connector cause it is a bit thicker. Not sure that is required though (I think not).
For the fifth slot some grinding will be inevitable though. Since that slot is not populated for me right now (and has to wait a bit on current pricing unless I find a bargain) and one cable set has 4 cables, this was no issue. Another two cable sets are on the way though (have another Helios64).
I do not know how you cut the connectors of the original harness to get power only, but I used a separation disk on a Dremel like tool. Worked like a charm.
The cables are all similar length so you need to do try a bit until you find a position that works and does not twist the cable too much but gets it to the ports on the board.
Here what I ended up with (sorry for the sub-optimal quality but only saw this now on the PC and I do not want to disassemble the case again)

 
Hope that is helpful for anyone. I am super happy with this solution
I have not had any issues with my ZFS setup anymore since.
 
Cheers
 

Just to clarify, was this a problem with 21.05.1 or IS it still a problem with 21.05.2? 
If it is still active problem, we should seek to do a Pullrequest to fully fix it in the buildsystem.
 
EDIT: Seems to be correct in the buildsystem: https://github.com/armbian/build/blob/3b3d85e25c2ecde30df7b5274fc6f1b9c0299ea2/config/sources/families/include/rockchip64_common.inc#L395-L401

I agree. But this is how development looks like sometimes.
 
 
I don't mind supporting amateurs for free but its probably not possible to distinguish and count on users honesty. Its can't fail since time is wasted in any case. If answering stupid or repeating nonsense, educating users to actually understand that we are helping them this and that way ... and that at the end all this is our cost, which is not small.
 

If you are doing this occasionally, its not a problem and IMO not needed to deal with this question. If this is almost or more then a full time job in term of time ... 

The project we are running here is a lot of work every day. I am sometimes more, sometime less, but I can estimated somewhere between 4-10 hours on this project every day. Others are a bit less, some here and there, but in total it's quite a big number.

It really won't if properly designed. Server grade hardware has been doing this for years, they just cut holes in the PCB to allow for airflow around the drive.

@dieKatze88 Yes this is already been announced here and there that we will replace the wire harness by a proper PCB backplane. There will still be wire tough connecting the main board to the backplane since we don't want a board that can only be used with a specific backplane. But these wires will be normal SATA cables, so easy to buy new ones anywhere if replacement is needed.

WoL feature is not yet supported because suspend mode was not yet supported until now.
 
Suspend mode has been recently added for Pinebook Pro (RK3399) in kernel mainline, so just a question of time before we got this on Helios64.
 
https://github.com/armbian/build/blob/master/patch/kernel/rockchip64-current/board-pbp-add-suspend.patch

I am having the same issue: though I wanna mention that I use Seagate drives. So the issue is not restricted to WD. I can reliably get it using a zfs scrub. Currently 4 disks are in use and it always happens on /dev/sdd, so disk 4. Disk 5 is the empty slot.
I have read most of the comments but did anyone really succeed with a new power harness or the new firmware?
[16218.668509] ata4.00: exception Emask 0x10 SAct 0x1000084 SErr 0xb80100 action 0x6 frozen [16218.668523] ata4.00: irq_stat 0x08000000 [16218.668530] ata4: SError: { UnrecovData 10B8B Dispar BadCRC LinkSeq } [16218.668539] ata4.00: failed command: READ FPDMA QUEUED [16218.668551] ata4.00: cmd 60/b8:10:e0:43:37/07:00:11:03:00/40 tag 2 ncq dma 1011712 in res 40/00:38:98:4b:37/00:00:11:03:00/40 Emask 0x10 (ATA bus error) [16218.668556] ata4.00: status: { DRDY } [16218.668562] ata4.00: failed command: READ FPDMA QUEUED [16218.668574] ata4.00: cmd 60/b8:38:98:4b:37/07:00:11:03:00/40 tag 7 ncq dma 1011712 in res 40/00:38:98:4b:37/00:00:11:03:00/40 Emask 0x10 (ATA bus error) [16218.668578] ata4.00: status: { DRDY } [16218.668584] ata4.00: failed command: READ FPDMA QUEUED [16218.668595] ata4.00: cmd 60/b8:c0:58:53:37/07:00:11:03:00/40 tag 24 ncq dma 1011712 in res 40/00:00:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/00 Emask 0x14 (ATA bus error) [16218.668600] ata4.00: status: { DRDY } [16218.668612] ata4: hard resetting link [16219.144463] ata4: SATA link up 6.0 Gbps (SStatus 133 SControl 300) [16219.163619] ata4.00: configured for UDMA/133 [16219.164082] ata4.00: device reported invalid CHS sector 0 [16219.164110] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdd] tag#2 UNKNOWN(0x2003) Result: hostbyte=0x00 driverbyte=0x08 cmd_age=31s [16219.164116] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdd] tag#2 Sense Key : 0x5 [current] [16219.164121] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdd] tag#2 ASC=0x21 ASCQ=0x4 [16219.164127] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdd] tag#2 CDB: opcode=0x88 88 00 00 00 00 03 11 37 43 e0 00 00 07 b8 00 00 [16219.164133] blk_update_request: I/O error, dev sdd, sector 13173736416 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x700 phys_seg 125 prio class 0 [16219.164148] zio pool=r2pool vdev=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST10000VN0004-1ZD101_$serial-part1 error=5 type=1 offset=6744951996416 size=1011712 flags=40080cb0 [16219.164209] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdd] tag#7 UNKNOWN(0x2003) Result: hostbyte=0x00 driverbyte=0x08 cmd_age=31s [16219.164213] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdd] tag#7 Sense Key : 0x5 [current] [16219.164218] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdd] tag#7 ASC=0x21 ASCQ=0x4 [16219.164222] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdd] tag#7 CDB: opcode=0x88 88 00 00 00 00 03 11 37 4b 98 00 00 07 b8 00 00 [16219.164227] blk_update_request: I/O error, dev sdd, sector 13173738392 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x700 phys_seg 142 prio class 0 [16219.164235] zio pool=r2pool vdev=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST10000VN0004-1ZD101_$serial-part1 error=5 type=1 offset=6744953008128 size=1011712 flags=40080cb0 [16219.164286] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdd] tag#24 UNKNOWN(0x2003) Result: hostbyte=0x00 driverbyte=0x08 cmd_age=31s [16219.164291] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdd] tag#24 Sense Key : 0x5 [current] [16219.164295] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdd] tag#24 ASC=0x21 ASCQ=0x4 [16219.164299] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdd] tag#24 CDB: opcode=0x88 88 00 00 00 00 03 11 37 53 58 00 00 07 b8 00 00 [16219.164304] blk_update_request: I/O error, dev sdd, sector 13173740376 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x700 phys_seg 127 prio class 0 [16219.164311] zio pool=r2pool vdev=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST10000VN0004-1ZD101_$serial-part1 error=5 type=1 offset=6744954023936 size=1011712 flags=40080cb0 [16219.164339] ata4: EH complete