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Gaaht

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Posts posted by Gaaht

  1. 2 hours ago, TonyMac32 said:

    Well, as far as that goes, the Tinker is one of your better bets at present, thanks to the work of @JMCC.  Using his "how-to's", you'll have multimedia capabilities on Linux in short order.  Now, if you want Android, I believe that is also supported, but only by ASUS, not by us. 

    Hi there 

     

    Can you advise where I could purchase a Tinker board S please...? 

  2.  

    Spoiler
    On 6/30/2017 at 6:10 AM, TonyMac32 said:

    [update 12/2017 at bottom]

    Possibly late, but I would like to put everything we know in one place for anyone who might think of buying this board.

     

    DSC_0640-1038x576.jpg

     

    Overview:

     

       This is a form factor and (mostly) I/O clone of the Raspberry Pi 3 with a much more powerful quad-core Cortex-A17 Rockchip rk3288.  It supports HDMI 2.0, has 2 GB RAM, Gigabit Ethernet, Wifi and BT on board, etc:  https://www.asus.com/us/Single-Board-Computer/Tinker-Board/

     

       As numerous other sites have covered all the typical performance metrics and extolled the power and so forth of this board, I'm going to go ahead and give you the less exciting information and the tradeoffs/problems.

     

    Mainline:

     

    Getting the mainline kernel to boot on this machine was pretty straightforward, mainline support for the hardware, including WiFi, makes for less patching and allows a lot of functionality from the mainline kernel without excessive patching.  That said, so far Bluetooth and squashing a reboot bug have not been successful (I'm under the impression the rk3288 was never truly intended to boot solely from external sdmmc devices)

     

    Important Hardware Considerations:

     

              Power Solution:  This board is equipped with a micro-USB connector as it's power input.  Micro-USB is only rated for 1.8 Amps, no matter how big the numbers on your power supply are.  It is entirely possible, even likely, that you will hang this board by plugging in peripherals to the USB 2 slots.  Micro-USB is a terrible method of providing power to a single board computer, and is the most serious problem with this device.  This device should be powered via the GPIO header using a filtered supply if you wish to have any semblance of stability.

     

              Heat:  The rk3288 is not a low-power chip, and the heat sink supplied (pictured above), is not adequate for any CPU-intensive activity, quickly throttling performance when it gets too hot. 

     

              USB throughput:  I have not empirically tested this, mostly because it is unnecessary.  For some reason the 4 USB 2.0 ports on the board are all routed through a single USB Hub as on the Raspberry Pi.  Not incredibly useful, other than not having to buy an external hub to make the one exposed USB port into 4.  (unless of course those devices use power, then you need a powered hub anyway)  In case you are wondering, there are 2 USB2 ports available on the SoC, however the dev team for this board decided to dedicate one to an "HD Audio codec" instead of using the dedicated I2S/PCM output to do that job.

     

              Undocumented pins:  The 4 pin header  next to the micro-USB power serve no documented purpose.  One pair is definitely the power button as references in the device tree for the board,  I've determined (and have seen others likewise verify) that the pins closest to the edge are the power button input. The other is not documented at all, and I've not wanted to tempt fate by shorting it out.

     

    Software/Support Considerations:

     

              The Documentation for this board is terrible.  Incomplete, non-existent, etc.  The Official ASUS image is a series of workarounds and, until release 1.6, was not properly available to the community.  Even then, development does not appear to be occurring publicly (if it is that means development has stopped).  Rockchip representatives (seemingly not the ones working on the Tinker Board) have at least come forward to provide some helpful hints concerning issues, but ASUS has been entirely silent. 

     

    My opinion after use/development:

     

              This is a very powerful board.  Unfortunately I had to build an adapter to power it over GPIO so it would run properly with any moderately demanding USB peripherals, I added a larger heat sink to stabilize the thermal situation, and am currently trying to find a way to get the board to reset properly without using what the Tinker Board source code itself labels a "HACK".  I can not recommend this board to a new buyer.  It's a shame, really, this board had every opportunity to be a really good solution. 

     

    • If the prospective buyer wants nothing more than a 4K media player, there are other options that will serve that niche better, including a small mountain of inexpensive TV boxes. 
    • This board is not ideal for a NAS due to the USB Hub (unless you want to test the limits of the SD card interface). 
    • CPU intensive operations will throttle the device to under 1 GHz with the factory cooler, so without modification you are limited there.
    • Powering peripherals through the board is simply not possible out of the box due to the Micro-USB power solution.  Powering through GPIO is the only sane option.
    • Raspberry Pi compatibility is not absolute.  The GPIO libraries (WiringPi, etc) are not exact, some of the pins serve multiple purposes on the header, etc.
    • This board may be adequate as a small kiosk linux desktop, it is fast enough to provide a snappy interface, and will fit in many of the available cases for the RPi.  I would still recommend GPIO power and probably improved cooling in case a lot of video/etc are needed.

     

    [update]  I've been running the Tinker Board as a daily driver for over a week, powering it via micro USB with my normal peripherals (mouse/keybd, wireless active, touchscreen attached)  My findings are what would be expected:

     

    • Power supplied to micro USB port:  5.25 volts 800 - 950 mA "normal" use
      • Playing a Youtube Video (software render) this hits 1.7 Amps
    • Voltage present at Tinker Board USB Host port:  4.7 Volts under "normal" use
      • Playing a Youtube Video this drops to 4.2 Volts, meaning a > 1 Volt drop.

     

    Now, you might be saying "I run my Tinker on micro USB all the time and don't have any issues"  You're right, and you're wrong all at once.

     

    The processor/RAM use much lower voltages provided by the RK808 PMIC, so the system doesn't fold up and crash when the input voltage gets too low.  HOWEVER, here is a snippet from my dmesg:

     

      Reveal hidden contents
    
    
    
    [224179.241058] usb 1-1.1: new low-speed USB device number 16 using dwc2
    [224179.323680] usb 1-1.1: New USB device found, idVendor=0461, idProduct=4d2b
    [224179.323693] usb 1-1.1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
    [224179.323697] usb 1-1.1: Product: HP Wireless Laser Mini Mouse
    [224179.323701] usb 1-1.1: Manufacturer: Primax
    [224179.329307] input: Primax HP Wireless Laser Mini Mouse as /devices/platform/ff540000.usb/usb1/1-1/1-1.1/1-1.1:1.0/0003:0461:4D2B.02DE/input/input734
    [224179.330436] hid-generic 0003:0461:4D2B.02DE: input,hidraw0: USB HID v1.10 Mouse [Primax HP Wireless Laser Mini Mouse] on usb-ff540000.usb-1.1/input0
    [224179.816494] usb 1-1.1: USB disconnect, device number 16
    [224180.000057] usb 1-1.1: new low-speed USB device number 17 using dwc2
    [224180.477056] usb 1-1.1: device not accepting address 17, error -71
    [224180.745058] usb 1-1.1: new low-speed USB device number 18 using dwc2
    [224180.827684] usb 1-1.1: New USB device found, idVendor=0461, idProduct=4d2b
    [224180.827696] usb 1-1.1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
    [224180.827701] usb 1-1.1: Product: HP Wireless Laser Mini Mouse
    [224180.827705] usb 1-1.1: Manufacturer: Primax
    [224180.832362] input: Primax HP Wireless Laser Mini Mouse as /devices/platform/ff540000.usb/usb1/1-1/1-1.1/1-1.1:1.0/0003:0461:4D2B.02DF/input/input735
    [224180.832638] hid-generic 0003:0461:4D2B.02DF: input,hidraw0: USB HID v1.10 Mouse [Primax HP Wireless Laser Mini Mouse] on usb-ff540000.usb-1.1/input0
    [224181.352236] usb 1-1.1: USB disconnect, device number 18
    [224181.532063] usb 1-1.1: new low-speed USB device number 19 using dwc2
    [224181.809039] usb 1-1.1: device descriptor read/64, error -71
    [224181.999684] usb 1-1.1: New USB device found, idVendor=0461, idProduct=4d2b
    [224181.999696] usb 1-1.1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
    [224181.999701] usb 1-1.1: Product: HP Wireless Laser Mini Mouse
    [224181.999705] usb 1-1.1: Manufacturer: Primax
    [224182.004183] input: Primax HP Wireless Laser Mini Mouse as /devices/platform/ff540000.usb/usb1/1-1/1-1.1/1-1.1:1.0/0003:0461:4D2B.02E0/input/input736
    [224182.004405] hid-generic 0003:0461:4D2B.02E0: input,hidraw0: USB HID v1.10 Mouse [Primax HP Wireless Laser Mini Mouse] on usb-ff540000.usb-1.1/input0
    [224182.632104] usb 1-1.1: USB disconnect, device number 19
    [224182.816050] usb 1-1.1: new low-speed USB device number 20 using dwc2
    [224183.089049] usb 1-1.1: device descriptor read/64, error -71
    [224183.279450] usb 1-1.1: New USB device found, idVendor=0461, idProduct=4d2b
    [224183.279458] usb 1-1.1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
    [224183.279462] usb 1-1.1: Product: HP Wireless Laser Mini Mouse
    [224183.279466] usb 1-1.1: Manufacturer: Primax
    [224183.283977] input: Primax HP Wireless Laser Mini Mouse as /devices/platform/ff540000.usb/usb1/1-1/1-1.1/1-1.1:1.0/0003:0461:4D2B.02E1/input/input737
    [224183.284613] hid-generic 0003:0461:4D2B.02E1: input,hidraw0: USB HID v1.10 Mouse [Primax HP Wireless Laser Mini Mouse] on usb-ff540000.usb-1.1/input0
    [224183.656348] usb 1-1.1: USB disconnect, device number 20
    [224183.866054] usb 1-1.1: new low-speed USB device number 21 using dwc2
    [224184.349041] usb 1-1.1: device not accepting address 21, error -71
    [224184.617033] usb 1-1.1: new low-speed USB device number 22 using dwc2
    [224184.700159] usb 1-1.1: New USB device found, idVendor=0461, idProduct=4d2b
    [224184.700168] usb 1-1.1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
    [224184.700172] usb 1-1.1: Product: HP Wireless Laser Mini Mouse
    [224184.700176] usb 1-1.1: Manufacturer: Primax
    [224184.704646] input: Primax HP Wireless Laser Mini Mouse as /devices/platform/ff540000.usb/usb1/1-1/1-1.1/1-1.1:1.0/0003:0461:4D2B.02E2/input/input738
    [224184.705304] hid-generic 0003:0461:4D2B.02E2: input,hidraw0: USB HID v1.10 Mouse [Primax HP Wireless Laser Mini Mouse] on usb-ff540000.usb-1.1/input0
    [225358.440414] usb 1-1.1: USB disconnect, device number 22
    [225358.626474] usb 1-1.1: new low-speed USB device number 23 using dwc2
    [225358.711827] usb 1-1.1: New USB device found, idVendor=0461, idProduct=4d2b
    [225358.711835] usb 1-1.1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
    [225358.711840] usb 1-1.1: Product: HP Wireless Laser Mini Mouse
    [225358.711843] usb 1-1.1: Manufacturer: Primax
    [225358.716409] input: Primax HP Wireless Laser Mini Mouse as /devices/platform/ff540000.usb/usb1/1-1/1-1.1/1-1.1:1.0/0003:0461:4D2B.02E3/input/input739
    [225358.716694] hid-generic 0003:0461:4D2B.02E3: input,hidraw0: USB HID v1.10 Mouse [Primax HP Wireless Laser Mini Mouse] on usb-ff540000.usb-1.1/input0
    [229843.816078] usb 1-1.1: USB disconnect, device number 23
    [260964.116257] usb 1-1.1: new low-speed USB device number 24 using dwc2
    [260964.198547] usb 1-1.1: New USB device found, idVendor=0461, idProduct=4d2b
    [260964.198558] usb 1-1.1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
    [260964.198562] usb 1-1.1: Product: HP Wireless Laser Mini Mouse
    [260964.198566] usb 1-1.1: Manufacturer: Primax
    [260964.204243] input: Primax HP Wireless Laser Mini Mouse as /devices/platform/ff540000.usb/usb1/1-1/1-1.1/1-1.1:1.0/0003:0461:4D2B.02E4/input/input740
    [260964.205837] hid-generic 0003:0461:4D2B.02E4: input,hidraw0: USB HID v1.10 Mouse [Primax HP Wireless Laser Mini Mouse] on usb-ff540000.usb-1.1/input0
    

     

    What you're seeing here is my little wireless mouse receiver giving up the ghost because of voltage starvation.  More or less, when I get these voltage dips, anything that needs 5 volts (like USB peripherals, say that external HDD, webcam, card reader, mouse) shut down and/or could be damaged/corrupted.  I have not had a single system failure, however were I to be reading/writing external media (or running this off of a flash drive for some reason) I'd have experienced some real problems.

     

     

    This forum just blew my mind wide open 

     

    I'm sorry peeps I'm a SBC virgin I thought I could just pick any SBC and throw a OS like the android Firetv on it and it would be all plug and play 

     

    Could someone please help me picking the best equipment for this kinda job 

     

    Yes yes yes I know what you going say why don't you just buy you another fire stick, but what's the fun in that 

     

     

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