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Orange Pi Zero heat causing issues?


nobitakun

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I know this is a well known topic but since I didn't find an issue like the one I'm having I felt the need of explaining it.

 

I recently bought an Orange Pi Zero board + extension board with AV, micro and 2 additional USB + case.

 

During the 3 days I've been testing it I've been having a lot of issues related maybe to the heat (or maybe not). I have built a streaming media server called Mopidy, which is pretty cool but at certain times it completely hangs when I'm reproducing audio (by the way, I'm using only stable Debian / Ubuntu because kernel 4.11 isn't detecting the soundcard for some reason).

 

It sometimes takes 1 hour to get stuck, other times maybe 2 or 3 hours, it's totally random. Then the music starts to stutter, the web interface becomes unaccessible and SSH as well.

 

I have tried using it without installing anything, only plain Debian / Ubuntu in both branches, experimental and stable, and no avail, soon or later SSH becomes unaccessible. I've tried it inside / outside of the case, with and without the extension board and it does the same, it hangs after some time. An interesting thing is that when it hangs I can not simply unplug the power supply and connect it again, because even seeing the board is loading by the ethernet lights it does not accept SSH connections anymore. I have to leave it like 15-20 minutes without plugging it to the electricity again or else I won't be able to use SSH.

 

I have set up the cpu freq with a min value of 240 and a max value of 800 and same, it overheats without a reason.

 

My question is, what is going on with this board? is it defective or the problem is about the lack of software support? when I leave the armbianmonitor running it gets almost 80ºC, 76ºC without the case and in my room I have about 20ºC. I have never had any problem with my Orange Pi PC and I've tried lot of stuff on it. Regarding my experience now I feel like I had to spend $6 more to get an OPi PC instead of this one :(

 

If someone could help I would be very happy.

 

Thank you!

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Am I right that you own a rev. 1.4 board? Forget to put this board into a case without active cooling. So you're 76°C are armbianmonitor only, without anything else running? On 3.4.113 kernel with armbian, thermal throttling should start at around 70°C (you should see that cpu clock speed reduces). There might be an hardware error on your board if it idles at such a high temperature. Normally idle temp on my two opi zeros are at around 57-60°C (rev. 1.4, temp. readings from internal sensor) and as soon as it reaches 70°C thermal throttling starts.

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Sorry, I explained wrong. When I get that temp is when I'm running Mopidy, playing music. I leave armbianmonitor for some minutes and I see those temps. When I'm on idle I get around 60ºC, but it does not matter, the board gets stuck somehow and terminates SSH sessions forever after some time, plus the annoying music stutter. The only thing I can do is to unplug it and wait 15-20 minutes to turn it on again.

 

I don't really know what version of the board I have, never checked but the extension board says v1.1. Does it have to match with the Opi Zero?

 

 

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good, then I will check what revision I have of the board. Since I left it at the office I will need to wait till monday. But, what will happen if I have v1.4? will it be solved software-wise in the future? I hope so, otherwise I will have to order a new one :(

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You can try to set maximum cpu clock speed to 912 MHz. If I have it right in mind your cpu wouldn't feed with 1.3V anymore, which should decrease the temperature under high load (never tried it on an OPi0, something similar was done for the nanoPi neo).

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But then, if those temperatures are false, what is causing the board to hang up after certain time? will it cease to freeze if I use a regular image from the official site, like Raspbian or Ubuntu Core?

 

My major concern is that, I don't want to have a board which is hanging up after a few hours for no reason, now I don't really care what to use, I just want it to be reliable :(

 

Thank you for your help.

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This old 3.4.x kernel can produce troubles in certain areas. It has been made in China, long time ago and we applied severe fixes on top of it. If you want to try the original kernel based whatever system, be prepared just for more problems and there will be zero help from anyone.

 

I would get a multimeter and check voltage drop on a board while on full load. If you are using a wireless connection then I can only advise you not to use it on this board or use some supported USB based.

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Hi All,

I am also facing issue on similar lines on my orangepi zero but not sure with the probable cause. My desktop freezes couple of minutes after boot. I am using heat sink with fan, armbian monitor shows hw temp variations of 45 - 55 deg celsius.

 

I have installed Armbian_5.30_Orangepizero_Ubuntu_xenial_default_3.4.113 along with mate GUI environment as guided in

https://4pda.ru/forum/index.php?showtopic=750921&st=1800#entry58412437

 

When Desktop freezes, i try to run other application from ssh it works flawlessly like i played audio file.

Anyone help me to fix this issue

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Yes Igor, I disable wifi as well because I don't want to have on anything is not being used.

 

So, I have to stick with Armbian which is cool because I really like it (my OPIPC works flawlessly thanks to it), so maybe my board is defective. I don't have multimeter at the moment at home, and buying one would be more expensive than buying a new OPIPC jaja. I will wait for a new Armbian release, maybe it will be fixed through software :)

 

Anyways these days I'm thinking about buying an OPIPC2, I don't want to stick with the mini mini boards, just the regular ones, I've had enough with the Zero thingie and I also need a more powerful PC to start testing and pushing it, I hope Armbian for H5 on the OPIPC2 works as good as the one for the OPIPC, maybe not now but in the near future :D

 

Thank you for all your effort!

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