AkiraSensei Posted May 2, 2018 Posted May 2, 2018 My Orange Pi PC running Armbian gets disconnected from both SSH and VNC after maybe 20 minutes or so out of nowhere, no matter if idle or doing anything. I can't connect back until I restart the entire SBC by keyboard. The pi is useless to me if I can't run it "headless". I'm wondering if it's a MAC problem. I have a pfSense router I built myself and have had different subnet addresses. I've made sure the MAC address isn't repeated on another subnet address, though. I know the Raspberry Pi has a way to change it, but does the OPi PC as well? The MAC "problem" is just a guess, though. I really don't know what's with the disconnection issues. I'm no networking expert but I have zero problems with my other SBCs and other machines. ----- UPDATE: For those of you that ever get this issue, make sure you're powering your SBC and accessories well. My problem was that I wasn't giving proper power to the external hard drive (which runs the OS).
yam1 Posted May 3, 2018 Posted May 3, 2018 No, the only time it happens is when the SBC hangs and in which case it has to be rebooted.
Igor Posted May 3, 2018 Posted May 3, 2018 55 minutes ago, AkiraSensei said: But what would cause it to hang, though? The most common is low-quality PSU.
AkiraSensei Posted May 3, 2018 Author Posted May 3, 2018 The power adaptor? Well, it's a quality one with a logo of a heart, R and pi symbol. I bought the board last year so I can't remember more details. I guess I'm screwed either way, though.
Igor Posted May 3, 2018 Posted May 3, 2018 39 minutes ago, AkiraSensei said: Well, it's a quality one with a logo of a heart, R and pi symbol Just get another PSU/cable combo first.https://forum.armbian.com/forum/31-sd-card-and-power-supply/
yam1 Posted May 3, 2018 Posted May 3, 2018 In my experience, most of the time the SBC hangs is when all 4 cores are busy for too long the system overheats and CPU scaling causing the system to be unresponsive. CPU scaling does work as far as cutting down the load but somehow the affected processes do not like it and i have to reboot.
AkiraSensei Posted May 3, 2018 Author Posted May 3, 2018 Hmm, if Igor's right about a power issue, then maybe it has to do with my external hard drive. The HDD gets its own power through the USB Y cable that came with the external enclosure, but maybe that's the problem there (even though the power is coming from a powered USB hub). I would need to test it out on an external HDD that uses a separate cable for power instead. It will be a time consuming task since the OS runs through the HDD itself. I'll try once I get the time. Thanks for the replies! I wouldn't think it's a CPU high load that's causing it as this happens even without opening any programs at all (and I never installed apps that run in the background besides VNC).
AkiraSensei Posted May 3, 2018 Author Posted May 3, 2018 All right! I simplified how I could test this theory about bad powering. The external HDD's both data and power USB ends from the Y cable are connected directly to the powered hub now, and the hub to the SBC (the hub was connected to my Wii U before, so I was only using the power end from the Y cable to power the HDD). Anyway, it seems my problem really was a power issue after all! It's been 80 minutes now and both SSH and VNC are still up and running without a problem. Even by taxing the CPU with 1080p YouTube videos (and heat of up to 65C), everything is all well and good. It wouldn't have crossed my mind that this was the problem because the SBC wasn't crashing at all -- especially because the OS is running from the HDD itself, NOT the SD.
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