NanoPI M4

[shaun27]

On 11/1/2018 at 2:09 PM, Tantalum said:

Hello

 

Can someone explain me the purpose of the PWR_KEY on the M4/NEO board please?

Even after checking the schema and the PMIC datasheet I still don't fully understand how it works exactly.

 

Does it act as an reset?

Or does it act like a regular power button on a PC, in other words, it tells the OS to properly shutdown, to avoid data corruption.

 

Thank you

Haven't got my m4 yet hopefully this week  but i would of thought its an option for people to solder on their own power buttons to shutdown the device. I know the nanopi fire3 already has a power button but right next to it is the pwr_key which id assume allows one to solder on their own power button or install some sort of jumper. Problem is as i know from the fire3 this doesn't work with armbian os and only works with friendlyelec os's. Thats what i assume its for anyways i could be wrong.

[TonyMac32]

On 11/4/2018 at 3:27 PM, shaun27 said:

Problem is as i know from the fire3 this doesn't work with armbian os 

 

Do you know if FriendlyELEC has a script or a key mapping associated with that gpio?  It may be something as simple as that.

[dogshome]

On 10/22/2018 at 10:51 AM, PacoGirona said:

Hi, have a good day!

I've been tested sound on a NanoPcT4 from FiendlyElec, running Armbian, an to get it working, thru armbian-config selected All drivers. Then you need ALSA mixer. The ALSA mixer can get devices on or off. They are in off state by default.

So, from there I disabled HDMI sound, not interested of it by now, an enabled the internal chip, and it works OK. Is this device I'm using to write this, thinking replace my old tower...

I did have problems on a Firefly-rk3399, and when I find a solution, I will put it at your hands, if I can...

Thank you. I had to use Alsa again for some reason to get sound again. Most times it now boots with sound, occasionally it doesn't and I have to use m key in Alsa. 

[mark03]

Has anyone tried the M4's analog audio input under Linux?  From the schematic, this appears to be a two-pin, 0.1" header (probably unpopulated).  I have an application where I need audio input sampled at 8 kHz.  Would be useful to know if the ALSA driver works for that under armbian or the FriendlyElec BSP.

 

Thanks,

Mark

[shaun27]

On 11/5/2018 at 9:39 PM, TonyMac32 said:

 

Do you know if FriendlyELEC has a script or a key mapping associated with that gpio?  It may be something as simple as that.

I have emailed their tech support so when they get back to me hopefully i can help others. 

 

Just a quick question regarding nanopi m4 is their a way to boot from sd card first over emmc so i can use the armbian-config to delete and reinstall the emmc ? Didnt buy the sd to emmc adaptor oh im regretting that now 

 

 

[martinayotte]

2 hours ago, shaun27 said:

Just a quick question regarding nanopi m4 is their a way to boot from sd card first over emmc

Unlike the NanoPC-T4 which has a BOOT button to block the eMMC, according to schematic of the NanoPi-M4 doesn't seems to have such feature.

Maybe shorting C349 capacitor will work if it is actually accessible easily ...

[shaun27]

14 minutes ago, martinayotte said:

Unlike the NanoPC-T4 which has a BOOT button to block the eMMC, according to schematic of the NanoPi-M4 doesn't seems to have such feature.

Maybe shorting C349 capacitor will work if it is actually accessible easily ...

Might pass on that only got it today  I will just wait and order sd to emmc adaptor  

[shaun27]

Another thing if anyone is using the official dash charger from friendly elec,  under load and a few usb devices connected what is your voltage? 

 

i am getting 4.93 with hdmi, usb stick, bluetooth adaptor, ssd (powered by usb) and under full cpu load. Thing what is annoying me is as soon as i connect any cable longer then the official one it bricks which i assume min voltage is 4.85 ?

[NicoD]

3 hours ago, shaun27 said:

Didnt buy the sd to emmc adaptor oh im regretting that now

The emmc images from friendlyelec are to put on sd card first, and then it writes it to the emmc.
So to write their os you don't need an emmc to sd adapter.
I don't have one either and I've installed different os'es on it. I haven't tried with armbian yet, I'm waiting on a 16gb emmc for that. Only got one of 8gb.

Quote

Another thing if anyone is using the official dash charger from friendly elec,  under load and a few usb devices connected what is your voltage? 

 

i am getting 4.93 with hdmi, usb stick, bluetooth adaptor, ssd (powered by usb) and under full cpu load. Thing what is annoying me is as soon as i connect any cable longer then the official one it bricks which i assume min voltage is 4.85 ?

That's indeed like that.
I first used a longer usb-c cable of which I thought it must be a good one. With a load of 1A on the usb and all cores maxed it went down to 4V and even lower. Amazing the thing didn't shutdown, and the performance didn't suffer from it.

So you must use a very good cable, the best I've got is the one I've got from them.
 

[Hallwin]

Hello guys with same interests on this Nanopi M4 SBC. I got one around a month ago, and tested all the OS they uploaded to Google drive in Sep.  Lubuntu has problem on bluetooth, Bionic has problem on sound and video. 3rd party ROM also doesn't work well.   For starting guy with embedded Linux like me, it's really painful to debug.  many GB source codes to download if you wish to compile from the very beginning and spend hours setting up environment.  While I don't have that much time to learn and act. So I just contacted their engineer for the bugs. They told to fix in later ROM's. I checked daily. Just now found they uploaded something new to Baidu netdisk https://pan.baidu.com/s/1rZmMQEQL1tu15R6IeYrksw#list/path=%2FFriendlyELEC-RK3399 on 11/7. I'm trying to download one and test. Stingy Baidu, they limit the download bandwidth if you didn't subscribe their golden medal membership.  Guys out of China may wait for vendor to upload to Google. Google doesn't constraint your downloading.  I love Google.

[Igor]

3 hours ago, Hallwin said:

I checked daily.

Far more simple is to use armbian nightly builds. armbian-config -> system -> switch to nightly builds. Our build system is currently attached to their repository and there are all changes. 
https://github.com/friendlyarm/kernel-rockchip/commits/nanopi4-linux-v4.4.y 

 

There is no need to redownload images from some extremely slow servers.

[shaun27]

9 hours ago, NicoD said:

The emmc images from friendlyelec are to put on sd card first, and then it writes it to the emmc.
So to write their os you don't need an emmc to sd adapter.
I don't have one either and I've installed different os'es on it. I haven't tried with armbian yet, I'm waiting on a 16gb emmc for that. Only got one of 8gb.

That's indeed like that.
I first used a longer usb-c cable of which I thought it must be a good one. With a load of 1A on the usb and all cores maxed it went down to 4V and even lower. Amazing the thing didn't shutdown, and the performance didn't suffer from it.

So you must use a very good cable, the best I've got is the one I've got from them.
 

One thing i learned is to always buy the official cables purely for testing. The cable that works ok is friendly elec one which does work very well but the length is a problem for me to have the sbc on my desk without having extension leads all over it.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/ACOCOBUY-Charger-Braided-Charging-Transfer/dp/B07F27DTW1 suppose to be rated 5v 4a with the dash charger i bought but bricks under load and with only hdmi connected!. 

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/DUX-DUCIS-Oneplus-Charger-Adapter/dp/B07H5K8QG8 this dash charger works fine btw i got the load up to 2.2amps (with spikes up to 2.5amps)no problem with 4.93volts. So those in the uk who want an all in one plug (not adaptors etc) this does work for at least the stuff and load i stuck on it. 

 

Those who might be interested i used xmrig and used all cpu cores when testing which maxed out at 24h/s.

[dogshome]

RE PSU: I'm using an official raspberry pi 5.2V supply through a micro USB to C adapter. This does not get warm. voltage on the board is over 5.1V under load and with an external 2.5" HDD.

 

I've got a tiny 5v to 12V PCB to use a 3.5" 4TB drive I have sitting about. 12v load is low, but I'll be watching the 5V rail when I try it. It's quite a chunky HDD!

[datajerk]

Hi,

 

I received my M4 4GB SBC a few weeks back.  I have a couple of minor issues--curious if others have seen the same.

 

1.  With Armbian Bionic 4.4 kernel, I get a reboot about every 24 hours.  It just reboots itself (no shutdown, the logs just start with a boot).  I upgraded to the 4.19-rc1 kernel and this is no longer an issue.

2.  SSD drives connected to the USB3 ports after about a day just fall off.  If re-insert, nothing.  If I reboot, nothing.  I have to remove power from the M4 for the drives to appear again.  I think I saw this with the 4.4 kernel as well.  I'm waiting for it to happen again so I can more carefully look at dmesg and syslog.  The drives are not mounted and are not being used (mounting does not make a difference).

 

I have the heat sink installed.  I'm powering via the GPIO pins with a POE+ splitter.  I've been able to run linpack (xhpl version) using most of the 4GB of RAM pushing the power to 18.5W without issue.  No crashes, no overheating, etc...  The demonstrated performance for DP floating point is 2x that of the RPI3B+.  1.5x that of Odroid C2.  Docker, nspawn, and other tests work great, no probs.  I'd replace my C2 and RPI3s with these if the USB ports would stop losing my storage.

 

Right now with two SSDs connected and system idle I'm pulling only 8W max.  I do not think I have a power problem.  I power all my other 10 SBCs with POE splitters without issue.  My POE switch is not even close to at capacity.  Uptime for other SBCs are in the 100+ day range--and no loss of storage.

 

I just did a 2nd xhpl test with both drives connected and pulled up to 21.8W.  No crash.  Drives still there.  I expect the drives to be gone in 12-24 hours.

 

Any ideas?  Thanks.

[Igor]

2 hours ago, datajerk said:

With Armbian Bionic 4.4 kernel, I get a reboot about every 24 hours.  It just reboots itself

 

1 and 2
https://forum.armbian.com/forum/31-sd-card-and-power-supply/ are responsible for majority of random/weird issues.

How much amps your PSU delivers and what is the voltage drop on your board? Change power supply in any case. Perhaps it's too noisy?

[techdawg667]

Am I able to turn on and off the HDMI output programmatically with this board? I want to drive a 4K display that only turns on when detecting motion.

[Dante4]

I got question regarding PSU. I have this power bank (https://www.tronsmart.com/products/tronsmart-edge-20000mah-quick-charge-3-0-power-bank) and i need something portable enough to be able to get it instead of laptop with ability to decode 10bit x264 (anime) and some mono-develop, while being less, than 100$ and be ok with being powered from power bank. 

 

RasPi can't do 10bit video at all, so I'm thinking about buying this, but as far as i read about this board if power bank is "smart" it will only give 0.9A to output by-default.

 

My question is Does anyone have experience with this board being powered from power bank?

As far as i understood my power bank is "smart"(?), so, is there method (in-middle devices maybe?) how to make it output 5V/3A that's in stated in tech. details?

[NicoD]

5 hours ago, Dante4 said:

I got question regarding PSU. I have this power bank (https://www.tronsmart.com/products/tronsmart-edge-20000mah-quick-charge-3-0-power-bank) and i need something portable enough to be able to get it instead of laptop with ability to decode 10bit x264 (anime) and some mono-develop, while being less, than 100$ and be ok with being powered from power bank. 

  

RasPi can't do 10bit video at all, so I'm thinking about buying this, but as far as i read about this board if power bank is "smart" it will only give 0.9A to output by-default.

 

My question is Does anyone have experience with this board being powered from power bank? 

As far as i understood my power bank is "smart"(?), so, is there method (in-middle devices maybe?) how to make it output 5V/3A that's in stated in tech. details?

Hi. I often power my sbc`s with a power bank. I`ve got multiple powerbanks. The ones I use the most are RavPower 26800mAh. Works great with that.
Yours seems to have a normal output over the Type-C port :
USB Type-C port: 5V/3A

It should work just fine with that. You`ll need a cable with 2x type C.
There`s now a new SBC, RockPi4. Also RK3399, same form factor. But with smart charge and pd. http://rockpi.org/
I`m now researching it. Great architecture. But it`s very new, so many bugs in software.

These RK3399 boards may be the size of a raspberry pi, but they need a big heatsink to be useful, so they are heavy, and not that compact.
I use an Odroid C2 for laptop with a 7" display and a ravpower powerbank. This is more compact/lighter. I`m thinking of how to use an RK3399 board for this, but haven`t got a solution yet.
The heatsink is on the bottom, so it needs airflow...
 

 

[Dante4]

30 minutes ago, NicoD said:

Hi. I often power my sbc`s with a power bank. I`ve got multiple powerbanks. The ones I use the most are RavPower 26800mAh. Works great with that.
Yours seems to have a normal output over the Type-C port :
USB Type-C port: 5V/3A

It should work just fine with that. You`ll need a cable with 2x type C.
There`s now a new SBC, RockPi4. Also RK3399, same form factor. But with smart charge and pd. http://rockpi.org/
I`m now researching it. Great architecture. But it`s very new, so many bugs in software.

These RK3399 boars may be the size of a raspberry pi, they need a big heatsink to be useful, so they are heavy, and not that compact.
I use an Odroid C2 for laptop with 7" display and a ravpower powerbank. This is more compact/lighter. I`m thinking of how to use a RK3399 board for this, but haven`t got a solution yet.
The heatsink is on the bottom, so it needs airflow...
 

 

Thanks for your answer, now I am calmer. About Odroid-C2 - i tried it at some point, but i wasn't able to get hardware acceleration to work, but it was 3 month ago, before i learned a few things about how does it works and for some reason there was no Mono-develop for it in monodevelop repository.

RockPi seems interesting, i will look at it. Thank you again.

Ok, where is problem? As far as i read about RockPi it's good to go. Software being in develop, creators of this board is willing to support Armbian and creating software, it's PD ok and cost less than M4... Where is trick? (except that it can't be powered from normal 5V and actually require PD)

[NicoD]

22 minutes ago, Dante4 said:

Ok, where is problem? As far as i read about RockPi it's good to go. Software being in develop, creators of this board is willing to support Armbian and creating software, it's PD ok and cost less than M4... Where is trick? (except that it can't be powered from normal 5V and actually require PD)

It can be powered with 5V too. I`ve tried with my powerbank. It also has got a m.2 nvme port, faster ram, raspberry pi camera and display compatible CSI/DSI(M4 is propriotary), 2xUSB3 ports each have a controller(m4 4 ports over 2 controllers) + 2x usb2 on a seperate controller, ...
So the desing is amazing. It uses everything the SoC has to the fullest.
It depends on where you buy it how much it is.
I now got both the M4 and RockPi4B. The M4 has a way better heatsink. But otherwise the RockPi4B out performs the M4 in everything while clocked the same. It`s even almost as fast @ 1.4Ghz/1.8Ghz vs the M4 @ 1.5Ghz/2Ghz.
A better heatsink is available. I advice to buy that if you would buy one. Cheers.

[Dante4]

5 minutes ago, NicoD said:

It can be powered with 5V too. I`ve tried with my powerbank. It also has got a m.2 nvme port, faster ram, raspberry pi camera and display compatible CSI/DSI(M4 is propriotary), 2xUSB3 ports each have a controller(m4 4 ports over 2 controllers) + 2x usb2 on a seperate controller, ...
So the desing is amazing. It uses everything the SoC has to the fullest.
It depends on where you buy it how much it is.
I now got both the M4 and RockPi4B. The M4 has a way better heatsink. But otherwise the RockPi4B out performs the M4 in everything while clocked the same. It`s even almost as fast @ 1.4Ghz/1.8Ghz vs the M4 @ 1.5Ghz/2Ghz.
A better heatsink is available. I advice to buy that if you would buy one. Cheers.

I mean by tech specification it's not, but yeah... I guess they just didn't mentioned it "just-in-case". When i was looking for a board i found this one, but seems like i looked through most of it. Gonna buy it then, thank you again (where i can find heat sink? Or should i buy the one that M4 uses?)

[NicoD]

7 minutes ago, Dante4 said:

I mean by tech specification it's not, but yeah... I guess they just didn't mentioned it "just-in-case". When i was looking for a board i found this one, but seems like i looked through most of it. Gonna buy it then, thank you again (where i can find heat sink? Or should i buy the one that M4 uses?)

I don`t know if the M4`s heatsink would fit. I don`t know where you can buy their heatsink.
I can show pictures. Maybe you could mail the seller for info.
https://ibb.co/bzKLVL
https://ibb.co/gmRCc0
 

[Jerry Jyrer]

Anyone successfully connect 2 USB HDDs and rsycn between them? I haven't been able to. Both hard drives got disconnected.

 

Board: Nanopi M4 4GB

OS: Armbian Bionic/Stretch, FriendlyArM Bionic.  All the same result.

Power: USB-C 5V 3A / 2.1A / 2.4A. All the same result.

rootsf: on SD, HDD. all the same result.

 

Let me know what your setup is to get this successful.

 

Ref: 

ref:

 

 

 

[Seasalt]

4 hours ago, Jerry Jyrer said:

Anyone successfully connect 2 USB HDDs and rsycn between them? I haven't been able to. Both hard drives got disconnected.

I had the same problem my M4  would have trouble booting and mounting two usb hard drives. I think you are right on the edge power wise using the C type power connector. I run my USB power supply at 5.35 volts which helps a little bit.

 

 

[Jerry Jyrer]

7 hours ago, Seasalt said:

I had the same problem my M4  would have trouble booting and mounting two usb hard drives. I think you are right on the edge power wise using the C type power connector. I run my USB power supply at 5.35 volts which helps a little bit.

 

 

 

One of my suspects is the power adapter in which I'd like to get a confirmation from anyone with M4 with the FriendlyArm 5V 4A or DashCharger. Do you have problems connecting 2 USB hard drives and rsync between them. My situation's both drive got disconnected after <10 minutes of rsyncing at max. 

 

Separately, does this one come with a cable if I order it separately? Or any recommendation for a good power adapter juicing the M4. 

https://www.friendlyarm.com/index.php?route=product/product&amp;product_id=238

 

[NicoD]

6 hours ago, Jerry Jyrer said:

 

One of my suspects is the power adapter in which I'd like to get a confirmation from anyone with M4 with the FriendlyArm 5V 4A or DashCharger. Do you have problems connecting 2 USB hard drives and rsync between them. My situation's both drive got disconnected after <10 minutes of rsyncing at max. 

 

Separately, does this one come with a cable if I order it separately? Or any recommendation for a good power adapter juicing the M4. 

https://www.friendlyarm.com/index.php?route=product/product&amp;product_id=238

 

Hi. Are you using Armbian? Are you using the cable from FriendlyArm?
There is a problem with undervoltage when you are using a bad cable and Armbian. When I do not use the short cable from them, and I use Armbian, with a load of 1A on the USB ports. Then the voltage goes under 4V.
Put a voltmeter in your USB3 port to see if your voltage is stable. If not, get a better cable.

Also, the M4 it's max power consumption without anything connected is 2A with Armbian. So 2 more Amps and you'll have problems.
Are you powering the HDD's with the M4? Are they 2.5" or 3.5"?

Check your voltages on the board, check your consumption out the power adapter.

[Jerry Jyrer]

2 hours ago, NicoD said:

Hi. Are you using Armbian? Are you using the cable from FriendlyArm?

 

Nope., I used various usb power adapters and cables that I have. I didn't get the original power adapter and cable from FriendlyArm. 

 

2 hours ago, NicoD said:

Also, the M4 it's max power consumption without anything connected is 2A with Armbian. So 2 more Amps and you'll have problems.
Are you powering the HDD's with the M4? Are they 2.5" or 3.5"?

 

I mainly tested connecting with one 2.5" and one 3.5". I also tested connecting both 3.5" once or twice. The results remain the same.

 

2 hours ago, NicoD said:

Check your voltages on the board, check your consumption out the power adapter.

 

Thanks,. will do. 

 

I wondered if anyone experiencing the same as I'm having with good cable and power adapter -- recommendation?

[NicoD]

28 minutes ago, Jerry Jyrer said:

 

I mainly tested connecting with one 2.5" and one 3.5". I also tested connecting both 3.5" once or twice. The results remain the same.

You can't power 3.5" HDD's with this board. You have to power them seperate. They use 12V and 5V together. And they use a lot of power when starting them.
Only 2.5" drives can be powered with the USB3.

It is written on your hard drive what voltages it needs. Greetings

[Jerry Jyrer]

2 minutes ago, NicoD said:

You can't power 3.5" HDD's with this board. You have to power them seperate. They use 12V and 5V together. And they use a lot of power when starting them.
Only 2.5" drives can be powered with the USB3.

It is written on your hard drive what voltages it needs. Greetings

Right, 3.5 ones have their owned power supplies. They are 8TB MyBook. 2.5 one is powered via USB. It is a Tohisba one.

[Jerry Jyrer]

6 hours ago, NicoD said:

Check your voltages on the board, check your consumption out the power adapter.

Newbie question, is there a tool to do it at the software level or something that I need to plug a voltmeter to port 1 and 4 of one of the USB ports?

 

http://pinouts.ru/Slots/USB_pinout.shtml