Pi 3b+ Retropie crashing, freezing and other shenanigans...

mitu

@harv052 OK, just use apt-get (not rpi-update) to update for now and let's see what happens afterwards.

harv052

@mitu I did the sudo apt-get update. which command do i use to install it? sudo apt-get install?

mitu

@harv052 I posted the commands a couple of posts above

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

It should take some time, so be patient.

harv052

@mitu Froze during the upgrade. Safe to unplug?

harv052

@mitu Ok. I unplugged it. I also took it out of it's case, thinking maybe it's too hot. I did the update/upgrade and it finished completely. Played a game for about 5 minutes, and froze. I monitored the temperature throughout and it climbed steadily to 58.5 degrees right before it froze. Is that kind of temperature too high? I've seen people on forums they go as high as 68 without any problems...So what could the next step be?

mitu

@harv052 said in Pi 3b+ Retropie crashing, freezing and other shenanigans...:

Is that kind of temperature too high?

For the 3B+, the temperature threshold is set at 60, so it will throttle down when reaching it (which might happen for you).

So what could the next step be?

I think you should try another power source, if possible a RPI genuine one. What is the model for the current power source you're using ?

harv052

@mitu It's a CanaKit
model: DCAR-052A5
input: 100 - 240V AC
50 - 60 hz / 0.5a
output: 5V 2.5a

DougA

I have two of those, one is powering a Pi 3B in my arcade cabinet, and the other which is on a 3B+ in a case with a fan, which started as a loose board with no fan. I have not seen any power dip issues with either. That’s a pretty well known, and as far as I know trustworthy, power supply.

harv052

Well after a few reboots, I've left it idle for about 2 hours without issue. I've tried a few games as well, and all seems fine so far, with temp hovering at about 58-59 under stress, 50 at idle. Will monitor to see if anything changes but so far so good.

harv052

Yeah, no, still freezing...I don't know what happened since yesterday, but now it freezes at 59-60 degrees....which is strange because from what i've read, it only starts to throttle at 80 degrees...60 is not that high! Power supply should be good, I've tried different outlets, same results. And like I said, i've used it for a good solid 2-3 weeks before it started doing that. I've also noticed that if I leave it frozen for a while, the monitor screen will sometimes go black for a few seconds and come back....Anyone know what could be causing all these problems? At this point, could it really be that the board is bad?

I've also got a new dmesg from when the usb ports stopped functioning and wouldn't come back on:

https://pastebin.com/22DA8LiE

KN4THX

@harv052 Try running df -h and see what the root is % is.

Edit: Nevermind, just saw the log.

dankcushions

@douga said in Pi 3b+ Retropie crashing, freezing and other shenanigans...:

I have two of those, one is powering a Pi 3B in my arcade cabinet, and the other which is on a 3B+ in a case with a fan, which started as a loose board with no fan. I have not seen any power dip issues with either. That’s a pretty well known, and as far as I know trustworthy, power supply.

the canakit PSU is quite notable for issues in my experience. i only trust the official PSU.

grant2258

well the weather is hot here I had to get a different case for my pi3b plus the there case helped it overheat. IF the problems persist blow a fan on the case. Either get a better vented case or add a fan to case your done. Too many people blame power supply when they are using cheap usb cables. The usb cables make a huge difference as well. I was getting voltage warnings until i updated my cable

dankcushions

@grant2258 pi's downclock when they overheat. they will not freeze (they may stutter). canakit PSU's cable is molded. it may well be the issue, but you can't replace it without replacing the whole PSU.

grant2258

i remember my pi3 b+ froze a lot when i first got it until up updated the system. It probably the updates that fixed it. You would be getting warnings in your logs if you had power isssue anyway. The heat is more a performance issue than anything else to be honest

harv052

So which test should I run to identify the actual problem? Is it power? Is it heat? Is it something else? It obviously starts to have problems around 60 degrees, which points to a temp problem, but at the same time, 60 isn't that high, plenty of people run them at those temp with no problem...Could it be that at 60 degrees, the board starts to bend a bit, so some of the contacts aren't being made, like the hdmi connector, which would explain the screen going black?

mitu

@harv052 For the 3B+, 60 is set as the temperature threshold before the OS starts throttling down. For other models, it's higher. You can experiment adding temp_soft_limit=70 to the /boot/config.txt and see if it proves to be the temperature that's the issue here.
But all the the symptoms look like a power related problem, if it would be the temperature threshold that's reached, you would see a thermometer icon (similar to the low voltage sign - the thunderbolt) on the screen.

harv052

Well something happened that might point to the cause of the problem. I have been using it for the past 3 hours no issues. I decided to plug some earphones in so obviously, the board moved a bit. Well as soon as the board moved, it started to disconnect the controllers and a few seconds after, it froze! So now I think it is in fact the power cord from the PSU that's causing all these issues! I'll replace it and see if it goes away...