Daphne Periodic Freeze Question

Riverstorm

@Finhead said in Daphne Periodic Freeze Question:

@Riverstorm
Google search brings these up, pretty high price for few degs

Ouch, yeah at that price point it's hard to justify. They know they have a decent product. They are as bad as pay day lenders interest rates. The cost is almost 72% of the whole Pi! I appreciate the link. I had no idea they were still available.

Finhead

@caver01 said in Daphne Periodic Freeze Question:

Yeah, you use very little thermal paste and it sticks fine, but I'd feel better if I had a way to keep it secure since my PI mounts upside down in my cabinet. So far it hasn't moved, but it could. According to the manufacturer, the compound changes over time, which I seem to recall means that it hardens somewhat, but it's never going to be like glue.

Looks like your little fan/sink is stuck on with a self adhesive tape. Maybe that works better. I think it probably sticks better, but may not transfer heat as well. I'd like to rig up a gizmo to secure it--maybe something with zip ties. I hate to spend more $ on it. The only reason I was sanding was because I was reusing part of an old sink. I had to completely clean it of old , crusty compound. Flatter is better, but the compound helps fill in microscopic gaps.

I really wish my Pi3 wasn't running hot. I have read reports that some do, some don't.

I was going to use some of this for a heatsink if I had issues with heat, so far I haven't.

beastrow

I ordered Arctic Silver thermal adhesive to go with my heat sinks. Don't have experience with them in terms of products that hold the heat sink on by themselves, but I've had good PC CPU experience with Arctic Silver as a company.

@Finhead - My Power supply is Canakit 2.5A Micro USB Power Supply. I ordered the Pi 3 on Amazon and the deal I got came with the supply. I've now overclocked the board AND the mini SD port. Things are definitely running better, but I still got the freezes, (just a little further in).

I'm starting to think it could very well be the memory card. It's rated acceptably in terms of specs, but is on the generic side. Makes me wonder if it has speed issues.

Finhead

@beastrow Could be. This is the card I switched to, Samsung Evo Pro very happy with it.

caver01

Someone with experience probably should weigh-in on this this, but there is definitely a difference between thermal compound and thermal adhesive. The adhesives are permanent, usually 2-part products like epoxy. If you go to Acrtic Silver website, they don't recommend the adhesives for CPUs. They recommend compounds. @Finhead 's link above is to a product that has an ambiguous name. Is it Arctic Silver, or is it Arctic Alumina? They have Arctic Silver Compound, Arctic Silver Thermal Adhesive, and Alumina Thermal Adhesive, but not Arctic Silver Alumina Thermal Adhesive.

Anyway, the Alumina appears to be recommended for CPU, but not their Arctic Silver Thermal Adhesive. I am probably splitting hairs. Maybe it doesn't really matter in the end and either product will conduct heat to the sink properly.

Riverstorm

@beastrow said in Daphne Periodic Freeze Question:

I'm starting to think it could very well be the memory card. It's rated acceptably in terms of specs, but is on the generic side. Makes me wonder if it has speed issues.

Did you try and set the governor to "performance" at least for testing?

I know there's a lot of cards that work well that people could share. I've had good luck with SanDisk Ultra, Ultra PLUS, and Extreme PLUS.

Is the adhesive removable and expoy permanent? I prefer something that's not permanent if possible as I like to reuse the heatsinks and then pass the old Pi's along to whoever wants them. I usually order 3 or 4 from each gen.

Caver that's funny. I can appreciate splitting hairs. I do it all the time when it's probably unnecessary but I can't help it and sometimes it makes for some interesting and educational conversation. I try to embrace my "faults", as well as, my strengths. Now those programmers, they are a different breed that have to think very logical and methodical which spills over into real life! ;)

beastrow

@caver01 Given that the adhesive was not that expensive and I have a ton of regular Arctic Silver lying around from my last PC build, I think I'll give the plain Silver a go first and see how it does. I'll report back on how it does in terms of staying affixed, etc.

@Riverstorm Haven't messed with the governor yet, but that will be my next step, (I had to back off of the other overclocks, as they were killing my WiFi for some reason - not sure of the logic/reason, but as soon as I turned off the SD overclock, it came back). As far as the card, Amazon has a well rated UHS-I SanDisk that I'm eyeing - http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-microSDXC-Standard-Packaging-SDSQUNC-064G-GN6MA/dp/B010Q588D4/ref=dp_ob_title_ce . I looked at a couple of UHS-II cards, but figured it was pointless, as the port wouldn't really utilize the full capabilities. Anyhow, I might get that card and transfer everything and give it a whirl this weekend, (I will also have heat sinks, fan-cooled case, etc., in place by then).

(Edited for wrong card being posted initially)

Riverstorm

@beastrow said in Daphne Periodic Freeze Question:

@caver01 Given that the adhesive was not that expensive and I have a ton of regular Arctic Silver lying around from my last PC build, I think I'll give the plain Silver a go first and see how it does. I'll report back on how it does in terms of staying affixed, etc.

@Riverstorm Haven't messed with the governor yet, but that will be my next step, (I had to back off of the other overclocks, as they were killing my WiFi for some reason - not sure of the logic/reason, but as soon as I turned off the SD overclock, it came back). As far as the card, Amazon has a well rated UHS-I SanDisk that I'm eyeing - http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-microSDXC-Standard-Packaging-SDSQUNC-064G-GN6MA/dp/B010Q588D4/ref=dp_ob_title_ce . I looked at a couple of UHS-II cards, but figured it was pointless, as the port wouldn't really utilize the full capabilities. Anyhow, I might get that card and transfer everything and give it a whirl this weekend, (I will also have heat sinks, fan-cooled case, etc., in place by then).

(Edited for wrong card being posted initially)

I have one of those cards and it works fine. The governor tweak fixed an issue with a N64 game stuttering. It's actually quite useful.

Here's my overclock. I had it set to 1350 but compiling Daphne caused it to crash possibly due to multiple cores in use vs a single core usually for game emulation. I backed it down to 1300 with an overvolt=4 and it's been stable for everything so far.

Looking forward to your results.

#Overclock Settings
arm_freq=1300
over_voltage=4
temp_limit=80
core_freq=500

#GPU Based
h264_freq=333
avoid_pwm_pll=1
gpu_mem=450
v3d_freq=500

#Ram Overclock
sdram_freq=588
sdram_schmoo=0x02000020
over_voltage_sdram_p=6
over_voltage_sdram_i=4
over_voltage_sdram_c=4

beastrow

Well, so far, the heat sinks and governor adjustment have not fixed the issue, unfortunately. I have the old memory card transferring to the new as I type this and will give that a whirl to see if it does anything. If not, I will try your benchmarking script to see if that can help determine what might be going on. I may also post video to YouTube to show the issue.

beastrow

So, heat sinks, governor adjustment, case with fan, new memory card, and no change to the issue. Upgrading to the newly released 3.8 right now, but don't necessarily expect that it will change anything. Will update and, hopefully, make a YouTube video as soon as I have a chance.

beastrow

Alright, here's a video of the freeze in action:

You'll see it twice in this Dragon's Lair video, but it's also doing it in Space Ace and Cliffhanger. I'm now running with a new, faster mini SD, heat sinks and fan, and the governor opened up, so I'm more confused than ever. I'm working tonight and will try the speed/temp SSH script that @Riverstorm posted tomorrow.

Finhead

@beastrow
What is your GPU mem split at?
Also have you tried the enhanced DL rom? It might work better for you and it plays the game in order as it was supposed to be.

beastrow

GPU's at 256. I considered that it might be the video files themselves, but I've tried several different versions, (that's why a "lairold" name shows up on my Daphne menu). In addition, the three laser disc games that I've tried, (Space Ace, Dragon's Lair, and Cliffhanger) all do the same thing.

Finhead

@beastrow
Not the video files but the ROMS, I use both the enhanced versions of Space Ace and Dragon's lair. Video Files and audio stay the same.
What resolution are you running it at? Mine is only 1280 X 1024 not sure if that makes a difference or not.
Also what is in your command.xt file?

beastrow

@Finhead I think I tried the DLE21 ROMS and had an issue with getting them to reference the right files, but may try again. Command file is using the setup I found on github, which is "-nocrc -noissues -nolog -noserversend -latency 950 -x 640 -y 480 -bank 1 00110111 -bank 0 10011000".

Finhead

@beastrow said in Daphne Periodic Freeze Question:

@Finhead I think I tried the DLE21 ROMS and had an issue with getting them to reference the right files, but may try again. Command file is using the setup I found on github, which is "-nocrc -noissues -nolog -noserversend -latency 950 -x 640 -y 480 -bank 1 00110111 -bank 0 10011000".

If your unsure just rename all your files dle21, that's what I did to make it simple. Your dle.txt file should be

151 dle21.m2v <----- you need a few spaces between "151" and the rest this forum omits that for some reason.

With the first line a space as it is now. You can then rename in Emulationstaion to reflect better what it is.

beastrow

@Finhead Gave it a whirl and it seems like it might work a tad bit better. Hard to tell, though, as I'm now back to overclocking both the board itself, as well as the SD port. GPU's also set at 512 now. It's the smoothest it has ever been, but I still get a freeze here and there that will, typically, be long enough to result in a death. Really not sure where to go from here, other than to focus on the stuff that works and give up on Daphne.

Riverstorm

@beastrow said in Daphne Periodic Freeze Question:

@Finhead I think I tried the DLE21 ROMS and had an issue with getting them to reference the right files, but may try again. Command file is using the setup I found on github, which is "-nocrc -noissues -nolog -noserversend -latency 950 -x 640 -y 480 -bank 1 00110111 -bank 0 10011000".

I've never used any command line options except -fastboot and it works fine. I'm just shooting in the dark but maybe try it without or some tweaking.

-latency <milliseconds> Adds a delay before all searches occur which causes scenes to last a little longer. Useful for Dragon's Lair F2 ROMs that cut some scenes off prematurely.

-nocrc Disables CRC32 checking (not recommended).

-noissues Don't display warnings about game driver problems.

-bank <which bank> <base2 value> Used to modify dip switch settings. The 'which bank' argument specifies which dip switch bank to modify, where 0 is the first bank. The 'base2 value' argument is in 8-bit binary form that is composed of 1's and 0's, where the right-most bit corresponds to the first dip switch. For example, if you wanted to enable dip switch 0 in bank 0, but disable switches 1-7, then you'd do "-bank 0 00000001". Tip: it's much easier to let DaphneLoader figure this out for you by using the Show Command Line option under the Advanced Usage configuration tab.!

-nolog Disables writing to the log file (daphne_log.txt).

-noserversend Tells Daphne not to send any usage statistics to the central Daphne server. Use this if you have no internet connection or don't want to share your usage information.

-x <horizontal resolution> Specifies the width of the game window (in pixels).

-y <vertical resolution> Specifies the height of the game window (in pixels).

bragginz

@Riverstorm
I was having the exact same issues with my Daphne setup through EmulationStation (ver 3.8 I think). It was driving me nuts until I decided to try floob's Attract Mode front-end instead of ES. Dragon's Lair runs perfectly now.

challenger2010

Yes, had the same issue and Attract Mode fixed it. It's an Emulationstation issue.