As topic says, I was early adopter of Vero 5 but had random crashes/freezes/reboots about 1-2 times a week since new.
I finally threw away the supplied power supply and put my own good quality one in place instead. Been rock stable ever since and also feels much faster, but this might be imagination…
Not really a problem any longer but I thought this might help someone else!
Thanks for a great product and for your support!
Glad this worked for you - did you report these instability issues anywhere?
Sadly, no.
I had not had the time to do a proper report of it. And the crashes/freezes were of the character that nothing had been written to logs, ie system crashed before it had time to sync. And I usually try to fix problems myself before involving others.
I am curious though. Have you had any other people reporting instability with vero5? Some sad faces restarts I had have been inconclusive, almost like bad ram but running a ram test on the machine shows no problems.
Not really no. Memory is tested before dispatch.
Can I ask what power supply (model, specs…) you switched to?
I am asking this because because I am experiencing random freezes/crashes since about a month ago.
I can sometimes get a sad face just by playing or resuming a video file. I thought this was a media or Kodi issue at first but it happens much to random and there is nothing written in the logs either.
I would like to test with different PS to see if it makes any difference. Thanks!
Hey all,
So, I thought swapping out the power supply would solve my issues, but it didn’t fully help. Things seemed stable for a bit, but then got worse. I started suspecting temperature might be the culprit, especially since HDR 4k content seemed to trigger more crashes compared to 1080p.
I dug around in the system files and found some temperature readings in /sys/devices/virtual/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp and thermal_zone1. It seemed like whenever it hit around 75-78 degrees Celsius, that’s when the crashes happened, often resulting in freezes or reboots.
Upon opening up my device, I found a couple of things that might be worth noting, @sam_nazarko:
I fixed these issues, but I suspect the thermal pad might be permanently affected. Initially, temperatures hover around 45-50°C during 4k playback, but after a while, it jumps up to 75+°C and crashes. The thermal pad seems skewed and damaged from the antenna cable. The pad kind of let go from half of the contact area since its skewed.
Yes, I know I probably voided my warranty 
, but I wanted to get it working, and I also wanted to know why it was crashing. Sadly, I did not take any photos of the initial state. However, I do attach an image of my current cooler for reference.
I tried using a different cooler and pad, and temperatures are much lower now. With the current cooler, stress testing the machine peaks at 62-64°C (stress -c 4) without crashing,previously it crashed at 75+°C repeatably within a minute or two. During playback around 40c with current cooler.
@midgetexpress, I’m using a good quality 5A 5V power supply with a barrel jack, but I’m using a barrel-to-USB adapter.
If it’s getting that hot that quickly and crashing, that could’ve suggested the antenna wire was shorting with something. You might’ve inadvertently solved the problem by relocating the wire.
If you remove that heatsink but let the device run, does it still freeze?
With original heat-sink and heat-transfer-pad it crashes yes. Ive been very careful with re-assembly but it seems like my thermal pad is fubar (its not one block any more but almost split in half. (it became like this after first disassembly, I think the wireless antenna cable “cut” into it)
with no heat sink (only thermal pad) and start a 1080p it crashes within seconds.
I do not think the antenna cable was shorted, cable seems fine and also I had no wifi reception problems. I would guess I have bad luck in the silicon lottery and won a cpu that produces excess heat.
I could measure the consumption rather exactly, what would normal be in standby and decoding 4k hdr 265?
Vero V can happily run at 100C+, then it starts to throttle to avoid crashes.
Your temperatures aren’t crazy, but the idea that you hit them within seconds of idle activity is.
is /sys/devices/virtual/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp the real cpu temp?
Yes.
