Page 2 of 8

Re: RetroStone not booting/crashing/freezing - Hardware issue - Please post here.

Posted: Sun 9 Sep 2018 10:57
by thebirdbrand
Admin wrote: Fri 7 Sep 2018 11:48
Nevuor wrote: Thu 6 Sep 2018 19:14 1- Yes
2- Yes, every time I tried to reflash the image, about 20 times now only with the new full version - not ONE correct boot
3- Yes
4- yes
5- nothing connected
6- Etcher and win32diskimager
7- Yes every try
8- Battery is full
9- Yes 5V 2A
10- Retrorangepi RetroStone Full version and Slim version both don't work.
11- I dont get to that point
12- Yes, it did not help
13- Tested another SD and no luck either. Same behaviour with both.
14- This beta image does not help there, still don't get any propper boot
15- I tried to flash multiple times, cleaning each time with Diskpart, tried different images, different SD, always the same behaviour : no booting at all for the new full version, often endless lines of text, boot loop, crashing.


***I am having the exact same problem! I have tried different SD cards and the farthest I have ever got w/ booting is the endless lines of text and then crash and repeat. I have never once gotten to the emulation station screen. It’s driven me nuts trying to get it to work, but I’m relieved I’m not the only one who has had this problem. What’s the issue with it??

Thanks!

Re: RetroStone not booting/crashing/freezing - Hardware issue - Please post here.

Posted: Sun 9 Sep 2018 12:44
by bedfellow
Admin wrote: Thu 6 Sep 2018 10:39 Please note that RetroStone not booting occasionaly is not a hardware problem. There's a specific boot problem that occurs about 1 time every 5 times (LCD will stays white/blue for longer than 15-20 seconds). When that happens you can just switch off and on again. We'r working on a software fix for that one.
Hardware problems are when you can't boot at all, or that when you boot you don't have a stable system (crashing after 5 minutes shuting down and so on...).

Flashing and re-flashing of the SD Card has caused me a lot of frustration and time, not to mention expense as at one time it was suggested that it could be an SD Card issue, so I bought another two (different brands).

The developer at RetrOrangePi has been providing some great support and test builds, but it should not have been necessary for end users to be beta testers.

The developer has also stated that he has not had the same issues with other supported H3 based SBCs, so how is it that this specific hardware has this issue?
From our previous discussion I recall that you had more issues than this specific occasional problem? Or did you solved them? The reason is that this board is not officially supported by Armbian devs so there is no specific config files for kernel/uboot. As the schematic is very close to Opi pc+ we'r using its config files, but I think there's some little things wrong in there causing some trouble.
However it seems that some units have hardware defect as they have heavy crashes/freeze and so on that other RetroStones don't have. These have to be replaced. Did you solved your problem? I think you already sent me your backer number by email no?

Re: RetroStone not booting/crashing/freezing - Hardware issue - Please post here.

Posted: Sun 9 Sep 2018 18:39
by Mayday10
Peppuccio wrote: Sat 8 Sep 2018 19:34
Mayday10 wrote: Sat 8 Sep 2018 17:22 I installed the newest os as of september 5th.

Still have the issue of playing a game and randomly getting dumped into the retropie menu.

Hopefully they keep refining the os
Ok you start the game and the system get back on the menu? Maybe you have wrong roms, your roms not works,or you needs to change the emulator
I tried different files of the same ROM. Happened with both. Happens with a few random games, at unpredictable times. Ill try to change the emulator. It seems to happen with NES games (although thats 95% of what i use)

Re: RetroStone not booting/crashing/freezing - Hardware issue - Please post here.

Posted: Mon 10 Sep 2018 10:37
by Peppuccio
Im sending an private message to you,try it

Re: RetroStone not booting/crashing/freezing - Hardware issue - Please post here.

Posted: Mon 10 Sep 2018 10:57
by Admin
Admin wrote: Thu 6 Sep 2018 10:39 Flashing and re-flashing of the SD Card has caused me a lot of frustration and time, not to mention expense as at one time it was suggested that it could be an SD Card issue, so I bought another two (different brands).

The developer at RetrOrangePi has been providing some great support and test builds, but it should not have been necessary for end users to be beta testers.

The developer has also stated that he has not had the same issues with other supported H3 based SBCs, so how is it that this specific hardware has this issue?
From our previous discussion I recall that you had more issues than this specific occasional problem? Or did you solved them? The reason is that this board is not officially supported by Armbian devs so there is no specific config files for kernel/uboot. As the schematic is very close to Opi pc+ we'r using its config files, but I think there's some little things wrong in there causing some trouble.
However it seems that some units have hardware defect as they have heavy crashes/freeze and so on that other RetroStones don't have. These have to be replaced. Did you solved your problem? I think you already sent me your backer number by email no?

Re: RetroStone not booting/crashing/freezing - Hardware issue - Please post here.

Posted: Mon 10 Sep 2018 11:43
by Peppuccio
Im not finished to test the life battery of my retrostone, but i think my problem is the switch button on/off becase when i turn on him the device after 2 second shutdown and restart without problems on game

Re: RetroStone not booting/crashing/freezing - Hardware issue - Please post here.

Posted: Mon 10 Sep 2018 13:56
by bedfellow
Admin wrote: Mon 10 Sep 2018 10:57 From our previous discussion I recall that you had more issues than this specific occasional problem? Or did you solved them? The reason is that this board is not officially supported by Armbian devs so there is no specific config files for kernel/uboot. As the schematic is very close to Opi pc+ we'r using its config files, but I think there's some little things wrong in there causing some trouble.
However it seems that some units have hardware defect as they have heavy crashes/freeze and so on that other RetroStones don't have. These have to be replaced. Did you solved your problem? I think you already sent me your backer number by email no?
I have not had any issues with frequent crashes/freezes. The primary issue I have are with booting, which are still apparently random, with it sometimes (rarely) booting on first attempt, sometime after one power-cycle and sometimes taking a few power cycles.

I also have problems with the readability of the screen, which has been partially fixed by the new theme and partially by the increased font size that the developer has implimented. I still have some issues with readbility though and I really wish you had used digital (HDMI), rather than composite for the display, it would have been so much better. I understand that some might want to use the external HDMI, but I would imagine the vast majority of user have bought it as a handheld console and would prefer a better display. By the way, the theme currently used is better than the earlier one, but 'Pixel TFT' is far better and I think should be the default, or maybe you are going to commission a custom theme specifically for the RetroStone?

I guess that you may be able to fix the config files for kernel/uboot, but I don't think any amount of software tweaking is going to make the display sharper, which is a great shame as it detracts from what would otherwise be a nice handheld console.

Re: RetroStone not booting/crashing/freezing - Hardware issue - Please post here.

Posted: Wed 12 Sep 2018 16:00
by Admin
Hey guys,
Can you test the following procedure :
Step 1 : From emulationstation, quit to terminal (F4),
Step 2 : type in the command : sudo h3consumption -d 528
Step 3 : Type : sudo reboot
And report if that helps on your boot/freeze problems?

Re: RetroStone not booting/crashing/freezing - Hardware issue - Please post here.

Posted: Wed 12 Sep 2018 19:25
by bedfellow
Admin wrote: Wed 12 Sep 2018 16:00 Hey guys,
Can you test the following procedure :
Step 1 : From emulationstation, quit to terminal (F4),
Step 2 : type in the command : sudo h3consumption -d 528
Step 3 : Type : sudo reboot
And report if that helps on your boot/freeze problems?
Won't reducing the RAM clock speed have an effect on system performance?

Re: RetroStone not booting/crashing/freezing - Hardware issue - Please post here.

Posted: Thu 13 Sep 2018 10:58
by Admin
Actually it does not seems to reduce performance. Main reason is that 1GB RAM for retrogames is already way too much, so even with slightly reduced clock it's still way too much memory available.