Different firmware, different behavior

[zoelechat]

Hi,

I did a monitoring comparison of CPU temperature/behavior depending on firmware (stocks 101k4 and 104k4), here are the results.
Both screenshots are taken after ~1hour XBMC streaming SD to have something "stable". I use Android Tuner Pro for monitoring.

104k4:

Nice "stairway" effect, temperature rises regularly until it reaches 80°C then it immediately fall around 50°C and the cycle starts again. Depending on temp, 2/3 cores are active between 696Mhz and 1200Mhz. Any advanced multitasking causes global lag, especially near the peaks. I noticed the same behavior in Finless 1.6 ROM.

101k4:

Temperature never reach 65°C, 4 cores are active @1992Mhz (Note that I soft-forced this maximum frequency with no problem, what I can't do in 104k4 which is again stuck at 1.6Ghz max). Not only temperature is stable, whole system is.

I didn't try f/w 102/103 but I wonder what they've done between (did Eric talked about better handling on CPU, huh?)... Can we consider that temp monitoring is reliable? What is sure is that CPU behavior depends on it and throttles like crazy for no good reason.
Also notice that we now have only 5°C steps where we had 1°C steps before.

Just a word about Antutu benchmark scores (I don't really care but it's mostly a good indicator). I use Antutu X because Antutu is definitely cheated and gives a result of 31700 whatever is firmware and context. Not credible at all.
101k4 gives a consistent score of about 23000 whereas 104k4 has random various results between 9000 and 19000. That tends to confirm the fickleness of latest f/w.

No need to say that being back to 101k4 I will keep using it until something really serious and well-tried come (from here I hope)

[Finless]

104k4 added this line in amlogic.board.rc

write /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_dflt_freq 1608000

All the other ROMs before it did not have this.
This can be easily commented out and a boot.img that can be flashed made.

Let me know if you want to try it.

bob

[JustMe]

104k4 added this line in amlogic.board.rc

write /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_dflt_freq 1608000

All the other ROMs before it did not have this.
This can be easily commented out and a boot.img that can be flashed made.

Let me know if you want to try it.

bob

does this mean if i flash the square m8 with the cpu fixer at 696 this would give same results possibly?

JustMe

[zoelechat]

104k4 added this line in amlogic.board.rc

write /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_dflt_freq 1608000

All the other ROMs before it did not have this.
This can be easily commented out and a boot.img that can be flashed made.

Let me know if you want to try it.

bob

If it's only meant to unlock maximum frequency, I'm not sure it's of any use, because it's never reached due to abnormally high and unstable temps causing CPU to systematically throttle.
Thanks anyway, you should keep it at hand to include in the big update I'll probably wait for

[cerm78]

Honeslty I was fearing this from the beginning. My usually hot box magically got 20dec Centigrade less just by using the 104k4 ROM. I also noticed that temperature readings are on 5 degree steps. I don't see the staggering pattern but I noticed that it jumps wildly for example from 65 to 40.

All that doesn't make sense to me. My guess is that the chip is still running hot but the temperature reporting is cheating and showing incorrect temperatures.

That's why I'm still going to mod the box to get it cooler, effectively and actually cooler. I'll make measurements with any of the older ROMs before and after to compare readings that seem more accurate.

[Batfink32]

I can confirm this. I'm just back and fired up my modded (for coolness) box with 102k4 everything running smoothly and temp hovering around 40-60deg c. I then clean installed 104k4 and things went crazy. Temps rose to 70-80deg c and the CPU was throttling and the whole box slowed down to virtually unusable. Somethings very wrong in the latest kernel with the CPU.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[mitchell4you]

I also have doubts.. about the soft/temp readings

Mine.. s89-h (finless 1.6)
Runs between 45 to 60 idle..
When i play around.. it hits 75c.. it throttle's to 1.2ghz
-i'm unable to get a higher then 75 reading

But when i start playing a vid (1080/dts)... the temp suddenly drops to 40
After a hour play.. still 40, but the box still feels hot

-perhaps sombody can use a hw-probe to check the readings

But,
I have not seen any sudden lag..

Well.. time will tell

Ps..
Nice work with the temp/charts/pictures.. and testing FW's

[no_spam_for_me]

Now I've tried both, the
System Tuner Pro

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ccc71.pmw.pro

and the
Android Tuner

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ccc71.at

Also the 'Android Tuner' because first I found at 'System Tuner Pro' via "CPU-Manager" (CPU Mgr) the 'CPU Load' and 'CPU Frequencies' but NOT 'CPU Temperatures'...
But also at the 'Android Tuner' I can't find 'CPU Temperatures'...
BUT at rk3188... and that's why I like the
Cpu Temperature

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.yanyan.cputemp

because it also works at my rk3188 device

BTW:
The 'System Tuner Pro' is nice, quick and easy to use, but once switches at 'Android Tuner' to "expert mode" I can't find any way back to the normal mode UI, and 'Android Tuner' have so much more tools (not really nice, quick and easy to use (but only a short look at the tools))...

Maybe till end of the week I get my Tronsmart and then I will compare 'System Tuner Pro'->"CPU-Manager"(CPU Mgr) and 'Cpu Temperature' at s802...

[zoelechat]

Maybe till end of the week I get my Tronsmart and then I will compare 'System Tuner Pro'->"CPU-Manager"(CPU Mgr) and 'Cpu Temperature' at s802...

Use the app you prefer, what I personnally like in 'System Tuner Pro' (I may fix first post not to confuse) is that it's sort of all-in-one and it saves from installing many other little apps (not only for CPU monitoring). Everyone has their own habits

[hectowalrus]

I am also having weird temperature readings and sudden lags with the latest Finless 1.6 ROM. Original stock ROM seemed to be much smoother. Forcing CPU min frequency higher with CPU fix gives me slightly better performance, at least in benchmarks. However it is still not performing as good as with the stock rom.

[zoelechat]

I am also having weird temperature readings and sudden lags with the latest Finless 1.6 ROM. Original stock ROM seemed to be much smoother. Forcing CPU min frequency higher with CPU fix gives me slightly better performance, at least in benchmarks. However it is still not performing as good as with the stock rom.

If you have better results with CPU fix, it's surely because of interactive governor which keep 4 cores active while default one nearly always throttle to less due to unreliable temps (min frequency as well).
I didn't notice any temp/performance difference between stock 104k4 and Finless 1.6 and my tests were done on stock. From what I tried I'd say that any Finless<1.6 or stock<104k4 will perform better/normally (maybe except 100k4 that was also stuck to 1.6Ghz)

[no_spam_for_me]

(maybe except 100k4 that was also stuck to 1.6Ghz)

My -H has stock 102k4 and it is also limited to 1.6GHz...
I don't understand why they use 102k4 instead of the also available 104k4(-h) and I don't remember which release rises to 1.99GHz ?

EDIT:
Ok, I see at your pic that the 101K4 use the 1.99GHz
But why is the stock 102K4 at the -H limited to 1.6GHz ???????????

[zoelechat]

My -H has stock 102k4 and it is also limited to 1.6GHz...
I don't understand why they use 102k4 instead of the also available 104k4(-h) and I don't remember which release rises to 1.99GHz ?

All ROMz are limited to 1.6Ghz but in some of them (AFAIK 101,102,103 and derivate Finless) you can force 1.992Ghz with any software allowing to do so (e.g. System Tuner Pro). That's what I do on boot-time.

[no_spam_for_me]

All ROMz are limited to 1.6Ghz but in some of them (AFAIK 101,102,103 and derivate Finless) you can force 1.992Ghz with any software allowing to do so (e.g. System Tuner Pro). That's what I do on boot-time.

OK, THX, I will give it a try

[Batfink32]

Re: Different firmware, different behavior

OK, THX, I will give it a try

I think certain apps like Trickster Mod and Set CPU give the wrong Max frequency on >102k4. Since there has been Antutu cheating, I'm not really sure what the real Max freq is however it can be set to 1.9 using an app.

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