Rock 64 a failure..very disappointed

[arxaios]

I just recently bought a Rock64 1Gbyte of memory ...!!

Using only official images I have done the following:

 [1] I installed the  Android TV 7.x (microSD Boot) on my SD 16Gbytes card . Well the system booted up after several hours I couldn't do anything because every was so slow....very slow.!
I have installed again and again using different SD cards and it was the same. Very disappointed
[2] I installed the LibreElec (microSD / eMMC Boot)    on my SD 16Gbytes card. Well to my surprise it was much quicker but when I open KODI to play a 4K movie .....ohhhhhhhh my GOD it was as slow as an turtle. Some videos both 4096 × 2160 and 3996 × 2160 couldn't even play at all..!! Very awful. On the other hand 1080p High Definition was playing all right.
[3] I now using it as a MediaVault server which is booting fine , with minor glitches on the USB 3.0 port. ! I have also notice that the Rock64 do not give enough power to a regular USB port to power up an external 500gbytes disk. That is unacceptable. THe Rock64 is power with a power supply capable of delivering more than 10 amps on 5 and 12 volts proportionally.

In a few words I think that this ROCK64 is much much worse to Raspberry Pi3 which I also have tested. I really bought this mini computer for home entertainment but it was a bad call.! I am sorry for my English. Maybe the problem lies in the images rather that the hardware..I really do not know!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Trash_Can_Man]

I just recently bought a Rock64 1Gbyte of memory ...!!

Using only official images I have done the following:

 [1] I installed the  Android TV 7.x (microSD Boot) on my SD 16Gbytes card . Well the system booted up after several hours I couldn't do anything because every was so slow....very slow.!
I have installed again and again using different SD cards and it was the same. Very disappointed
[2] I installed the LibreElec (microSD / eMMC Boot)    on my SD 16Gbytes card. Well to my surprise it was much quicker but when I open KODI to play a 4K movie .....ohhhhhhhh my GOD it was as slow as an turtle. Some videos both 4096 × 2160 and 3996 × 2160 couldn't even play at all..!! Very awful. On the other hand 1080p High Definition was playing all right.
[3] I now using it as a MediaVault server which is booting fine , with minor glitches on the USB 3.0 port. ! I have also notice that the Rock64 do not give enough power to a regular USB port to power up an external 500gbytes disk. That is unacceptable. THe Rock64 is power with a power supply capable of delivering more than 10 amps on 5 and 12 volts proportionally.

In a few words I think that this ROCK64 is much much worse to Raspberry Pi3 which I also have tested. I really bought this mini computer for home entertainment but it was a bad call.! I am sorry for my English. Maybe the problem lies in the images rather that the hardware..I really do not know!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have two 4gb one with 5v 4a psu, heatsink and fan, external usb 3 hdd plugged thru a powered usb 3 hub:
1) used 7.1.2 for a while, first start takes a while but far from several hours, more like 5-7 minutes probably, afterwards it takes about 2 minutes, was a bit slow but useable, maybe a problem with having only 1gb?
2) cant comment since i dont have a 4k tv BUT there are positive reports on the oficial feedback thread, maybe try asking there (also, maybe its also related with having only 1gb?)
3) i use mine with a powered usb hub for the same reason, i now dont have any crashing anymore (its not ideal but it works)

And about your raspi comment, maybe the power issue is there but the raspi cant and wont ever support 4k, on the other hand the rock64 do support it but you probably have some specific problem with it on your setup, maybe you need to whitelist the resolution on kodi, maybe you need a better hdmi cable (even if your cable is good for 1080p, it can be bad for 4k)

[dkryder]

I would never expect a 1gb rock64 to run Android very well if at all. All you had to do was make a post asking about others experiences before you bought to get an idea of what a 1gb rock64 can do. And never believe what the manufacturer states as they will more often than not say just about anything to sell more boards.

Sent from my ONE A2005 using Tapatalk

[gigagames]

I have a Rock64 with 2GB of Ram, and LibreELEC. 4k plays just fine (im Using a Gigabit Wired Connection AND the eMMC).
It could be a problem with your SD card (to slow) or too less ram (check ram usage while playing video)
Or you Internet cant handel the 4k video?!

[arxaios]

No, everything was checked fine. Dear gigagmes what kind of 4K videos are you playing on your 4K TV??? Because my TV has a USB port and plays really faster the 4K demos I have BUT ROCK64 CANNOT.! It only shows some lines across the screen of my 4k tv, both on LibreELEC and KODI.! But 1080p videos are played well..!!! So what am I doing wrong. As I mentioned before on android 7.1 Tv images the system wouldn't even boot and was going slowly as a turtle. Things were different with LibreELEC using the same SD Card..!!! Can anyone explain please??? One more thing just to clarify this , I am playing video locally from a USB hard drive.Not on line.! (I tested several sticks and external drives ...for someone to go to this conclusions)
So obviously this board isn't capable of playing True 4K videos at all.! Cannot even handle android 7.1 TV on it's own...!!Anyway ...I gave up on this board and now I am using it as a simple file server with openmediavault on it. BUT BUT BUT I found something really disturbing .. I was having problems with my openmediavault because I was using my external small usb hard drive directly powered from the USB 3 port of ROCK 64 with a power supply 5.2 volt 10 Amp and to my surprise it COULD'NT handle it. As reading the logs I was having multiple connections and disconnections of my external hard drive at random times..!!!! Now I am using the same drive and one much bigger but self powered from it's own source and everything is working fine.No disconnections nearly a month or so.
As a conclusion , this board cannot handle well USB3.0 external drives and having problems during time. The funny thing is that the problem was not instantly occurred but during time, as I said earlier. The power supply I am using is the same as a PC power supply. I measure it during operation and it actually can deliver more than 12Amps of continue power..!!! Does the rock64 needs more??? I do not think so.!

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I TOTALLY AGREE WITH dkryder .! I will never do the same mistake at all.!

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Dear Trash_Can_Man,

I know very well that raspberry pi3 or any raspberry cannot play 4K at all BUT it can sure play 1080p on a 4K TV much smoother that the ROCK64. This is a fact because I have measured both during playing in linux and raspberry is the WINNER on the same resolution.!!!! Sorry to say that but this is the truth.

[Trash_Can_Man]

No, everything was checked fine. Dear gigagmes what kind of 4K videos are you playing on your 4K TV??? Because my TV has a USB port and plays really faster the 4K demos I have BUT ROCK64 CANNOT.! It only shows some lines across the screen of my 4k tv,  both on LibreELEC and KODI.! But 1080p videos are played well..!!! So what am I doing wrong. As I mentioned before on android 7.1 Tv images the system wouldn't even boot and was going slowly as a turtle. Things were different with LibreELEC using the same SD Card..!!! Can anyone explain please??? One more thing just to clarify this , I am playing video locally from a USB hard drive.Not on line.! (I tested several sticks and external drives ...for someone to go to this conclusions)
So obviously this board isn't capable of playing True 4K videos at all.! Cannot even handle android 7.1 TV on it's own...!!Anyway ...I gave up on this board and now I am using it as a simple file server with openmediavault on it. BUT BUT BUT I found something really disturbing .. I was having problems with my openmediavault because I was using my external small usb hard drive directly powered from the USB 3 port of ROCK 64 with a power supply 5.2 volt 10 Amp and to my surprise it COULD'NT handle it. As reading the logs I was having multiple connections and disconnections of my external hard drive at random times..!!!! Now I am using the same drive and one much bigger but self powered from it's own source and everything is working fine.No disconnections nearly a month or so.
As a conclusion , this board cannot handle well USB3.0 external drives and having problems during time. The funny thing is that the problem was not instantly occurred but during time, as I said earlier. The power supply I am using is the same as a PC power supply. I measure it  during operation and it actually can deliver more than 12Amps of continue power..!!! Does the rock64 needs more??? I do not think so.!

---

I TOTALLY AGREE WITH dkryder .! I will never do the same mistake at all.!

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Dear Trash_Can_Man,

  I know very well that raspberry pi3 or any raspberry cannot play 4K at all BUT it can sure play 1080p on a 4K TV much smoother that the ROCK64. This is a fact because I have measured both during playing in linux and raspberry is the WINNER on the same resolution.!!!! Sorry to say that but this is the truth.

Winner in what regards? if both devices run a 1080 video (and both can totally do it) where is one ahead of the other? i see ZERO skipped frames on my rock64 runing 1080p videos, ever, and the picture quality looks fantastic on my lego eyes...

Im feeling that you are mad because you found an "issue" that is documented and mentioned on several forums...and what is even worst is that said issue probably is on the HDDs and not on the rock64 since you say yourself that you need to give extra power to the drives and no matter how much power you give to the board it wouldnt matter (wich makes sense, the board is protecting the drives against any power surge that can go thru)...the disks seems to not totally respect the standard randomly and ask more power from the usb port...

In fact you found on this situation one of the more gross differences between a usb2 device (or an usb3 device plugged on a usb2 port) and a real usb 3 device working at usb3 speed, and the difference is the power consumption (or to be more precise power need spikes even far away from what the standard allow)...thats why again its not fair to compare the rock64 to a raspi...different tools for different tasks...


You can see the glass half full or half empty, only you can change the point of view...IMHO the rock64 works fine for both tasks, and yes, i have 2 rock64s (1omv+1libreelec) and with the proper setup they work PERFECT and super stable, again, IMHO...glass half full...